From: Arona Ndiaye (Arona_Ndiaye@support.stream.com)
Date: Thu Sep 02 1999 - 00:54:33 MDT
Forget "If investing in "those kids" future had any prospect of generating more
profit than holding up wet clothes in the sun..."
With all due respect Sir, how do you know ?
What is it that you know of the 3rd world ?
All you can ever see there, you will see with a 'western' way of seeing things.
ALL YOUR KNOWLEDGE is based ON YOUR CULTURE...
I've lived in the 3rd world, and forgive me if I seem harsh, but you do not
seems to know much about 'that' world.
jmcasey@pacific.net.sg on 01/09/99 14:40:00
Please respond to extropians@extropy.com
To: extropians@extropy.com
cc: (bcc: Arona Ndiaye/Amsterdam/Stream)
Fax to:
Subject: Re: New Government?
>A child in deepest central Africa should be able to get a loan if the
>creditors see a profit in it. Of couse, if he were to form a personal trust
>and sell shares in himself, then he would have a vested interest in
>maintaining the value of the shares, as these would be his ticket to acquire
>further investment for going to college, starting a business, etc. The
>internet has made this all quite feasible, by reducing the various
>information costs - transactional and risk. It's just a matter of time
>before the businessmen start offering mutual funds that invest directly in
>people - kids as well as adults. And I would sure bet my money on one of
>those kids long before I would hand over any cash to some kid who has been
>indoctrinated in the state schools.
When I was living in Indonesia and marvelling at the poverty there, a friend of
mine told me a story of what poverty was like in Bangladesh. He said he was
driving through the countryside when he saw two men holding a piece of rope with
laundry drying on it. According to his guide, it seems two or three generations
ago someone had pledged his sons' and gransons' and great-grandsons' lives in
exchange for a loan -- probably a small one, but more than the man could hope to
obtain otherwise (and probably to pay off an even more odious debt). Now,
decades later, the landlord was using these people to hold the laundry up to dry
because it was cheaper than buying a stick.
This is theoretical, ivory-tower nonsense you're talking. Most people in the
world are ignorant, abject and poor beyond most Euro-Americans' wildest
imagination. If investing in "those kids" future had any prospect of generating
more profit than holding up wet clothes in the sun, it would have happened years
ago. Internet? Most people in the world don't have electricity.
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