Ever wondered how many procent of the word population own a PC+internet connection.

feel lucky about it.

Not sure of the percentage, but with all the computer viruses going around, I know the percentage of those who shouldn't have em has got to be high.

#1 by Skinner Styl skinner - 10/6/2003 9:00:19 AM Ever wondered how many procent of the word population own a PC+internet connection.

IIRC, there was about 10% of the world population in 2002 online (based on the assumption of 6 billion people on the Earth, which is definitely not an exact number)

How do you define a slum?

About 3 billion humans currently live in what can only be called "agricultural" lifestyle.

What you are seeing on a global scale is what happened in Europe and the USA during the 19th century. Vast, sudden improvements in agricultural productivity caused people from the farms to move into the cities looking for work. Huge slums were the results.

There isn't really that much that can be done.

Not to diminish the plight of these people, but the 'solution' the UN always proposes is merely throwing money at the problem.

Thing is, just lobbing money at these countries has little or no effect. It invariably gets tied up in bureaucratic snafus and rarely, if ever, gets used to help the intended. As long as these people live under such corrupt governments (no matter what you think of many of the western governments, they are like an innocent altar boy compared to some of these regimes), money alone will never help, because it won't go where it's actually needed.

Even if we could guarantee that all of the money would go to help, we run the risk that we would be creating a class of dependents. They might be better off in the short term, but in the long term, it would probably be as bad for them than the current situation.

The only kinds of solutions that will actually do long term good for these people is to provide them the tools and opportunities to improve their own lot (with assistance given to foster those opportunities). Removing trade tarriffs and subsidies that restrict their participation in the world market (and which incidentally, also create an artificial price barrier for what these people need), would go much farther in getting them out of their circumstances. Unfortunately, the governments that comprise the UN (and the UN leadership itself) are unalterably opposed to such changes.

The proper process is to help these people help themselves.

(As per the UN, my favorite quote concerning them comes from Larry Miller, "The UN couldn't break up a cookie fight at a brownie meeting".)
[Message Edited]

Frogboy:

The report describes slums as poor areas that lack basic services or access to clean water, where housing is poorly built and overcrowded. Developed nations are not immune: According to the report, 54 million people who live in cities in richer nations live in slum-like conditions.

Aleatoric:
It's a complex problem, and you are right saying that it won't be solved with money alone. But money helps. If the slums were a little cleaner, with proper sanitization, its people would still be poor, but at least have a little better living conditions. There are places in Asia where they have to burn their faecies for heat, for goodness sake.

paxx,

That's why I caveat my statement with the phrase, 'with assistance given to foster those opportunities'.

But even the money won't help at all if the fundamentally broken mechanism for getting it to those who need it isn't fixed.

Not to mention the fact that the UN is functionally impotent. Virtually *every* bit of aid and help that *did* go to those in need happened apart from, and often in spite of, the UN. They have ceased to be an organization that represents the countries they contain, and become little more than a private clique with an astonishingly damaged bureaucracy. The idea that it represented was a good one, but the implementation is broken.

Also, while I agree with the idea that their infrastructure needs vast improvement, burning dung is not necessarily as bad as it sounds. Given a lack of the proper infrastructure, burning it is better than letting it contaminate the surrounding environs.

We *should* assist these people, but the bootstrap is much better than the handout.

The "funny" thing is that here in the West, we see the reverse happening: (above income) people moving out of the (crowded) cities into the country (and the farmers aren't to happy with them cityfolk).

Ahum, "above average income" that is. Why oh why do I always spot my typos when I've just hit "post"?

Also, while I agree with the idea that their infrastructure needs vast improvement, burning dung is not necessarily as bad as it sounds. Given a lack of the proper infrastructure, burning it is better than letting it contaminate the surrounding environs.

I don't fancy trying this 'innovative' lateral thinking approach to the dual problems of heating and saniitation at all, and I doubt the 'Comfy Western Middle Class' would either!
Third World poverty aside, and the "These people are used to living this way" mindset, perhaps the term 'Slum' could be applied to (as an example) certain areas of Chicago, where Military Schools have appeared in 'Non-White' neighborhoods offering a 'Free' Tertiary Education to kids who would never get one under normal circumstances ..... all they need do is finish school and spend several years in the military, can I say "Cannon Fodder"? .....
Slums are a by-product of Western Society, while Poverty and an large Underprivileged Population seem to be overlooked as a matter of course.
What chance do the people living an "Agricultural Lifestyle" (Location, garbage dumps outside Rio or Manilla for instance??) have when 25% of the World consumes 75% of the resources .... >



[Message Edited]

wombat,

That wasn't an attempt to make it sound as though they should learn to live that way (or even like it). Merely that dung *has* been used as a fuel through a good portion of human history. Is it a preferred method? No.

I question the 25% uses 75% number of resources as well. Not that I think there isn't room for improvement in usage.

Even if you argue that the 25% uses 75% of what is currently _produced_, that doesn't necessarily equate to 75% of total actual resources. Plus, I would argue that efficiency in general translates to a lower % per capita for the more technologically advanced areas over some of those less advanced (obviously, the very poor are using very little either way).

The question isn't 'should we help', but 'how should we help'. You can't just throw money at it and hope it will get solved. And even if you could perfect a distribution process to allow perfect redistribution of money and resources, then what? Even if you argue that it is morally correct to do this redistribution (a position I disagree with), you're still stuck with how those resources get used. The most efficient will soon surpass the not so efficient, and things will be unequal again.

One thing to keep in mind, is that the most technologically advanced areas show the most improvement in almost all areas of life, including envirionment, percent of resource usage to expenditure, and so on. What this says to me is that the goal should be to provide the framework to translate this technological improvement to these underdeveloped and impoverished areas, thus giving them the tools to improve themselves.

In order to do that, however, there are substantial physical and political hurdles to overcome. You can't fund an improvement if the funding gets coopted before being used for improvement (most often by the governments of the people we're trying to help). We also certainly cannot just replace these institutions carte blanche (no matter how much we may wish to).

There is no magic bullet here. The standard position is that we should take from those who have and give it to those who don't. A very nice feel good position, but ultimately doomed to fail. First, very few will give up enough to actually even the field. Second, even if they did, the economic and incentive engine that drives all improvements would fail (or slow considerably). We would do _more_ damage than we solve. The best goal is to bring them up to the rest of the world. That's going to take several generations, even at the most optimistic. It isn't the money or the resources that the technological countries have that is going to be the biggest help, it's going to be the methods.

Should we help? Yes. But it has to be the right kind of help, or the result may be worse than we expect.

We should set aside and provide for infrastructure improvements, where we can (that will require some efforts to deal with the corruption at all levels, a very difficult task). We should give them true access to the world markets, without arbitrary restrictions, either in selling or buying.

"The UN couldn't break up a cookie fight at a brownie meeting"

I don't know. Depends on what type of cookie.

You know, when the day comes that everyone in US of A is not poor and hugry THEN I will help out other countries in need.

Take care of yourself first, then worry about others...

paxx, I was born in a middle class town or neighborhood. It is a slum now and was one for 40 years. People make slums and its the people who live there that keep it that way.Theere was good money thrown at it and its still a slum and will be until the people living there decide to change it. I know that there are countries that have 90% slums and most of that is due to the country can't support its people as it doesn't have any real rescourses or like China, which has to many people.

Kona: that's very christian of you. Dunno, I expected more from somebody with so much faith as you.  Didn't your God make all humans to his image, or did he make your nation first and then the rest?

WOM: while I don't totally disagree, I think the problem is more complex than that. Despair make people behave in a self-destucting way sometimes. I've known some very poor and desperate people, and I can tell you, it ain't pretty. Not so much the scum they lived in, but the scum they felt inside of them. They felt like trash, and behaved like trash, and basically made their whole life trash.
Getting back some self-confidence and a little pride in yourself is the first step towards getting better, but when you're that deep, the light is very far away.