[OT] life in different places; "to work or not to work?"

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 27 March 2006 19:50, Michael Shigorin wrote:

> I'm only afraid that computer is instrument here, it doesn't
> change an intention but can rather empower it proportionally.
>
> A lot of tools were claimed to change people's intentions
> but never did.

A computer is just a tool, like all tools, and the only thing that 
ever caused someone to change their mind is knowledge and 
communication. Let's not forget that the true value of the Internet 
and the computers that power it is increased communication

> > > Is it really impossible to move to a place where agriculture
> > > is striving and put one's hand to it?
> >
> > Some parts of Africa are not conducive to agriculture at all,
> > due to lack of water.
>
> Would be interesting to know how people actually employ
> themselves in such areas but I guess it would be quite a time
> to answer... 

Poor people I've seen in Africa are pretty much like people everywhere 
else - some have given up on life, some are determined to get 
someplace in life and work at it (some succeed, some don't), and a 
big bunch in the middle would change things in their life if they 
could but are not sure how to do it.

Just like folks elsewhere

> Some came to frustration following their way through science --
> seeing how it doesn't help to live one's life.  I've seen highly
> educated people in monasteries whose parents would wounder aloud
> why break the carrier but who were happier -- and I believe
> better -- there.

And I've seen highly educated people who didn't give up too. I think 
people who fall off the deep end in life are going to do it no matter 
what. A smart unstable person in an educated society will go to 
university, get overwhelmed and lose his marbles. A smart unstable 
person in an uneducated society will go to primary school, get 
overwhelmed and lose his marbles. In either case he loses his 
marbles, and it's the person himself that's unstable

> Don't think all science of the world is worth a single life...
> Don't think it's going anywhere.

That doesn't make much sense - science is discovery of knowledge about 
how the universe works, I don't see how it directly makes quality of 
life go up or down. That only happens when people take the new 
knowledge and use it. And people have been looking at the world, 
figuring stuff out and using it for as long as there have been 
people.


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five