Re:An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry
by lukeschlather on Monday December 19, 2011 @02:03PM
(#3370679)
You're advocating a complete overhaul rather than iterative improvement. Complete overhauls are nice, but iterative improvements tend to work better.
Oh, you're scrounging for rags and ash to catch period blood? I have a machine here you can buy that will let you make napkins from tree bark. I'll even show you how to use it. That's not a subsidy, and it is very much improving the technology at their disposal in a very intentionally iterative way. This isn't a subsidy.
The same goes for teaching farmers sustainable practices. Much of the developing world's issues with hunger are due to poor land management, not a lack of technology. Buffer zones to prevent erosion and good irrigation need to be subsidized in the short term, but in the long term they're going to be self-sustaining.
In general, you're talking about this as if it's a straight giveaway. It's not. It's coming in and saying "you are having health issues/money issues/food issues because you are doing x, y, and z wrong. Here's how you can do it better." Some technology is definitely helpful. But western-style factory farming isn't the obvious solution for subsistence farmers, not by a long shot.
Oh, you're scrounging for rags and ash to catch period blood? I have a machine here you can buy that will let you make napkins from tree bark. I'll even show you how to use it. That's not a subsidy, and it is very much improving the technology at their disposal in a very intentionally iterative way. This isn't a subsidy.
The same goes for teaching farmers sustainable practices. Much of the developing world's issues with hunger are due to poor land management, not a lack of technology. Buffer zones to prevent erosion and good irrigation need to be subsidized in the short term, but in the long term they're going to be self-sustaining.
In general, you're talking about this as if it's a straight giveaway. It's not. It's coming in and saying "you are having health issues/money issues/food issues because you are doing x, y, and z wrong. Here's how you can do it better." Some technology is definitely helpful. But western-style factory farming isn't the obvious solution for subsistence farmers, not by a long shot.