Welcome to the quantum-mind party. But beware! Beyond this threshold will be found a galaxy of fuzzy thinking, vast nebulae of undeveloped conjecture, and a whole army of cranks, any one of whom will, given a chance, latch onto you and spend the whole evening expounding their inexplicable opinions.
About the poverty: Micro lending is dope, as is providing small communities with a pair of machines which run on fertilizer (read: animal shit) to generate drinkable water and electricity (some dude came up with these, can't remember his name or what they're called... anybody have a guess?)
The point of providing those machines is that using them, you can help small, remote villages to stop worrying so much about basic living conditions. Toss in some of the micro-lending action, and you can build an economy out of almost nothing. I'm sure there are some problems, like actually doing the legwork, but given the extremely large number of hippies about I'm sure enough volunteers can be talked into doing it.
The problem with providing mechanical aid is that there is a rich history of remote African villages being provided technology which revolutionises their way of life but leaves them crippled and unable to cope when the foreign-made and incomprehensibly complex systems break down. The timbre of most recent discussions is shifting away from providing aid which acts as a crutch to circumvent problems and more towards fostering slower, more realistic development which takes into account the difficulties associated with wrenching societies from medieval subsistence farming to more productive modes of labour.
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Welcome to the quantum-mind party. But beware! Beyond this threshold will be found a galaxy of fuzzy thinking, vast nebulae of undeveloped conjecture, and a whole army of cranks, any one of whom will, given a chance, latch onto you and spend the whole evening expounding their inexplicable opinions.
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The point of providing those machines is that using them, you can help small, remote villages to stop worrying so much about basic living conditions. Toss in some of the micro-lending action, and you can build an economy out of almost nothing. I'm sure there are some problems, like actually doing the legwork, but given the extremely large number of hippies about I'm sure enough volunteers can be talked into doing it.
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