Super typhoon Haiyan slams the Philippines

[Aeson]

What is most in need of development right now, that we as individuals can help with? Besides storm aid. I think you (was it you?) pointed out Heifer International in the quake thread, is there something you'd recommend for water or power assistance?

It depends on the scale.

Large scale investment would be roads, irrigation, sanitary water systems.

On a smaller scale, modernizing farms and some specific industries that can be profitable here. Training is important. (I could use training myself. My dad helps me a lot, but hasn't been able to come over yet.) Greenhouses (or even just rain shelters), good seed, soil enrichment programs, tractors. Anything dealing with coir manufacture would do well here. Methane production from green waste, combined with garbage collection/recycling.

I think all of these can be profitable investments and it would be good to approach them as business (heavy on training) rather than charity. There's probably a lot of others that I'm just not familiar enough with. Businesses here have to be majority owned by Filipinos, but that's easy enough to deal with if the intent of the business is "building an economy" rather than just "producing wealth to ship away". Having operator/worker ownership is most likely to help make the business successful anyways as long as there is adequate training.

Currently most of what's done is either (largely) extractive business or non-self-sustaining charity.

Most important is to push wages higher in anything that is done. Since any well funded and modernized business should have a big edge in efficiency on what's already on the ground, I think there's an opportunity to push wages higher while still being profitable.

The higher incomes go, the more opportunities open up.

[Aeson]

All good points most likely, but none say anything about what happens as developing world populations grow affluent enough to want iPhones, air conditioning, cars, travel, etc.

We will all have to consume a bit less low quality garbage. Not as much as you probably think, since already consumption of natural resources is very high (sometimes higher) for poor people than rich. Environmental damage is often much worse. Certainly an environmentally conscious rich person can have less impact on the environment than a poor person who can't afford to even consider the environment.

To the extent that it will limit consumption of physical resources, it will force manufacturing into higher quality goods and shift more of the economy to services and digital products. This isn't a bad thing IMO. Justin Beiber can sell another billion MP3s for roughly no impact on the environment. (Probably a reduction in impact even, since now everyone is getting those songs for free anyways, but via pirated CDs from inefficient manufacturers.)

If you look at the last 100 years what has been accomplished is extraordinary. We've hamstrung ourselves along the way though. We can do much better if the other half of humanity is allowed to participate. People are on average productive (economically). The technology already exists. The environmental damage of poor people's consumption is already happening. There's no point keeping half the world's population poor.

[Aeson]

Renewables are incredibly expensive. Coal, again, is cheap, relatively available and provides quite a bit of bang for your buck. Everyone who industrializes is going to build a coal first powerstation. Steps can only be skipped if the new technology is cheaper than the old one.

Which is why we should subsidize skipping steps via investment. We minimize the externalities, dramatically reduce long-term costs, and may even be profitable while doing so.

It's too late to do something like that with China or India since their domestic industry is entrenched (and would be fiercely protected). But there are still a lot of places around the world where in many industries there is little to no competition and our investment would be welcomed.

[Sava]

I don't think we should bother. Rising sea levels will solve our Philippine question

[Aeson]

Poverty will always exist. This is a fact. Improving standards of living isn't going to eliminate poverty. What it will do is shrink it considerably.

The future can't be a fact. It is certainly possible to entirely eliminate poverty. (ie. all people with access to adequate food, sanitary water, shelter.) How close we get to that is entirely a matter of how much will we (as humanity) have to achieve it at this point. There are no technical limitations, only self-imposed ones (including war, crime, and indifference).

I get your frustration with the pace - but again - the solution isn't 'doing it quicker'. Germany did it fast - they got totalitarianism in Hitler. Russia did the same and look what they got. Japan did the same, and what did they get? China, etc. Capital accumulation by Filipinos and investment is the only way that you'll get lasting change in the Phils without some of the terrible consequences that 'doing it fast', brings about. The model is India, not Russia.

None of those examples are a result of industrialization, even if industrialization happened concurrently with them. We can see this because there are other examples of industrialization which happened without Communism or Fascism controlling them.

What did factor into at least some of those political revolutions and the resulting atrocities occurring was a great amount of oppression and poverty/inequality. That's how populations reach a breaking point where they accept violent revolution because they've lost hope in the problems being solved through the current system.

Having large numbers of people in poverty without hope is the best way to ensure instability for the future. We'd be better of spending much of our defense budget (especially the useless war funding part of it) in eliminating poverty, even from a safety standpoint.

Agreed. But Filipinos must be taught how to run things on their own. Just helping without the training won't really improve things longterm. We bumped into a bit of it when my father died - things we had to learn and pickup, that he hadn't taught us.

This isn't a problem with nationality as a delineation. Anytime one person with experience hands something over to someone with less experience there are likely to be hiccups.

However, with training is always much better than without it. With funding to do things right is always better than without it.

[Aeson]

I don't think we should bother. Rising sea levels will solve our Philippine question

It'll take care of all those liberal havens that are the coastal US cities too. Leaving the God-fearing rednecks in flyover country in charge

[Dinner]

Here's the French guy, Jean Pain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHRvwNJRNag

[Aeson]

Here's the French guy, Jean Pain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHRvwNJRNag

Very cool

[Sava]

It'll take care of all those liberal havens that are the coastal US cities too. Leaving the God-fearing rednecks in flyover country in charge

It'll wash all the piss off the streets of New York.

[giblets]

I don't think we should bother. Rising sea levels will solve our Philippine question

Unfortunately the highest point in the Philippines is over 9000 feet above sea level.

[MikeH]

Renewables are incredibly expensive. Coal, again, is cheap, relatively available and provides quite a bit of bang for your buck. Everyone who industrializes is going to build a coal first powerstation. Steps can only be skipped if the new technology is cheaper than the old one.

Things like a coal power station and power grid to distribute it are expensive to build and maintain and require cohesive national infrastructure but for relatively low start up costs you can start sticking up a windmill or solar panel up and power a house or small village. People can start to organise these things themselves without relying on a central government.

[Sava]

Unfortunately the highest point in the Philippines is over 9000 feet above sea level.

Maybe earthquakes can deal with that.

[The Mad Monk]

It'll take care of all those liberal havens that are the coastal US cities too. Leaving the God-fearing rednecks in flyover country in charge

We God-fearing rednecks can live with that.

[notyoueither]

We will all have to consume a bit less low quality garbage. Not as much as you probably think, since already consumption of natural resources is very high (sometimes higher) for poor people than rich.

Can you provide a source for this claim?

Environmental damage is often much worse. Certainly an environmentally conscious rich person can have less impact on the environment than a poor person who can't afford to even consider the environment.

Maybe when thinking only about direct effect on the environment, like from burning wood for fuel, but what about when indirect things are taken into account? Factories and power to make and transport the stuff that's consumed, power and infrastructure for employment, etc?

Maybe a rich person who lives off the grid, drives a Tesla, does not travel, avoids most comsumption of anything unneccesary for life... but this is not the habit of most people in developed economies nor is it within the means of the average person. I'm also doubting that will be how more affluent people in emerging economies will behave.

To the extent that it will limit consumption of physical resources, it will force manufacturing into higher quality goods and shift more of the economy to services and digital products. This isn't a bad thing IMO. Justin Beiber can sell another billion MP3s for roughly no impact on the environment. (Probably a reduction in impact even, since now everyone is getting those songs for free anyways, but via pirated CDs from inefficient manufacturers.)

If you look at the last 100 years what has been accomplished is extraordinary. We've hamstrung ourselves along the way though. We can do much better if the other half of humanity is allowed to participate. People are on average productive (economically). The technology already exists. The environmental damage of poor people's consumption is already happening. There's no point keeping half the world's population poor.

Sure, but we'll still be faced with the problems that an increasing population of affluent humans on the planet will introduce.

[Ben Kenobi]

Maybe when thinking only about direct effect on the environment, like from burning wood for fuel, but what about when indirect things are taken into account? Factories and power to make and transport the stuff that's consumed, power and infrastructure for employment, etc?

It's true - environmentalism is very expensive. Poorer nations can't afford it. You have to be wealthy first.