[ExI] A Small Request [was Re: Impressive book: Farewell to Alms]

[hkhenson]

At 09:44 PM 2/6/2008, Olga wrote:
>From: "hkhenson" <hkhenson at rogers.com>
>To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 8:08 PM
>
> > Incidentally, if you read the last part of the book, Clark does talk
> > about a well tested method that is known to get *some* of the poor
> > out of poverty.
>
>Surely ... not everyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps?

No, but the method is remarkably simple and well tested.  Clark notes 
aliens not familiar with the long time of Europeans running a 
substantial fraction of the world would only see them trying to keep 
out the poor from the former colonies.  When these people do manage 
to get in they do well indeed getting out of poverty compared with 
those who stayed put.

>Does Clark have a plan (well-tested or not) for *some* of the mentally ill?
>Does he have a plan for the "intellectually challenged," the mentally
>challenged, the schizophrenics, the drug addicts, the alcoholics?

Nope.  Clark's not in that area of study.  But wouldn't you like to 
know a way to reduce mental illness or poverty?  It seems to me that 
understanding the fundamental reasons for why the average person 
world wide was poor prior to about 1800 is as essential as that of 
studying at the fundamental level what conditions genetic or 
environmental are behind mental illness.

>My husband remembers seeing a newsreel of how, during the Reagan years, so
>many of the mentally ill were de-institutionalized.  Reporters took to
>asking questions of some of the people who were streaming out of these
>places.  A reporter asked one of them: "What are you going to do now?  Where
>are you going?"  The answer came back:  "I'm going to Hollywood ... to be a
>movie star!"

Wonder if he made it?  :-)

>After all these years, my husband has never forgotten that particular
>trenchant "sound bite."

Drugs do help a substantial number of those with mental problems.  In 
most cases we don't have a clue how the drugs work.

Keith