MIT's Guru of Low-Tech Engineering Fixes the World on $2 a Day

by joshwa • 18 years ago

20 11 18 years ago

joseakle• 18 years ago

Print version, easier to read,

ars3• 18 years ago

Why does this make me feel like they are children who need to be helped by their more intelligent overmasters?

Is there no way to teach them how to come up with these ideas? I don't mean school, I mean the mindset of coming up with solutions for problems.

What is missing? Is there something special about Europe that made them pull themself up, or is it just a matter of time?

I look at history (>500 years ago) and I see two areas of the world that consistently created technology. China and Europe, and China always managed to forget the ideas after a generation.

It's like that drive to improve the world just doesn't exist in some cultures. It's not the land, american indians had the resources to do it if they wanted. But they didn't. Almost no cultures did, except Europe.

Now of course it spread, and most parts of the world do that, but not everywhere. Why is that?

(If you don't understand what I mean - take that example of the ring that shells corn. It's simple - but why didn't people who had been shelling corn for thousands of years ever try to invent something like that? That article doesn't say who invented, just that she found in it zambia. Do they manufacture plastic in zambia? I know very little about them.)

ragaskar• 18 years ago

The popular book (and television series) Guns, Germs and Steel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel) addresses the reasons why technological advancements tended to occur in particular cultures and its title provides the short answer to your question.

You may also find it interesting to read up about colonialism -- some of the statements you've made represent attitudes that are considered somewhat dated by modern standards; it's almost as if they were cribbed from "The White Man's Burden" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_man%27s_burden).

ars3• 18 years ago

Thank you for those links. I don't fully agree with what Jared Diamond says, but it's interesting nonetheless. In particular he says that genetic differences had nothing to do with it without actually showing so.

But even more in particular it doesn't explain why nothing has changed today. All his arguments fall to the wayside today, and yet nothing has changed.

For example: both china and japan stopped progress because they were isolated. Fine, and it's a reasonable argument because today both those places have plenty of progress. So that makes sense.

But it doesn't answer about any other parts of the world.

As for your second link, I had never heard of it before (or even of that concept before), I cribbed from reading a book on the history of technology and nothing else. I just kept noticing the same countries over and over, and started wondering why.

DenisM• 18 years ago

Most people that surround me, regardles of origin, are not able to invent their ways out of problems - instead they learn to cope. It seems to me that more advanced societies learned to encourage those few who can to think outside the box, whereas less successfull societies did not.

nazgulnarsil• 18 years ago

The U.S. is actually quite unique in its penchant for looking to the future. Many other cultures focus on and place more emphasis on tradition and the past, or the present. It's the culturally reinforced tendency to constantly look to a future that is presumed to be better then the present that drives invention. well that and necessity...and war.

Tichy• 18 years ago

I was wondering the same thing - they must have picking the sweetcorn for aeons, and never came up with a better way?

Also I wonder how much point is to the improvements as long as there is no functional economy/market? I think if it was possible for a startup to start making and selling those sweetcorn peelers there and make a profit, somebody would have done so ages ago. Same for the mills: if there was a proper market and competition, the mill makers would have fixed their mills a long time ago.

mchristoff3• 18 years ago

"It's not the land, american indians had the resources to do it if they wanted."

That's pretty ignorant statement, and probably downright offensive to many. I'm no native American scholar, but I do remember reading about the law of the Iroquois,

"In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations."

I wonder if the Europeans thought about things like the Iroquois we'd have so much "innovation". Did you ever stop to think that that many of the "problems" that we're all so good at solving may not actually be real problems?

Furthermore, your missing the entire 1000 years that Asia and the Islamic world led innovation around the world, while the Europeans were playing D&D in the Dark Ages.

Amy Smith is solving real problems. I have nothing, but respect for this woman. I'm really starting to lose faith in this community when a comment like this has 7 upmods, and the article only has 20.

ars3• 18 years ago

Stating facts should never be offensive. And besides I don't see what's offensive about it anyway, at worst you should simply tell me that they didn't want to.

And yet, whatever reason was, it clearly was a mistake in hindsight. (If it was deliberate, perhaps they simply never thought of making changes in their life - I don't know - I was asking - maybe you can tell me.)

And I did not forget about asia and the islamic world, geographically they are part of the same area I was talking about.

And finally about Any Smith: why does she need to go to another country to solve problems for them? Why do they not have anyone who can do it? That's my question.

mchristoff3• 18 years ago

Amy Smith's TED talk: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/amy_smith_shares_simple_l...

MIT's Guru of Low-Tech Engineering Fixes the World on $2 a Day

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