From: Rick Strongitharm (xllb@home.com)
Date: Sun Feb 27 2000 - 14:28:53 MST
I share your pie-eyed dream, Greg. I can imagine no better way to make
significant, positive contribution to the quality of many lives. A business
partner is from India. We've talked, very casually, about my pie-eyed dream
of getting the internet into schools in poor areas, and perhaps cybertea
shops. I guess I'll always be a missionaries' kid. ;-D
Rick Strongitharm
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-extropians@extropy.com
[mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.com]On Behalf Of GBurch1@aol.com
Sent: February 26, 2000 7:30 PM
To: extropians@extropy.com
Subject: SOC: Uplift Projects (Was: rehabilitation versus punishment
...)
In a message dated 2/23/00 4:17:57 AM Central Standard Time, sti@cam.org
writes:
> Statistics show that the average person produces more resources in a
> lifetime than they consume. Those who have been educated tending to
> produce far more than those who have not been. Organizations like the
> Grameen (sp?) bank show that investing in the poor often pays off many
> times over. One of the things that *I* plan to do with my money, should
> one of my Internet ventures one day pay off big, is to see if I can't
find
> a way to invest in the poor of the world. Rather than being a huge
capital
> sink, I see it as one of the greatest untapped sources of wealth in the
> world today.
This set me to thinking about my favorite pie-eyed dream, setting as a
philanthropic goal for Silicon Valley's billionaires the creation of a truly
CHEAP electronic infrastructure for the Third World. As I've described here
before, I envision the design of a super-simple sat-phone-PC-net terminal
with solar and wind-up power. Make hundreds of millions of them and
distribute them free throughout the Third World. Back it up with a
distributed volunteer network to run distance-learning programs (basic
literacy, public hygiene, agriculture, first aid) through the sat-net
system.
The cell comm system would be smart enough to plug into land-based wireless
as/when available. My private name for this project: "Brain Seeds"
Yes, it would cost many $billions. But think of the number of consumers it
would be creating!
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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