democratic access to electricity and clean water

just in from cnn...

Segway creator unveils his next act -- Inventor Dean Kamen wants to put entrepreneurs to work bringing water and electricity to the world's poor.

-joseph

there are some relevant ideas...

1. The Corporation
2. Confessions of an Economic Hitman
3. The Walmart Effect
4. Hegemony Or Survival (by Noam Chomsky)
5. Maps of Time

And if this works...

Like lending to a friend -> Prosper.com

with micro-credit for people who want to augment their
small businesses in third world countries... it can potentially
change the world for the better... the key is to observe what
happens and optimize for the percentage of transactions that
are good...

-joseph

the invisible hand vs. the benevolent heart

If Adam Smith were alive today, he would be shocked at how his Invisible Hand metaphor had been bestowed unto a self-centered body of a corporation. Lacking a heart, a corporation blindly fights for its "life" like a Darwinian virus. Since its concept of survival is derived from the simple equations for the maximization of profits (at all costs), the powerless poor majority of the world remain victimized.

But like the ants in the movie, "A Bug's Life", the poor will realize that power does not have to be derived from wealth. Before profits and money ever were invented, TRUST, RESPECT, SOLIDARITY existed and were the primary sources of strength for the early tribes.

Those same sources of power still exist today.

It is about time to replace the Invisible Hand metaphor with the Benevolent Heart metaphor.

-joseph

On Profit and Happiness

All say that the root of all evil is money, but I will argue that it is the amoral pursuit of profit, which deepens the chasm of economic segregation in our world, that creates the personal justifications to cause evil. Unchosen poverty leads to desperation and desperation makes morality irrelevant.

We are told that the pursuit of happiness is the goal of life. I say, the goal in life is to care. To care enough to take action, to care enough to wake up, to care enough to listen, to care enough to be involved.

-Joseph