From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Sat Mar 25 2000 - 10:03:01 MST
In a message dated 3/22/00 8:18:22 AM Central Standard Time, brin@cts.com
writes:
> ABSTRACT: What daring 21st century concepts or projects would you most
> like to see pursued, if money were no object?
David:
Good to see you here on the list. I hope you'll be at the Foresight
gathering in May. Regarding your question about objects of philanthropy and
long-term investment, here are a few of my favorites, some of which I've
sounded off about here before (in one instance quite recently):
1. "Brain Seeds". Development of a super-low-cost information
infrastructure for the developing world. At the end-user level is a robust,
simple and cheap net terminal that can run on a variety of power sources
(solar, wind-up, batteries). Basic literacy training is hard-coded into it.
Once a user masters some very simple basics, it can plug into the net via a
variety of connections (sat-net, microwave cell, land-line). Supporting this
access is a distributed education infrastructure that people can volunteer to
participate in to provide basic information in agriculture, public health,
civics and business. This becomes a kind of "remote Peace Corps" in which
individuals and groups in the developed world can mentor individuals and
villages
The hardware side of this idea is really already a goal of technology
development in the First World, so all that is required is explicit
identification of it as a goal of general human development and its support
by the network of volunteer educators and mentors that could turn it into a
global system of primary education. Adoption of the over-all program as a
central focus of high-tech philanthropy could serve to energize the
technology-business community of the First World.
2. Micro-Loans. Closely allied with the "Brain Seed" idea is increased
support for the Grameen Bank style of micro-lending. Every indication is
that Grameen has identified and developed a really effective tool of
bootstrap development that works well in even the least developed areas of
the world. It scales well and it provides great synergy with each
incremental improvement in telecommunications infrastructure, as Grammen
Telecommunications is demonstrating in Bangladesh with their program of
providing micro-loans to finance cell phone usage at the village level.
3. Life Extension. Others have written about this already. Suffice it to
say that we are within reach of major advances in real life extension
breakthroughs. Financing both the cultural work of undermining millennia of
"deathist" thinking and the scientific and technical work of reaching the
goal of major life extension breakthroughs within the next 30 years would be
in many ways the single most "humane" use of money one can imagine. Hundreds
of millions, if not billions of lives could be saved, the equivalent of
avoiding a major world war or global physical catastrophe. The technical
scientific work IS being done on many fronts, but it could be done faster and
better if the scientists working in the fields could openly talk about the
real goal of life extension, which is still largely taboo. Financing an
assault on the culture of death would do more to save human lives than any
other philanthropic enterprise.
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
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