Technocrat

Technology and the Megaslums

zogger
Thu May 25 11:10:23 -0700 2006
Politics.
manage

Technology advances are taken for granted in a lot of areas around the world, people hop in the car or jump on the train and go travel and purchase gadgets or shop for a variety of food imported from all over the world and live in a world of cups of coffee that cost multiple dollars apiece and argue about how unfair it is that they "only" get low speed broadband or decide which multiple thousand dollar high definition television to purchase. But...what about the third of the planet that lives in the megaslums? Those huge areas of near anarchy and dismal living that aren't getting much in the way of any benefit from technology advances, other than maybe being lucky enough to work in a serf labor factory manufactuing the devices we use? Why is it this situation continues for generations, and what can be done about it that we aren't doing now?

This is an interesting article that is both contemporary with references to what is going on in Brazil this past week and also a book review from the author, it illustrates the disconnect that a lot of people have when they don't really see or are even all that aware of what life is like for people who live extremely close to the most modern high tech, but far enough away by economics and class divisions that it doesn't really help them much. In other words, Heinlein's megacities of the future with wealthy gated communities containing the controllers and elite people and some big brother level command government structure with the Abandoned Areas or AAs containing the teeming masses of the "left out" people living in squalor and anarchy has come to reality from science fiction.

Technology and the Megaslums
TFG
Thu May 25 16:50:50 -0700 2006
 manage
1. Unless somebody tells them, the poor do not know they are poor.
2. The conditions under which the poor live are "squalor" only to "our" perceptions, not theirs (See No. 1)
3. Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever, and the unpleasant truth is that most of the poor are stupid, hence the poverty. They shall forever remain stupid, hence poor.
4. The poor will never go away.
5. Without the poor/stupid, there would be no one to do low-tier work.
6. Without low-tier workers, the technology would not get manufactured at a marketable price.
7. To give the poor a job in a "sweatshop" for "meager" (by Western standards) wages but handsome by local standards is not "exploitation"--even if the workers are children. (Better to work in a factory for wages with which to buy food and other necessities than to not work and live off garbage.)
8. This ain't Star Trek. All men are not equal, poverty exists. Get over it.
9 Reality sucks.
10. Profit!
Technology and the Megaslums
Beryllium Sphere(r)
Thu May 25 23:36:19 -0700 2006
 manage
the unpleasant truth is that most of the poor are stupid
The people in the megaslums are the ones with enough awareness, imagination, ambition and guts to move there from their home villages.

The shantytowns are a step up from bare subsistence farming. It's good policy to provide additional steps up even if you're not compassionate. Cultivating the fields where violence grows and fertilizing them is dumb. Educating ambitious people and their children is smart. People like Ramanujan come out of nowhere -- there's probably a Sergei Brin out there going to waste. What can a one-in-a-billion genius accomplish? Statistics say there's one in India and 1.3 in China. We can't afford to bury people like that in poverty.
Technology and the Megaslums
the womble
Fri May 26 00:37:18 -0700 2006
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If you do not have enough to eat, adequate shelter and other basic necessities you know you are poor even if no one tells you.

If you see richer people you know you are poor. Are you suggesting some sort of mass censorship of what the poor see would solve the problem by preventing them finding out they are poor?

Poor people are not necessarily stupid, although many do lack education. The really poor may even often inherit more intelligence because they live (and their parents lived) in conditions where you need to use your wits to survive and reproduce.

Rich people are not necessarily clever. I know lots of stupid rich people.

Stupid people in rich countries are spared poverty, why not stupid people in poor countries.

Cheap labour can be replaced by better productivity. Almost everything can be manufactured only a little more expensively in a rich country than a poor one - which is why Britain manufactured clothing on a significant scale until quite recently.

In any case I have no problem with the prices of some things going up if it means the really poor get better paid

There is nothing inevitable about poverty - absolute poverty been eliminated in many countries.

Just because the sweatshop is better than the alternative does not make it good enough. People deserve decent alternatives. The wages are not "handsome" by local standards either.

"All men are not equal" - if you mean "all men are not equal in abilities" then I agree, but if you are arguing for a meritocratic economy, then we should have a truly meritocratic economy - so that someone smart and hard working in Mozambique makes as much money as someone equally smart and hard working in Switzerland.

However if you mean "all men are not equal" in any one of a number of other ways it is a matter of opinion. Do you disagree that all men should be equal before the law?

"reality sucks" Are you implying we should always accept unpleasant realities? In that case: murder and theft suck so we should close down the police, illness sucks so we should not have doctors and drugs. On the other hand if we should seek to alter unpleasant realities, why not this one?
Technology and the Megaslums
SergeyKurdakov
Fri May 26 01:49:18 -0700 2006
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>3. Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever,

good point.

The works by Richard Lynn  and  Philippe Rushton    provide  enought  information on the issue
Technology and the Megaslums
ziv
Sat May 27 19:33:33 -0700 2006
 manage
If all the people in China rise up and demand refridgerators, cars, food in lots of packaging and DVD players the enviroment will go down the toilet faster and the price of oil will rise faster and take away our decadent energy inefficient lifestyle even sooner.
 

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