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Geeking in the Third World
suzipaw writes "Geekcorps founder Ethan Zuckerman, late of Tripod, gets some well-deserved media attention for his good works via an interview on oreilly.com. What he and other volunteers are doing on behalf of developing nations is pretty darn cool. And humbling--makes this first-worlder grateful for a regular power supply."
It is nearly impossible to stop all hunger and disease - look at many 1st world nations that have not accomplished this.
If your philosophy is not to spend money on anything else until everyone is fed and healthy, then all you'll ever do is give out food and medicine. You'll never spend money on technology or infrastructure because there will always be at least one more hungry or sick person.
There was a program to distribute cellphones to remote villages in India. You might say they shouldn't do that because there is still unclean water, polio, and hunger. But the villages that received the phones prospered directly from them. Most importantly, they were able to call into the markets of the larger towns to find out how much their crops were selling for. In the past, the middle-men who would transport these crops to the market would pay only what they had to and would make lots of money. Now these middle-men make the money for transporting the goods, but the village most often gets a much better price. The village is now more self-sufficient and can make their own improvements in their living conditions.
By your philosophy, this would never have happened and they would be beholden the the middlemen who ripped them off, and the international aid agencies that would only give them food.
And again, there is little I can do to treat an HIV sufferer. But who knows. Mabye I could teach her to develop webpages and she can do something rewarding and even a bit profitable with her life. Would you have her simply waste away in a hospital? What kind of a life is that?
I can only do what I know how to do. I don't know how to teach better farming or even how to set up water purification, and nor could most geeks. These geeks go and do what they can. By improving one aspect, hopefully the whole system improves.