Buy Ativan Online Cheap - Reliable Online DrugStore

Part 1: the genocide of the poor. *what is poverty, and what is it to be poor? * *lots of definitions. the one that concerns me is **"poverty means dying of being poor." ** *How many people every year die of being poor? * **Every year, 60 million people die globally (all causes.) ** **UN FAO estimates 30+ million of those deaths are affected **by malnutition. These aren't people starving to death, **it's just that poor nutrition is a factor. ** **If you start looking at dirty water, cooking on open fires, **lack of medical care, preventable disease, if you rack all **of this up ** **the "povery cluster" deaths that are absolutely directly caused **by poverty at at least 10 million people a year. ** **people are dying of poverty many times faster than they were **killed in concentration camps during the Holocaust. ** *This is the genocide of the poor, and it is ongoing. Almost never do you *see it directly addressed or stated in such blunt terms, but I think that *the numbers warrant this kind of bold and direct statement. * *Some historical context. * **500 years ago, nearly everybody died of being poor ** **The kings and queens of europe died of stupid diseases ***and in their 50s ** **Nobody had good sanitation ** **Nobody had known-pure drinking water ***they all drank beer to stay well! *** **Populations were much smaller ** **There was nothing to contrast poverty to ** *But still... 10 million people a year is about a thousand an hour. * *This problem *DEFINES* serious business. * *Mostly these are invisible deaths. It's 20% infant mortality, it's people *dying in their 40s and 50s from preventable diseases. It's a lifetime *of bad diet robbing people of their immunity. * *I want to make this stuff clear to you because I want you to understand *how angry these people are going to be *when they work out clearly *that we have been completely ignoring them *while living in absolute luxury. * *This is a bomb made from potential political consciousness. Part 2: what can be done? *1> food production *Ivette Perfecto estimates that the agricultural output of the small farms *can be doubled with simple organic farming techniques. * *Simple manual pumps can greatly help with irrigation, also multiplying *crop yields. * *Note that none of this requires hand outs. *This is about _knowledge_ * *So this more or less takes care of food. * *2> birth control *This should be obvious. It's mainly suppressed by religious groups *(notably the Catholic church, but right wing protestant groups too.) * *I hope there is a particularly unpleasant hell for those who *stood against women's reproductive rights. * *3> drinking water *a variety of simple techniques exist, from rope pumps through to *biosand water filters. again, costs are well within local budgets, *and the net result is drinkable water nearly anywhere in the world *using more-or-less what is available, or a few cheap imports. * *nobody doubts that the technology exists. * *4> cooking fires *cooking over an open fire is like smoking 40 a day *children in that environment are particularly vulnerable *millions of people die of respiratory complaints of these types every year * *multiple approaches: rocket stoves, gasification stoves, solar cookers * *5> micronutrient deficiency *people are a bit short of folic acid or B1 or zinc and it messes them up *fortifying common foodstuffs or handing out pills is cheap, but not *simply about knowledge, as most of these other interventions are. * *Note how simple this is. It's all really simple, basic stuff. * *Here's some facts on telecommunication. * *1> 50% of the human race has cell phones now. * *2> Projected to be 75% by end of 2011. * *3> Likely to be nearly 100% by 2020. * *4> On the hardware side, change continues to accelerate - a 2020 cell phone is *likely to include technologies like video projectors, virtual keyboards, *face and voice recognition, full access to the internet nearly anywhere in *the world and so on. Complete convergence between computers and phones is *nearly certain. * *So let's think about this. * *How does having net access affect these scenarios? * *Well, _most_ of these critical technologies could, in theory, be learned *online from detailed videos. These are simple technologies, and even the *awareness about the health implications of these issues - and the knowledge *that there are alternative available - could be enough to catalyze real change. * *Think about that. 10 years from now, the network will be in place to deliver *these kinds of ideas and tools - globally. * *Will the content be ready? That's up to us. I'm working on it, and so are *a lot of other people. * 3> The Soft Development Path *1 billion capitalists come close to exahausting the world's natural resources. * *There is no way we can have 5.5 billion more people in the same kind of *lifestyle as the Europeans, never mind the Americans. * *It's not just about running out of oil: it's about coal, about steel, about *climate stability, about minerals like coltan, about biodiversity loss, *about topsoil stripping and mechanized agricuture... * *There are a *thousand* reasons why the world will break before we have *another 5.5 billion people living as we do. It cannot be done. * *One simple point: for many resources, oil particuarly, if demand increases *very rapidly, the goods are basically sold at auction. The single global rich *buy them, and the single global poor - whatever country they may be in - do *without. Auction pricing of commodities like oil is bad enough, but when it *comes to food... anybody remember those biofuels riots? * *Like that, but 1000x worse. * *Are we going to have a world with 6.5 billion people fighting *tooth and nail for the 1 billion or so first world lifestyle slots *while everybody else farms with their bare hands and hopes they *will get lucky one day and move to the city? * *NO! * *But, still, we need a coherent model - an path out of poverty, not towards *the incredibly unscalable and unsustainable model of the current First World *but towards something else, * *something * *** DURABLE *** GLOBALLY SUSTAINABLE *** REALISTIC ** *here's the notion * *1> test and deploy these appropriate technology solutions * **this has to be a global program ** **it has to be massively funded ** **it has to start with volunteers to gain credibility ** **we are *already* doing this. ** *2> we document everything, lavishly, and in many languages * **so that any bright kid can watch the stuff on their phone ** **figure out how to build it from the instructions ** **build it ** **and solve first their family, and then their village's **infrastructure problems ** **we're talking about seeding the solutions, all over the world ** *3> those who want to massively improve their current lifestyle can * **fix the causes of such sharply reduced lifespan ** **improve economic welfare by increasing farm productivity ** **massively transform education levels through online resources ** ***this isn't even expensive** * 4> Capitalism? Communism? NO! *to a very significant degree both capitalism and communism were responses to *the problem of "who controls the factories." * *(I'm not an expert, and I'm not addressing Maoism.) * *Capitalism? * **Right now, the pitch from Capitalism to the developing world is ** ***Worked great for the Rich! ** ***You should try it! ** ***Here, have a loan! ** **Problem is, they're *already* trying Capitalism * ***That's where all their natural resources went ** ***And only the few rich in those countries are benefiting ** *Communism? * **Certainly the Chinese peasants did much better than those in other **parts of the world for many years. ** **The "market communism" of Kerala appears to have a plausible solve **for poverty - 76 year lifespan on $300 a year - by focussing on **land reform and providing basic services first. ** **Kerala may be where several keys to the future of the world **can be found. ** **But Chinese communism, like Russian communism, tipped into **mass-starvation and mass murder. ** **We don't know if that would happen else where. ** **We also don't have any reason to assume that classical communism **is stable. ** **And centralization of power is bad, right? ** *So what kind of political system is it * **where you focus on spreading knowledge ** **and the knowledge lets people thrive ** **without having to leave their land ** ***or change their lifestyle *** **and without making more rules, regulations, commandments ** **and without levying taxes to pay for it all? ** **Cooperative anarchy? Digital Gandhi-ism? ** *Is it a political system? * **YES! The body that provides this education, and the social networking **tools to organize all these people to learn from *each other* **is providing many of the same services traditionally associated with **government - it's an _infrastructure_ house, at root - but it's **more like a global digital university. ** *As an alternative to Capitalism and Communism in the developing world? * **Capitalism and Communism might still exist ** ***BUT NEITHER ONE HOLDS OUT THE ONLY PATH TO RESCUING THE ***POOR FROM THEIR LIVING CONDITIONS *** *If we get the knowledge resources out there, the poor can rescue themselves * **without the need for a new ideology* ** * Although Mahatma Gandhi and Buckminster Fuller worked this all out seventy or eighty years ago.