-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Linksvayer <ml@gondwanaland.com>
>On Tue, Sep 01, 1998 at 09:03:42AM +0200, Max M wrote:
>> The biggest problem when it comes to the underdeveloped countries is not
>> that their farmland is unfertile. It is that their infrastructure is
poor.
>
>Demonstrate an instance of widespread hunger due to slippery roads. I'll
>show you a dozen due to war and other political acts.
We completely agree, but i meant the complet infrastructure. Including the political system. Perhaps i am using the term infrastsucture to widely. I was thinking about everything that holds a "civilized" society together. Court system, government, educational system, commercial system and off course roads, bridges, houses etc.
>Educated labor does not bring wealth for being educated. Education only
>increases returns. A consistent legal system is more fundamental. See
>Russia.
If there is to be wealth there has to be knowledge and education first. Not astrophysics for dirt farmers but soemthing they can use. At least they have have som way to get the information.
In my view wealth comes form technology. Technology consists of Methods and hardware. Here I think that the soft part, the methods, are the most important. Democracy is certainly an important part of technology to understand and know about.
To create a basis for economic growth it is important to teach them how to do it themself.
>> A technological way to do this, and a good idea for an extropian
bussines,
>> would be to make a "hardware browser" for the internet. A touch sensitive
A4
>> screen that has the functionality of one of top browsers. If it then ran
on
>> solar power and connected to the net via sattelite it should be useable
>> everywhere.
>Cheap to you and perhaps relative to some other aid projects. Extremely
>expensive relative to the incomes of the poor.
They shouldn't pay for it... we should.
> The primary beneficiary of
>such a project would be the producer of the gadget. Unsurprising. That's
>how many aid projects work.
Yes that is correct. But it would be cheap compared to building schools and shipping books and teachers.
>I suppose such a device would also have a clickwrap agent to promote the
>transfer of dirt farmers' incomes to Disney and the spread of commercially
>produced culture's hegemony.
Great idea ;-) but perhaps it would be a good idea to concentrate on the lower levels of Mazlow's Hierarchy of Needs before we discuss cultural imperialism.
Hilsen/regards
Max M Rasmussen
New Media Director
Denmark
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