-18 karma · joined September 14, 2014
Perhaps these pieces of wisdom could offer some guide:
"When it rains it pours"
"Get it while the gettin' is good."
"Waste not, want not."
To me, rainwater capture can apply anywhere with a roof, a sky, and a mind to build cisterns.
As that fitting expression goes, "when it rains it pours".
As another fitting expression goes, "get it while the gettin' is good."
And yet another piece of wisdom, "waste not, want not."
* http://techrights.org/2014/08/11/rich-at-public-expence/
* https://www.popularresistance.org/protesters-want-gates-foun...
* http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/12/gates-foundat...
* http://www.thenation.com/article/181342/how-gates-foundation...
This is only a small part of a bigger story.
Without going into detail, if you look underneath thin, shiny, white veneers of people with exploitative, corrupt histories, you'll find worse in their present day actions. Today, a fortune can be useful for "shaping public opinion". A thoughtful person with a good memory can see past a fake smile and a Blah Blah Foundation name by reading about what is happening in this world through reports by self-directed journalists who work for reasons beyond currency units.
Yes, I am a helper. And, I do appreciate your push to do more and to ground this discussion in practicalities. People around our planet need water purification today; and we may need simple, effective tools as well if winds shift.
Pointing out a solution that anyone can build for less than a quarter of a day's worth of work should give you some indication about what's possible without extravagant numbers of currency units extracted from people through lies, manipulations, and other self-degrading acts.
Hopefully, this site, being for hackers, is where we can dismantle our broken systems and build sustainable ones in their place. Ideologies are systems too, just like water purifiers.
We should also note: if we want these technologies, we need to develop and deploy them by and for ourselves. This man will only lift a finger for humanity if it brings his hand closer to our necks.
Look, we would be very happy to give up all our slaves if we had the same conditions you have up there. Because slave ownership is only the optimal economic choice under very specific land-ownership conditions.If you have not very many people on a lot of land, the only way you can get them to work for you is at the point of a gun. Because access to land means self-sufficiency. If, on the other hand, you have a lot of people, and you've got land title all tied up, they have no choice but to work for you for whatever pittance. So, frankly, I'd rather have it like you do, because you don't have to pay for them when they get sick. You don't have to pay for their food when they're infants. You don't have to pay for them in their old age. So, frankly, you can offer them whatever pittance you want, and if they don't take it, you'll hire somebody else.
It made a lot of sense to me. Access to land is everything.
And, by the way, land ownership doesn't exist. I don't own this land here. What actually happens is, my mom owns a piece of paper that we all agree means that she owns this land. But she doesn't own any land, Warehauser doesn't any land. Sierra Pacific doesn't own any land, the US government doesn't own any land. They have pieces of paper that we all agree mean that they own the land. But what there is, is there's land, and there's starving people, and there's people who are paying money to live on land that other people have pieces of paper that say that they own, but it's all a shared hallucination.
Relevant Revolution OS snippet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw8K460vx1c&t=6m40s
I find it a very mean mentality from its operators.
Hopefully they'll find more hope in humanity. H