5 ms·

>This is because most of society is still struggling with day-to-day tasks like getting housing, clean water, reliable food, healthcare and dealing with physica

>This is because most of society is still struggling with day-to-day tasks like getting housing, clean water, reliable food, healthcare and dealing with physical conflicts. It's been nearly 100 years since anyone struggled with that in the West. Nobody's expecting Eritrea to put a satellite in orbit.

meric 9y ago
Yes even most people in Pakistan/India have access to those, plus broadband internet. Yes I've been there.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- sumedh 9y ago
  > Yes even most people in Pakistan/India have access to those, plus broadband internet. Yes I've been there. Indian here, lot of people in metro cities dont have clean water. Most middle class and rich people use water filter to clean the water in their house. Forget the villages.
  - meric 9y ago
    Oh well I stayed in Pakistan cities and villages and farms and there's clean water, housing and mobile broadband... Sorry to hear the state in India - I incorrectly assumed they were ahead due to higher GDP per capita.
    - vidarh 9y ago
      From https://www.dawn.com/news/1319157 https://www.dawn.com/news/1319157 "ISLAMABAD: Eighty-four per cent of the population does not have access to safe drinking water in a country where commercial banks posted windfall profits exceeding Rs475 billion in three years, the Senate was told on Tuesday. Quoting a study, Provision of Safe Drinking Water, conducted by the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), Minister for Science and Technology Rana Tanvir Hussain said only 72pc of water supply schemes were found to be functional, and 84pc of those had supplied water that was not fit for consumption." This article was published March this year. Maybe the report in question was alarmist, I don't know. In case dawn.com isn't a reputable source, here's a number of other articles covering it: https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/03/09/safe-drinking-water/ https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/03/09/safe-drinking-wa... http://nationalcourier.pk/editorial/pcrwr-report-eye-opener/ http://nationalcourier.pk/editorial/pcrwr-report-eye-opener/ This one has a slightly different focus, and also links to reports claiming the same agency has found contaminations in bottled water too: http://pakobserver.net/arsenic-detected-above-permissible-limit-in-drinking-water-pcrwr/ http://pakobserver.net/arsenic-detected-above-permissible-li... http://pakobserver.net/pcrwr-declares-11-mineral-water-brands-unsafe-report/ http://pakobserver.net/pcrwr-declares-11-mineral-water-brand... Here is the agency's actual report on Punjab province, with a quote below: http://pcrwr.gov.pk/images/document/Water%20Quality/Water%20Suply%20Schemes%20Punjab%20Report.pdf http://pcrwr.gov.pk/images/document/Water%20Quality/Water%20... "The outcome of the survey conducted in the domains of 21 districts of the Punjab province, has revealed that water supply schemes are providing piped water supply for drinking purposes to meet household needs and for other multiple uses to an enumerated population of 19.017 million persons on 2408 surveyed water schemes. The survey has however, summed up that the performance of these schemes in terms of providing water in an adequate quantity and of safe quality, is extremely poor. This inability and inefficiency may be scaled from the fact that 35 percent of the schemes are presently not functioning. As a result, nearly 61 percent of the total enumerated population remains unserved by the water supply schemes. More alarming situation is that 88 percent of the functional schemes are providing unsafe drinking water to the consumers. It is also notable that, on province basis, the average water charges per scheme figure out to Rs. 64 per month. "
      - meric 9y ago
        Ok apparently I have been served unsafe drinking water. "For Pakistan’s majority, the main source of drinking water is groundwater. The most common instrument for extracting groundwater in rural areas are the hand pump and the motor pump. Hand pumps and motor pumps together provide 61 percent of households with drinking water; in rural areas this percentage rises up to 70. " http://nation.com.pk/blogs/13-Jun-2015/provision-of-safe-drinking-water-a-new-challenge-for-pakistan http://nation.com.pk/blogs/13-Jun-2015/provision-of-safe-dri... "In 2015, 91% of the population had access to an "improved" water supply.[15][16] This was 94% of the population in urban areas and 90% of the population in rural areas." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in...
        vidarh 9y ago
        Note that the point was not to criticise Pakistan - it seems like they are putting in quite an effort to modernise the systems. It's just that lot of these things look better on the surface and so are easy to underestimate the seriousness of the challenges. E.g. if you have a well or running water, and no alternative, you use it, because no water is far worse than bad water. And most of the time chances are it'll be ok. That makes it easy to conclude that it's probably safe even when there are flaws in the supply that can quickly render it unsafe or that makes it unsafe for sustained consumption. E.g. arsenic leaking into the supply won't kill you from a drink here and there - arsenic is difficult to kill with, because too high concentrations makes you puke it up - but sustained ingestion of smaller doses may have severe and lasting health effect and may ultimately kill you. (Arsenic is "interesting" in that a lot of arsenic contaminated water from pumped wells in developing countries is a result of inadequate testing in the rush of upgrading water sources from surface sources prone to bacterial contamination - as such, a lot of those pumped sources may in fact still represent an improvement, but in some cases also still represents a severe health risk) Overall there's a great deal of progress in securing basic safe water supply. We're just not there yet. Even many developed countries regularly run into water supply issues.
CamperBob2 9y ago
Nobody's expecting Eritrea to put a satellite in orbit. Worth pointing out that Ghana just did. If we waited until we "solve all our problems here at home," as the GP suggests, we'd still be calling to each other from neighboring trees in a jungle somewhere.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
  Slightly pedantic but it's also worth pointing out that Ghana basically used Japanese technology, academic resources and equipment to launch the satellite.
  - imron 9y ago
    So what you're saying is, if the US or someone else develops amazing new space telescope technology, Ghana will eventually be able to buy it from them instead of the Japanese.
gnaritas 9y ago
> It's been nearly 100 years since anyone struggled with that in the West. You have go to be joking.
- ExactoKnight 9y ago
  You can nitpick the exceptions, but his general point about affluent living standards existing for 100 years in the West for most people is true.
  - gnaritas 9y ago
    Anyone does not mean most, you may infer he meant something different but I prefer responding to what people actually say rather than what I think they meant as I'm not a mind reader and neither is anyone else and much disagreement comes from not listening to others words because you incorrectly think you know what they're trying to say. Tons of people (tens of millions) in the west continue to struggle with basic life needs, poverty is not remotely a solved problem in the west and he quite literally said it was.
  - andrepd 9y ago
    What is most? Is it more than 50%? Then maybe, but certainly not for 100 years. Or is it the vast majority? Because GP did say "anyone" in his post. Then I'd like to quote: Almost every fourth person in the EU still experiences at least one of the three forms of poverty or social exclusion. Monetary poverty is the most widespread form of poverty, affecting 17.3 % of EU residents in 2015. Severe material deprivation and very low work intensity follow, affecting 8.1 % of the EU residents and 10.6 % of EU citizens aged 0 to 59, respectively. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Europe_2020_indicators_-_poverty_and_social_exclusion http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...
  - hueving 9y ago
    If it were an exception, we wouldn't be having a debate about healthcare coverage in the US.
    - 9y ago
andrepd 9y ago
>It's been nearly 100 years since anyone struggled with that in the West. The privilege is palpable. That's almost insulting.

meric 9y ago

Yes even most people in Pakistan/India have access to those, plus broadband internet. Yes I've been there.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sumedh 9y ago
> Yes even most people in Pakistan/India have access to those, plus broadband internet. Yes I've been there. Indian here, lot of people in metro cities dont have clean water. Most middle class and rich people use water filter to clean the water in their house. Forget the villages.
- meric 9y ago
  Oh well I stayed in Pakistan cities and villages and farms and there's clean water, housing and mobile broadband... Sorry to hear the state in India - I incorrectly assumed they were ahead due to higher GDP per capita.
  - vidarh 9y ago
    From https://www.dawn.com/news/1319157 https://www.dawn.com/news/1319157 "ISLAMABAD: Eighty-four per cent of the population does not have access to safe drinking water in a country where commercial banks posted windfall profits exceeding Rs475 billion in three years, the Senate was told on Tuesday. Quoting a study, Provision of Safe Drinking Water, conducted by the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), Minister for Science and Technology Rana Tanvir Hussain said only 72pc of water supply schemes were found to be functional, and 84pc of those had supplied water that was not fit for consumption." This article was published March this year. Maybe the report in question was alarmist, I don't know. In case dawn.com isn't a reputable source, here's a number of other articles covering it: https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/03/09/safe-drinking-water/ https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/03/09/safe-drinking-wa... http://nationalcourier.pk/editorial/pcrwr-report-eye-opener/ http://nationalcourier.pk/editorial/pcrwr-report-eye-opener/ This one has a slightly different focus, and also links to reports claiming the same agency has found contaminations in bottled water too: http://pakobserver.net/arsenic-detected-above-permissible-limit-in-drinking-water-pcrwr/ http://pakobserver.net/arsenic-detected-above-permissible-li... http://pakobserver.net/pcrwr-declares-11-mineral-water-brands-unsafe-report/ http://pakobserver.net/pcrwr-declares-11-mineral-water-brand... Here is the agency's actual report on Punjab province, with a quote below: http://pcrwr.gov.pk/images/document/Water%20Quality/Water%20Suply%20Schemes%20Punjab%20Report.pdf http://pcrwr.gov.pk/images/document/Water%20Quality/Water%20... "The outcome of the survey conducted in the domains of 21 districts of the Punjab province, has revealed that water supply schemes are providing piped water supply for drinking purposes to meet household needs and for other multiple uses to an enumerated population of 19.017 million persons on 2408 surveyed water schemes. The survey has however, summed up that the performance of these schemes in terms of providing water in an adequate quantity and of safe quality, is extremely poor. This inability and inefficiency may be scaled from the fact that 35 percent of the schemes are presently not functioning. As a result, nearly 61 percent of the total enumerated population remains unserved by the water supply schemes. More alarming situation is that 88 percent of the functional schemes are providing unsafe drinking water to the consumers. It is also notable that, on province basis, the average water charges per scheme figure out to Rs. 64 per month. "
    - meric 9y ago
      Ok apparently I have been served unsafe drinking water. "For Pakistan’s majority, the main source of drinking water is groundwater. The most common instrument for extracting groundwater in rural areas are the hand pump and the motor pump. Hand pumps and motor pumps together provide 61 percent of households with drinking water; in rural areas this percentage rises up to 70. " http://nation.com.pk/blogs/13-Jun-2015/provision-of-safe-drinking-water-a-new-challenge-for-pakistan http://nation.com.pk/blogs/13-Jun-2015/provision-of-safe-dri... "In 2015, 91% of the population had access to an "improved" water supply.[15][16] This was 94% of the population in urban areas and 90% of the population in rural areas." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in...
      - vidarh 9y ago
        Note that the point was not to criticise Pakistan - it seems like they are putting in quite an effort to modernise the systems. It's just that lot of these things look better on the surface and so are easy to underestimate the seriousness of the challenges. E.g. if you have a well or running water, and no alternative, you use it, because no water is far worse than bad water. And most of the time chances are it'll be ok. That makes it easy to conclude that it's probably safe even when there are flaws in the supply that can quickly render it unsafe or that makes it unsafe for sustained consumption. E.g. arsenic leaking into the supply won't kill you from a drink here and there - arsenic is difficult to kill with, because too high concentrations makes you puke it up - but sustained ingestion of smaller doses may have severe and lasting health effect and may ultimately kill you. (Arsenic is "interesting" in that a lot of arsenic contaminated water from pumped wells in developing countries is a result of inadequate testing in the rush of upgrading water sources from surface sources prone to bacterial contamination - as such, a lot of those pumped sources may in fact still represent an improvement, but in some cases also still represents a severe health risk) Overall there's a great deal of progress in securing basic safe water supply. We're just not there yet. Even many developed countries regularly run into water supply issues.

CamperBob2 9y ago

Nobody's expecting Eritrea to put a satellite in orbit. Worth pointing out that Ghana just did. If we waited until we "solve all our problems here at home," as the GP suggests, we'd still be calling to each other from neighboring trees in a jungle somewhere.

SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
Slightly pedantic but it's also worth pointing out that Ghana basically used Japanese technology, academic resources and equipment to launch the satellite.
- imron 9y ago
  So what you're saying is, if the US or someone else develops amazing new space telescope technology, Ghana will eventually be able to buy it from them instead of the Japanese.

gnaritas 9y ago

> It's been nearly 100 years since anyone struggled with that in the West. You have go to be joking.

ExactoKnight 9y ago
You can nitpick the exceptions, but his general point about affluent living standards existing for 100 years in the West for most people is true.
- gnaritas 9y ago
  Anyone does not mean most, you may infer he meant something different but I prefer responding to what people actually say rather than what I think they meant as I'm not a mind reader and neither is anyone else and much disagreement comes from not listening to others words because you incorrectly think you know what they're trying to say. Tons of people (tens of millions) in the west continue to struggle with basic life needs, poverty is not remotely a solved problem in the west and he quite literally said it was.
- andrepd 9y ago
  What is most? Is it more than 50%? Then maybe, but certainly not for 100 years. Or is it the vast majority? Because GP did say "anyone" in his post. Then I'd like to quote: Almost every fourth person in the EU still experiences at least one of the three forms of poverty or social exclusion. Monetary poverty is the most widespread form of poverty, affecting 17.3 % of EU residents in 2015. Severe material deprivation and very low work intensity follow, affecting 8.1 % of the EU residents and 10.6 % of EU citizens aged 0 to 59, respectively. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Europe_2020_indicators_-_poverty_and_social_exclusion http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...
- hueving 9y ago
  If it were an exception, we wouldn't be having a debate about healthcare coverage in the US.
  - 9y ago

andrepd 9y ago

>It's been nearly 100 years since anyone struggled with that in the West. The privilege is palpable. That's almost insulting.