[extropy-chat] Maximising Human Potential : Education:

[Emlyn ORegan]

<sorry for the stupid reply format; how do you get Outlook 2003 to just
do plain text, use ">" for indenting original messages on reply, etc?
F#$%!!!>

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Matthews [mailto:dan at 3-e.net] 
Sent: Thursday, 13 May 2004 9:32 AM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org


Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Maximising Human Potential : Education: Toys

Perhaps the lego/meccano approach is the way to go but the solution must
be 
locally produced and patent free, then the idea will scale to millions
of 
people and it is more a "good meme" than a handout of aid.

----
Very very cool, nice plan. As I said, I'm sure someone could design a
new system of mechanical toys and put them into the public domain. Maybe
if you stick closely to real world stuff like nuts & bolts, you can keep
clear of toy patents?
----

The materials and production processes MUST be low-tech and sustainable
so 
plastics etc. may have to be replaced with things you can grow, such as
wood.

----
Wooden building sets would be very cool. You could do gears and stuff
too, it'd just have to be relatively large. I found technical lego
hugely stimulating as a kid; I'm sure something along those lines would
be appreciated.
----

The key is to create a "seed" idea  that will grow in a self sustained
manner 
because the idea's merit is self evident to the majority of minds that
become 
aware of it.

----
Cool. I do see a potential issue in that in much of the third world, the
role of children is vastly different to the protected lives kids live in
the first world, and so the idea of toys may not make a lot of sense.
But that's unlikely to be true everywhere, and maybe that is what this
meme is about trying to achieve after all. Yes, nice idea.

Emlyn
----


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