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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Adrian, I am posting this to ExI for general interest, but you might find my commentary enlightening especially.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Regardless of the plan, I am one who is always looking for ways to profit ofit, but some things are worth doing even knowing it is tragically unlikely for one to profit ofit. The best kind of profits are those that come in the buttload, etc. But now, I have an insight to offer regarding Africa.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>The place where I grew up is very very different from the swingin Silicon Valley where you were fortunate enough to live your childhood, where I have lived nearly all my adult life. It’s a GREAT place to live! The Silicon Valley has sooooo many resources for the ambitious smart tech set, the go-getters, the tech loving crowd, the ExI types, GREAT place to live, nowhere better. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>But… most places aren’t like here at all. I grew up in the American deep south. There black and white got along well, for we worked shoulder to shoulder in the kinds of jobs teenagers could qualify for: fast food, construction, (my personal example, beekeeping.) I also worked the other two categories, but for most teens back there, those three categories mostly spanned the job choices (and most of us needed jobs.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>In the kind of place where I grew up, there were few resources for tech hipsters, nothing at all analogous to here, just nothing. Tiny, single digit fraction of what is easily available here. Most potential talent was tragically squandered on nothingness, the hipsters ending up in trivial boring dead end jobs, persistent waste and loss of talent everywhere always. After I moved to California, I felt I had been raised in the canebrake by an old mama lion. But over time, I realized no, not at all. That benighted place was more like here in most ways than is much of Africa, where not only is talent tragically wasted, there is no clear way out. Where I grew up, there was a way out, one example being military service. Understatement, there were multiple ways out. I found one of them and got out. I became your neighbor, good for me. Oh waaaay good for me. California has been very very good to me, and for this place I am most grateful. It is STILL the land of OPPORTUNITY!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Now consider interior Africa. They produce smart hipsters too, but their talent usually IS wasted, with the very few real educational opportunities being bestowed upon the princes, regardless of their actual talent or qualifications. Where I grew up in the canebrake is more like the heart of Silicon Valley than it is like the interior of Africa.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>My notion is that we can help the interior Africans, and I am eager to do things like this even if I know I will not profit ofit. I do have a streak of genuine heartfelt altruism hiding within my hyperaggressive unfettered capitalistic nature, and besides, ya never know, ja? I am eager to help the Africans identify and develop their tech talent. There are over a billion people on that tragically underdeveloped resource-rich and still tragically unexploited continent. We can perhaps find ways to use leapfrog technologies such as StarLink, create small independent semi-closed reliable electric power grids, fired by reliable old tech such as a coal plant, with a range of perhaps 10 to 20 miles, all within a militarily defensible perimeter, a piece of ground which partially restricts or controls who is present, vaguely analogous to a scaled up version of a university, where law is strictly enforced and invaders are repelled, where modern infrastructure can be built, maintained and vigorously defended. Such a place could have clean water, good medical facilities, good reliable communications, power, universities, orderly housing, law and order, all the good stuff we have enjoyed (and take for granted) in our fortunate western lives. We can help them get too. If so, I will feel good about contributing to that, even in the absence of the good old-fashioned profit motive, and besides… regarding that profit business, ya never know, ja? They will profit ofit, even if I don’t.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>spike <o:p></o:p></span></p></div></body></html>