[Jul 6 2017] A Practical Solution to Poverty
Let me begin by acknowledging that this idea is controversial. I have had many friends and acquaintances give me feedback, and now I am about to see if the concept can stand up to the criticism of a much wider, and likely, more knowledgeable audience.
I am not a Luddite, having lived my entire working career in the shadow of computers. We were told back in the 70's, that Technology would give us the Golden Years at the Millennial change, truly believing Technology would triumph, and life be wonderful, as we all hoped. I saw little of that – oh sure our phones got smaller, and more powerful, the Internet spanned the globe, but why did the Wealth/Poverty gap widen? Why does the number of wars/conflicts continue to increase since we began the Agriculture period? The trends I see, are worsening not improving as we had hoped and expected.
It is frivolous to assume Governments, National Special Interest Groups, Big Business, the Financial Industry, or even groups of Scientists and Engineers will rise to all the challenges we face today. I list 26 world problems here:
that individually have much activity on-going from the above-mentioned groups, but I see no Collective plan, one where are each of the these issues are brought together for a common solution - one where they collectively foster Synergy. Yes Philanthropists will eradicate diseases, improve health, develop new untested technologies that are calculated to reduce global warming, extend the nutrition or volume of crops grown, and so on.
But I think we can do better.
My solution is based on Practical concepts everyone can relate to.
Occam's razor suggests that often the simplest solution is the best one - and so we have SIMPLE. Mahatma Gandhi, practical in his wisdom, created what now approaches 700,000 small villages across India,
Village on a hill near Ooty in Tamil Nadu, India (ROYALTY-FREE STOCK PHOTO - Dreamstime)
with an average size of about 1,300 people - and so now we have SMALL.
It is not necessary to be trained as a Scientist, preparing to send a human to Mars to understand our Spaceship Earth[1] has a limited on-board supply of life-sustaining materials - and so we add SUSTAINABLE.
In summary at this point, I suggest we need a Small, Simple, and Sustainable lifestyle.
Most understand at the most basic level - that the Physiological Needs must be met - Clothing, Shelter, Food, Water and Energy - for each human.
The Simplest way to provide these Basic Needs is by having the target group ('the Poor') produce these things themselves.
My research, computer models, and simulations suggest the minimum sustainable Community size is about 200 people and the maximum should be around 1,000 individuals. A place where there is sufficient arable land for a 30 hectare community Farm and about 20 hectares for the people, services and lite Manufacturing.
Does this seem feasible?
A Small community with about two hundred or so houses - for Families and Singles. A community where about 40% of the working-age adults work - growing food and fiber, maintaining services and making the Basic Needs for their Village.
One more letter 'S' word to complete the picture.
The Small community fosters Cooperation, builds Compassion, Caring and Trust. No need for Insurance - your neighbors will be there to help in emergencies and in a disaster.
So why not revert to Total SHARING as we did before the start of the Agricultural Period?
As an added Benefit, we get a Bonus when we combine all 4 'S' words - Small Simple Sustainable and Sharing - we get the Synergy of more than the individual parts compared to when each is taken separately. Synergy we could never expect now, because of the way we are currently organized.
Implementation?
A “Sharing Zone” for 'the Poor'. Politicians must, of course help 'the Poor'. Government and Big Business too, even Banks and Philanthropists can relate to the 'Poor' and their Need to “help them, to help themselves”.
So how does this Eliminate World poverty within a generation?
Simple.
Each Village replicates itself, once per year until we have a little over one and one half million Small, Simple, Sustainable, Sharing Villages across the planet - poverty gone!
Do you think this would work?
If not, why not?
If so, let's get started today...
[1] R. Buckminister Fuller
- Operating Manual for SpaceShip Earth(1968):
Main Image (By:© Nevit Dilmen [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons)
Doc: created with StackEdit.
Give Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature a read. The last 100 years (even with WWI an so WWII) have been getting better and better based in statistical evidence. Most don't realize this because they watch too much censationalized news TV.
Upvote becuase I agree smaller and decebtralied is the key to the future. Sustainability, distributed solar power generation, 3D printing, etc... The future is bright. :)
Great post and great idea.....ill resteem...plus vote
Wow, Thanks a lot,
This has become my cause for the past number of years since retirement.
So what do you think needs to be done immediately?
Thats a tuff one sir....but I would like to see the centralized pigs close down the banks and the capitalistic corp. and recreate our freedoms and work together in harmony not for PROFIT or mass wealth.
I see where you are at, and more or less agree, but I think neither Revolution nor Evolution is the answer. The answer, I believe is with the Poor - we need to help them - give them places of their own, where they can build their own houses, grow their own food, and be happy - Sharing everything. Humans did it before the Agricultural period, we just got sidetracked for about 10-12,000 years, that's all. Thoughts?
I think thats a step in the same direction. I get ahead of myself at times.
Thanks for the support, and Resteem, and Vote. I am looking for Volunteers like those working on Wiki, and suggestions ???
Well....ok Im homeless by choice....poverty is in the eye of the beholder...I would volunteer and in this case I think many other homeless men and women would too.
I wrote this less then 10 min before I read your reply https://steemit.com/anarchist/@cloudculpepper/ups-and-downs
I agree with the basic model, smaller communities, 100-1000 max. We have to start doing it voluntarily on our own before everyone else is forced to do it by government hehe, not that they should be forced either as this all should be done voluntarily. Good post.
Thanks for reading @krnel
After much soul-searching and pulling of hair (joke joke) I believe the Only way this will work is through the 'Poor'. Each Politician and Gov't worker must try to help the Poor, as a matter of course. The riots going on in Hambourg yesterday show the Inbetweens (the 78% not rich/not poor) are not content and want change. What do you think of a Political party with just two objectives 1) lobby for a "Sharing Zone" for the 'Poor' and 2) promote Sharing. The party would be at all levels of Government....(difficult to imaging the Europeans with 6 levels of gov't in some cases).
My computer models show if we all lived in small 1,000 person Villages we could feed over 3 Times the current world population (25 Billion or so...) using only Arable Land, not considering pasture land, forests, etc. Overpopulation is a Myth in My Humble Opinion.
Thanks for reading and comments. I think my next step is to round up Volunteers, I have a small crowdfunding project about to launch to cover a few costs. I was hoping to use a tag like "helpthepoor" to bring Volunteers together, but so far I am the only Volunteer...hehehe with 4 posts.
I believe the future will be decentralized and localized, with a distribution of the resources in a fair way. Every town will sustain itself and will share the extra resources with other towns. Of course, you'll be able to have an avocado even if you live in Alaska, but the cost should be proportional to the "fuel" necessary to bring that resource there and to its scarcity. I believe that AI, data models and cryptocurrencies will reshape our economy and create a more sustainable economy... or if I'm wrong most of us will be playing the Hunger Games :)
Thanks for the reply @rainelemental
I hate to disagree, but my sense of it all is Technology will not solve the problems we face.
My Vision is one where Sharing is Total, no trade except Sharing between Villages, no barter, no exchange, no currencues - just Sharing within a Village.
A friend gave us some Avocados yesterday from her tree, that's Sharing...
The distribution I feel would be equitable to each member, and all decisions made by Consensus (Democracy).
I could really use some "what's wrong with this idea" so please discuss with friends and get back with some issues (I think I have covered most in the past 5-6 years working on this).
I replied to this in chainBB, did you see it there?
Given your citation of Bucky Fuller's work, it bears asking whether you have reviewed Jacque Fresco's work on the Venus Project. His work was largely based on Fuller's thinking, but is strongly technocratic in nature. I believe he passed just last year.
Hi @hedronstrand,
I wondered if there were any others out there that had any idea who B. Fuller was and had reviewed any of Jacques Fresco's work on the Venus Project. I was in the US Pavilion - the Geodesic Dome Fuller designed and had build for the 1986 Expo - the World's Fair in Montreal Canada.
I believe that the Resource Based Economy Jacques envisioned was on the mark, a world where people freely shared together using what our planet came with - as resources and materials.
The difficulty, as I see it is he didn't take into account humans learned ability to extract profit from everything. We were not always so Competitive - we, as the Homo genus managed to survive for 2.7 million years in a Co-operative way.
Jacques, and if memory serves, Fuller too believed that Cities and Technology were part of the solution of the world's problems we have today. I grew up with technology. It will either take over (like Skynet) or continue to degrade the planet, driven by the Almighty Dollar, I feel. I just finished reading a Bio on Einstein - I like his thinking: "I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind".
My Simple solution is Help the Poor to Help Themselves - and maybe us Inbetweens will benefit in the process....thoughts?
It does seem that with ongoing reductions in the cost of renewable energy resources, solar in particular, and innovations in water-sparing agriculture like aquaponics, vertical, etc. we should be on the cusp of creating a more abundant future -- but we've been on the cusp of something great for a very long time. Money interests always seem to pull the rug out from under simple technologies that might otherwise produce greater liberty in favor of more control, so I have a bleak outlook of the probabilities coupled with an optimism for what is possible.
More often than not, though, I think phrases like "help the poor help themselves" is probably code for tucking the undesirables out of sight & out of mind.
Your first paragraph I am in total agreement. I actually built a small hydroponic gravel system with an automatic pump back in the '60's and had a crop of Tomatoes just as I also built a mini Geodesic half-structure that held a dozen of my friends...
The technology has been and is there now for world exploitation.
In designing small communities for the Poor, however, I realized the real technologies we need are missing. Give a Blacksmith some metal from a scrapped vehicle and ask him to make an iPhone, for example. We need the complete life cycle in tools that can process the raw materials using Simple processes and Tools at each step.
Having Solar cell panels that take High Tech tools, Clean Rooms etc, will help none of us in the long run. We need the ability to take the sand, make glass. We need BioGas from the local farm to cook with and heat if needed. Or renewable wood - Bamboo would work along with some other fast growing trees.
You second paragraph gives me hesitation. On the surface I would say you are right.
My thinking is this: The world needs change. Governments, politicians, businesses, our leaders will not let the changes needed happen. I do not subscribe to Revolution, and Evolution will take too long. I think the only strategy is to actually use the Poor as a stepping stone to demonstrate how it could be, and then get the rest of us - the Inbetweens (the not Poor, not Rich) to follow suit. Am I crazy or just a whimsical dreamer?
No, and there's a lot that makes sense about it, but I'm sure you can see that it could be misused. The impoverished could end up in a settlement, rearing to go with awesome, though simple, technologies and support; but if anything goes wrong... what happens? They're poor? They have no backup plan or parachute. The wealthy have no vested interest in the success of such a project. Governments prefer to support agribusiness & centralized utilities.
So are you talking about a blockchain funded project or something funded by some philanthropic entity? I'm not poking holes here, I was actually listening to how the healthcare overhaul will leave some 5-6 million special needs kids without coverage if it goes through -- many of them with some serious issues. It came to mind, "What if there's a blockchain solution to providing this kind of coverage?" but that's way beyond my level of understanding as to how to implement on any level.
The questions are significant, but the application is the hard part. How does it get funded to begin with and how does it progress? I don't know. I do know I'm particularly sensitive to language structures like "use the Poor as a stepping stone," but I don't think it was intended to be as cringy as it sounds.
Woops, 1967 Expo....World's Fair