3 ms·

Your comment is absolutely true and yet the lightest shade of gray

rbanffy 4y ago
It may even be $1 on average, this doesn’t change that it’s not $1 everywhere and it’s not easily available everywhere.
hackerlight 4y ago
The comment isn't true because political dysfunction is only the proximate cause but a lack of cheap decentralized technology is also a cause. The problem can be solved either politically via functioning government, or technologically via innovations like this. It is therefore both a political and technological problem. Saying it's just a political problem isn't accurate.
- upsidesinclude 4y ago
  > Fresh water cost $1 per cubic metre. The availability of fresh drinking water in some countries is a political problem not a technological one. Your logic is not sound. A perfect anologue is the resent post regarding famine. Famine is a political failure. Yes, certainly, technology could prevent famine. If everyone on earth had a synthesizer to generate food then it wouldn't be an issue! So it must be a lack of technology keeping people hungry. Or, hear me out, what if the politicians stopped starving people to death through failures in governance ?
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    It is sound if the technological solution is easier or of similar difficulty to the political solution. Famine has no technological silver bullet, but water purification might.
    - upsidesinclude 4y ago
      You're leveraging a lot on that "if" and downvoting my comment. Almost exclusively in the modern world, famine is caused by politicians. So the answer lies in removing the cause of the problem. Developing technology to counteract the cause of famine, a cause that should solve the problems of food distribution....? It makes very little sense. Merely convincing the populous that food could be in short supply has caused people to hoard food, thereby making a short supply. This caused people to starve to death while the hoarders looked on the starvation as evidence of the need to hoard food. Technology cannot correct stupidity

It may even be $1 on average, this doesn’t change that it’s not $1 everywhere and it’s not easily available everywhere.

The comment isn't true because political dysfunction is only the proximate cause but a lack of cheap decentralized technology is also a cause. The problem can be solved either politically via functioning government, or technologically via innovations like this. It is therefore both a political and technological problem. Saying it's just a political problem isn't accurate.

upsidesinclude 4y ago
> Fresh water cost $1 per cubic metre. The availability of fresh drinking water in some countries is a political problem not a technological one. Your logic is not sound. A perfect anologue is the resent post regarding famine. Famine is a political failure. Yes, certainly, technology could prevent famine. If everyone on earth had a synthesizer to generate food then it wouldn't be an issue! So it must be a lack of technology keeping people hungry. Or, hear me out, what if the politicians stopped starving people to death through failures in governance ?
- hackerlight 4y ago
  It is sound if the technological solution is easier or of similar difficulty to the political solution. Famine has no technological silver bullet, but water purification might.
  - upsidesinclude 4y ago
    You're leveraging a lot on that "if" and downvoting my comment. Almost exclusively in the modern world, famine is caused by politicians. So the answer lies in removing the cause of the problem. Developing technology to counteract the cause of famine, a cause that should solve the problems of food distribution....? It makes very little sense. Merely convincing the populous that food could be in short supply has caused people to hoard food, thereby making a short supply. This caused people to starve to death while the hoarders looked on the starvation as evidence of the need to hoard food. Technology cannot correct stupidity