From: Stirling Westrup (sti@cam.org)
Date: Sun Mar 26 2000 - 12:53:53 MST
GBurch1@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 3/24/00 3:52:40 PM Central Standard Time, rjs@rsie.com
> writes:
>
> > Several people have written back with the notion that the 3rd World is
> > full of potential. I agree - lots and lots of potential, most of the
> > world's population, resources, fascinating cultures, and (often) no
> > lack of drive on the part of the people. Anyone who's travelled in the
> > "developing" world has seen this: marketplaces and traffic and
> > microbusinesses everywhere.
I just recently had another thought about the potential of the 3rd world.
One of the big drawbacks I've always seen to the idea of flooding the 3rd
world with cheap internet terminals is what it will do to indiginous
cultures. They are already under attack and languages and oral traditions
are being lost. This would accelerate the loss immensely.
Today it occurred to me that the reason that I want to preserve ancient
languages and oral traditions is because I find them *valuable*. And if I
find them so, then probably so would others. I wonder if one could set up
some sort of Indiginous Knowledge foundation that would attempt to collect
and record as much of the oral traditions of threatened cultures as
possible, with an eye towards making a profit off of licensing and
publication rights. Does Disney want a new African folk tale to Animate?
We've got them by the bushel. Oh sure, you could go to any number of folk
tale collections, but our Foundation would be able to put it into
perspective for you, let you know of variants, what the symbolism means,
and how it would play with various other cultures on the planet.
There just might be a viable business model there. And lest folks think
that we would be exploiting the 3rd world cultures, we would compensate
participating cultures with some sort of equity scheme. We might even pay
authors to produce *new* works in their native languages, since this would
be a valuable way of catching some of the symbolism and story-telling
methodologies inherent in a culture. Yup, the mining might be difficult,
but I think that there's gold there.
> > Huge potential - and yet rarely does anything of consequence. Why?
> > There's no single answer - resources, education, lots of things have
> > been mentioned. However, there's one thing that's a constant in
> > "underdeveloped" countries: terrible, terrible, short-sighted,
> > kleptocratic, nepotistic, dictatorial >government<. The education
> > that's supposed to come from giving whizzy slate computers to the
> > people, or the rise in property values that might otherwise come from
> > buying up seemingly valuable rights-of-way in places like Lagos, can't
> > happen if the leaders of the countries won't allow you to do it - or
> > worse, will be happy to see the investment, and then will confiscate it
> > - either overtly, or over time through punitive taxation, extortion, and
> > all the usual 3rd World means.
>
> I agree with you 100% I've also traveled in the 3rd World and without a
> doubt the governments are the single greatest impediment to development.
This is all sadly true. One wonders how the Grameen bank is managing to do
it. I do know that they've had to work their way around tortuous
bureaucrasies, but they've managed to succeed so far. When I try to
imagine ways of getting around government impediments, I get the following
list of (possibly futile) things to try:
1) Overt attack and overthrow.
2) Covert widespread release of give-away information technology that will
lead inevitably to revolution.
3) Co-opt the Government by giving free information technology to the
elite in such a way as to ensure that their children will be exposed to
other ideas about how to run a country. Then wait a generation.
Remember that many revolutionaries and reformers have come from the
elite of their society. Buddha was born wealthy.
4) Blindside the Government by getting permission to distribute some sort
of technology that is obviously of benefit to the elite, but can later
be used in novel ways to change society. Once they find out about other
possible agendas, it may be much too late. This may be difficult since
many 3rd world governments are already paranoid, but it can probably be
done.
5) Support and Re-educate. Make yourself indispensible to the government
while working from within to change the culture. This is very difficult
since it takes the resources of a government, but the delicate touch of
an expert psychiatrist or sociologist. (Not to mention how hard it is
to find people capable of doing the necessary cultural analyses needed
to guide such a project.)
6) Support and overthrow. Make yourself so indespensible to the running of
the country that withdrawing your support would lead to the collapse of
the government. Then dictate terms.
7) Secretly bribe the uppermost elite. Make it more worth their while to
do things your way than the way they've been doing things.
8) Orbital mind-control lasers.
--
Stirling Westrup | Use of the Internet by this poster
sti@cam.org | is not to be construed as a tacit
| endorsement of Western Technological
| Civilization or its appurtenances.
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