That is an excellent point, Michael!! Also, there are many ways to help people. And not everyone has to do the same thing. People help where they can or feel comfortable. Being made to feel they have to try to fit someone else's model is never the best way for folks to do what their hearts lead them to do.
Each area has its place. There is a real need for the things that the Gates foundation is doing, and just as much a need for knowledge -- and -- the possible ways of making money online (Entrepreneurship) that could help to raise the bar for some folks in these countries dealing with famine and disease. It may just help them gain back some feeling of control and make strides in overcoming the helplessness of famine and disease. And there is always a place for the many small organizations that also are trying to help in these areas. The need is great. No amount of giving, or types of giving should be poopoo'd unless they are a scam or the percentages are so low getting to the actual cause as to make it useless and makes the donor's money wasted. The big thing to me is that wherever I give, it has to be able to do as much as it can with the money I give. That it mostly goes to the cause itself. On Sat, Aug 10, 2013 at 7:32 AM, Glassman, Michael <glassman...@osu.edu> wrote: > I think it might be important to realize that access to information and > famine and disease are not mutually exclusive to each other. For instance > if Amartya Sen (the Nobel award winning economist) analysis is right famine > is not caused by lack of food but by lack of knowledge about access and > location to food - something I believe is much more easily overcome through > Internet access perhaps. Dysentery is caused both by lacking access to to > potalble water and by not trusting or assimilating methods for water > purification (e.g., convincing individuals to use precious resources on > boiling water). Even when clinics are built the individuals have a hard > time absorbing them into their everyday lives. > > What Google is doing may do more to help the problems Gates is talking about > than one off helicopter drops. Or it may not. But to consider eradication > of famine and disease as separate from information seems more destructive > than constructive. > > Michael > ________________________________ -- Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. Persistent violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
