[extropy-chat] ex-tropical

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Mon, 1 Mar 2004, Kevin Freels wrote:

> Harvey...Out of curiosity, do you have an idea of how we can cure this
> problem? It has always been my understanding that most of this is caused by
> evil governments, political instability, and/or stupid religious beliefs.
> Even when we send money or food, it is taken by others. I am assuming that
[snip]

> So have you put any thought to this?

The Hunger Project has for the last ~25 years.  For the last 5 years or
so they have placed a very high emphasis on empowering women and they
have very active groups involved in connecting the haves with the
have nots.

Instead of the typical Western -- contribute to feed a child approach --
they have a more integrated approach that allows people to bootstrap
themselves.  This deals with:

a) Education  -- Lack of this prevents one from having the ability
   to manage a business, organize to fight religious support for
   inequality, etc.
b) Access to capital -- This is what the Grameen Bank and other similar
   efforts are all about.
c) Stupid religious beliefs -- one sees this now with the writing of
   the Iraqi constitution where the women will end up with fewer
   rights than they had under Sadaam.

It is a very slow battle -- I personally do not think it is
going to shift significantly until one has nanotechnology
that can rapidly construct oceanic cities allowing one to
empty a country of people who object to regimes (political
or religious) that are intolerant in one way or another.

One then needs something like the United Nations or the World
Court to engage in the intolerance issues.  Sadaam would not
have been a problem if he is sitting in Iraq with himself
and 50 henchmen (few wives or daughters because they all
would have left the country).  Life is much less fun when
due to sanctions you can't get the marble you need from Italy
to build the palaces you want to live in...

Robert