I worked for the UN and other organizations in Haiti for many years and can testify that Haiti is the "perfect wave" of a failed or collapsed state and society. As indicated violence and chaos come in waves in such countries in an emergent fashion; Haiti has been subject to such waves since the mid 1980's and the situation seemingly gets worse and worse. Complexity tools such as agent based models might help both the donor community and the governments (sic!) of such countries make better decisions about policies and programs. The failure of Haiti as a society and a state is the direct result of negative intervention from other countries, a plutocracy and the negative lessons learned by Haitians from there own chaotic and violent history. On the other hand, Haitians are remarkably adaptive to impossible situations and the scenarios suggested in the article will probably not happen; life will probably return to sub-normal in a matter of weeks. So the OLPC project will undoubtedly continue. One of my own projects for the UN in Haiti was the establishment of networks and the HT domain, which after many setbacks finally succeeded. Paul Paryski
**************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms and advice on AOL Money & Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolcmp00300000002850)
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
