
MIT's Guru of Low-Tech Engineering Fixes the World on $2 a Day - joshwa
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/upgrade/4273674.html?page=1
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ars
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.)

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ragaskar
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>).

~~~
ars
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.

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joseakle
Print version, easier to read,

[http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/upgrade/4273674.h...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/upgrade/4273674.html?do=print)

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mchristoff
Amy Smith's TED talk:
[http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/amy_smith_shares_simple_l...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/amy_smith_shares_simple_lifesaving_design.html)

