CB,
I never knew you to be such a dreamer. Gosh, your latest sounds like something I'd expect from the limousine liberals you excoriate regularly. Who's to pay for all this infrastructure to aid the poor? Certainly no corporate entity would ever consider it.
Re: Even in the poorest countries there are rich people, and some of them want to help their countrymen.
Right, and I'm the King of Siam. The rich in impoverished countries only want to get richer. They have almost no concern about the plight of the poor, who generally are from a different ethnic or religious background. Cf. Muslims and Christian internecine battles in the Sudan. Hutu v. Tutsi in Rwanda and Burundi, the Muslims v. Christians in Burma, Indonesia and Malaysia. Muslims v. Hindi on the Indian subcontinent. Pakistan deserves special recognition in the hall of shame, only recently being surpassed in fundamentalist zeal in Afganistan to destroy the prospects of women. 78% of women in Pakistan are illiterate. A conscious policy of that patriarchal society.
You are deluding yourself if you think technology is what will make a change in the Third World. The UN, NGOs, the Peace Corps, etc. etc. have tried for 50 years to end poverty with educational campaigns, sewerage programs, other infrastructure initiatives and health initiatives and the net result has been more poverty worldwide and not less. I fail to see how technology has the least impact on the intransigence of corruption, archaic societal strictures and perversely maladaptive world-views and the basic human need to create, exploit and subjugate enemies. |
