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I already know how to purify water. I go to Walmart and buy a replacement filter for my Britta pitcher. As for fixing famine, that I have no clue where to sta

by derekp7 13y ago

I already know how to purify water. I go to Walmart and buy a replacement filter for my Britta pitcher. As for fixing famine, that I have no clue where to start. However, I do know how to write code, and if I can take some of the money I've earned to buy one of theses "useless" devices which can also make me some money, maybe one of the engineers at that company can spend his paycheck to send his daughter to college, where she can study ways to fix these other problems you mentioned. In other words, read up on the economic theory called "guns and butter".

mkr-hn 13y ago
Consumer filters don't purify water. They remove a small number of contaminants common in wealthy countries.
Fomite 13y ago
Pure, clean water for most of the world is nowhere near a solved problem.
EliRivers 13y ago
As for fixing famine, that I have no clue where to start. Whilst there will always be localised crop failures and unlucky weather, true famine requires incompetent government; historically, either no effective government (through war or some other circumstance) or a government able and willing to enforce agricultural insanity. Peoples who have been farming for generations know about crop failure and unlucky weather; incompetent government is just plain stupid. Mao's famine, for example, despite the constant claims that it was really bad weather, was an endless cycle of stupid agricultural decisions, totalitarian enforcement of stupid decisions, a horrifically useless harvest reporting scheme, massive movement of people, refusal to give people stored food as they were starving, efforts to save face internationally, on and on in a perfect storm of government created famine. North Korean famine of the nineties; whilst it's hard to get data on government policy at the time, it seems that there was a move to implement utterly inappropriate terrace farming, which was subsequently disrupted (or indeed, washed away) by pretty normal rains, rendering those terraces useless and also causing new flooding (as the terraced fields use to be water absorbers and rain diffusers). Ethiopian famine of the eighties; civil war going on. Soviet famine of 1947; an awful lot like Mao's famine. On and on. Certainly in modern times; obviously there's a lot less explanation of the causes as one goes further back, and it is in the nature of incompetent government to blame the weather. I suppose what I'm saying is that to prevent famine, we need competent government.

by derekp7 13y ago

mkr-hn 13y ago

Consumer filters don't purify water. They remove a small number of contaminants common in wealthy countries.

Fomite 13y ago

Pure, clean water for most of the world is nowhere near a solved problem.

EliRivers 13y ago

As for fixing famine, that I have no clue where to start. Whilst there will always be localised crop failures and unlucky weather, true famine requires incompetent government; historically, either no effective government (through war or some other circumstance) or a government able and willing to enforce agricultural insanity. Peoples who have been farming for generations know about crop failure and unlucky weather; incompetent government is just plain stupid. Mao's famine, for example, despite the constant claims that it was really bad weather, was an endless cycle of stupid agricultural decisions, totalitarian enforcement of stupid decisions, a horrifically useless harvest reporting scheme, massive movement of people, refusal to give people stored food as they were starving, efforts to save face internationally, on and on in a perfect storm of government created famine. North Korean famine of the nineties; whilst it's hard to get data on government policy at the time, it seems that there was a move to implement utterly inappropriate terrace farming, which was subsequently disrupted (or indeed, washed away) by pretty normal rains, rendering those terraces useless and also causing new flooding (as the terraced fields use to be water absorbers and rain diffusers). Ethiopian famine of the eighties; civil war going on. Soviet famine of 1947; an awful lot like Mao's famine. On and on. Certainly in modern times; obviously there's a lot less explanation of the causes as one goes further back, and it is in the nature of incompetent government to blame the weather. I suppose what I'm saying is that to prevent famine, we need competent government.