[extropy-chat] Sir Arthur C. Clarke and the Sri Lankan tsunami

[Dan Clemmensen]

I now work for iDirect Technologies. Our Corporate slogan is "IP in the 
sky." we make equipment to do two-way Internet using VSATs, and we are 
doing very well. We want to help, but the situation is so horrific that 
none of our business contacts (distributors, customers, etc.) in the 
area can even figure out what we could accomplish.

Unfortunately, the problem isn't money. If you wrote a check for 
$1Billion, today, there would be no way to spend it to save lives today. 
What is needed instantly, in the following order of criticality, is:
Potable water
Water purifiers
instantly-deployable food (air-dropped MREs)
non-power tools  (a million shovels)
short-haul rugged transport
air-transportable "heavy" digging equipment
fuel
staple food (rice in 50lb sacks, roughly 2 millions pounds per day)
clothing
shelter materials

No amount of money can buy this stuff: it's either available or not. The 
US and other governments either have this stuff and the ability to move 
it quickly, or not. If not, a whole lot of people will die in the next 
two weeks.

Consider the situation of some medium-sized provider of construction 
equipment: say this guy has ten Bobcats, unused, in Ohio, and is willing 
to give them to (say) a town in Sri Lanka. If this equipment were in Sri 
Lanka today, it would permit the people to bury a whole lot of 
unfortunates and thus save (or help save) a whole lot of folks who will 
otherwise die. How, exactly, is a pledge of $1B supposed to move these 
Bobcats from Ohio to Sri Lanka in two days?

The short-term problem has more to do with the laws of physics than the 
availability of money.

In a week, we may be able to apply money to the problem. In a month, we 
can certainly apply money to the problem. In a week we will lose another 
100K people. In a month, we will lose yet another 100K people.