I am not apposed to cellphones but I think they are way over worked. Yes business people have a use for them, although business existed for many years with out them. I have a land lined mostly for my internet ( now there is a real necessity ) and the only important calls I get now days are doctors or pharmacy confirming something… It didn’t look like those people had businesses that required a cell phone TomC
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Tom, one advantage of a third world is that they skipped old technology. I doubt that they ever had a land line phone, desk top computer or internet line connection. But now with the cell smart/phone they can have it all.
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don’t cellphones need cell towers who powers them ?
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Sure. But a few towers cover a lot of ground that telephone poles would have been use. At least that’s the story I’ve read.
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Give the poor a fish and they will be hungry again…
But ; teach them fishing… they will be good forever…
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Jeff; I accept what you said about third world not ever having our convenience, But they also are very poor. Average daily income is probably measured in cents not dollars. If I wanted, I could pay the $50 to $100 a month for one, but how do they? Some do-gooder organization give them the phones and towers? They are more in need of other things The only poor place I have ever been is Baja California so maybe I don’t have a good perspective of what they are like;TomC
Hi Tom, I think you are forgetting that we pay for phones what the company thinks we can afford not the true cost. I looked up on a few sites that penetration on cel phones is over 70% whatever that means. I heard a report on cbc radio that cell are second only to food in terms of spending. Mostly older ones with text and voice only. Landlines account for less then 3% of users. Still if you can afford a phone you think you could afford even a 5 watt solar charger for it…
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It seems that there is a good bit of confusion these days about what are NEEDS and what are WANTS.
I recall a story my aunt told me about an arrangement between her and my mother.
My parents lived in town and dad worked withing walking distance of home, while my aunts husband had to drive some distance to work with their only car. Left her stuck alone out in the country. If she needed bread or milk etc from the store she would write a postcard to my mother, Yep it would arrive the same afternoon. My mother would walk over and get the car, pick up the needed items and take them out to my aunts home.
Imagine any woman accepting that today! No sir, they must have a car at their disposal at all times and likely make several trips a day into town for some small item. Even then they would rather call their man at work to go at lunch and bring it to them so they didn’t have to miss their favorite soap.
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Andrew are you assuming that the men are any tougher?
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Whoa there, I didn’t mean to stir up gender bias, I think we are all pretty feeble compared with our counterparts of a century ago.
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yeah that was my point… we are all soft.
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Go look at the posting #28 by JO of that “Old Mule” posting. That was when men were men TomC
Tom, I pay about $10 a month for mine. Less than half the cost of a land line. I have no idea the cost in the third world. In some countries internet connection is free. Well, government provided so not really free.
Years ago my phone line got blown down and I sucked it up in my brush hog … twice… Boy oh boy, that was a pain to cut and unwind. 
I figured the phone company would be pissed and charge an arm and a leg to fix so I just canceled it. Saved a money that I can now spend on suction gas… 
Nice thing is that the cell phone doesn’t work well out here so I save even more. 
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I really appreciate what they’re doing. Just last week I read that in Africa, deaths due to poor indoor air quality from cooking over a wood, kerosene or dung fire stove surpasses those from Malaria and HIV combined! Years ago, at a David Bloom small scale ethanol conference geared toward local ethanol production for alcohol stoves, David said the World Health Organization said the number one cause of death for those five and under is once again, poor indoor air quality from mama cooking over wood.
Firewood is the number one reason for global deforestation. Not 2x4s and not paper. Firewood.
It’s a stretch to wrap my mind around some of this but I do believe gasification, ethanol, solar and methane are all tools to help.
Well . . . now that you’ve all had a swing at this. Here’s my take on it.
The GOOD future that keeps getting shuffled to one side is redundant, stable one-house, one-person, one family at a time energy bootstapping.
E.F. Schumacher nailed this way back in the late 60’s, early 70’s.
Appropriate energy technology at a human dimension scale. And he came from a top-down central made, distributed out Coal Board background.
He then flipped this around to each person having a value making skill to be able to make/do for others to be aable to get the Caesar’s-Must-make needful things. Like LED light bulbs. Cast metals water pumps. Refrigerators. Washing machines.
Each person would have a single cylinder engine power source. For all uses. He was trying to get us all to run our lives on 4-5 horsepower equivalent (12-15 manslave equivalents) not 20,000 watt services dependencies (40-60 manslave equivalents that dino/nuke/bigHydro has allowed for some).
So just how could the 1st world raised, edu-ma-cated, still urban, personal cake and pizza eaters ever come up with sustainable solutions for those not yet top-down dependencies addicted?
They can not with out first spreading their addictions.
A village grid system requires very specialization of tech-understandings and labor divisions STILL.
Keeps just perpetuating the social stratifications problems holding us all back.
Bluntly. These power-pallet systems will need ethics converted, urban-Berkeley-trained, bought-in tech-Priests to make them useable. Then financial-bookkeeping-Priests to bill and collect the Ceasar-geld to pay the tech-Priests for their specialized knowledge’s. Then Security personnel specialists to protect the grid hardware and the different now stratified out tech-Priest classes.
Really fellows the way to really sort out the wortiness of proposed up endevors is to just really, really dig into the lives of the expusers/promoters.
Are they actually daily living and using what they propose for others?
Top end Red Cross, NRA and other “churches” Priests do not live like us “commons”.
Christ DID.
Budda DID.
Gandi DID.
Wayne Kieth does.
Gary Gillmore does.
KVL in Thailand does.
David Baillie does.
The Windward folk do.
I try. Oh, I try.
The Berkeley folks stopped trying the individual bootstrapping up way and now into top-downing “we know better for you”.
How is this different than AL Gore, Sean Penn, Bill and Melinda Gates dino-fuels jetting around the world promoting what they all do not actually personally live daily, eh?
I see no differences from the top-down ProgressiveSocialist to the top-down “trust us” Energy companies except the investor/Energy companies are honest enough to say they are about the money.
Ha! I give one point for honesty. And continue to buy, some (as little as possible) their products. Analog still capable flip phone ( without GPS!) here with still a wired in phone service. Belt and suspenders guy I am. Pay more. For More - roboustness.
Top-Down solutions either dollar by dollar, gallon by gallon; or suffocating wet-blanket regulations and restrictions sucks your Life minutes and Freedoms away.
Steve Unruh
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SU; You write in such a fashion, that I use to think, " what the hell is he talking about?". Lately I am beginning to understand you. That is scarring me. No what you say, but the fact that I am understanding. Keep it up.TomC
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Steve, I’m in full agreement. Appropriate technology is the key. A few years ago I saw a TV report on Warren Buffet’s sun. He, too, is quite the philanthropist. He found that everything is great until the tech guy leave and the locals are stuck with broken equipment. As a result, he’s helping those in Central America farm better by working with the techniques they are already using and improving on them.
I had a friend doing economic development in one of the Stans. You know, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Inoaguynamedstan. Not many crops work there other than poppies for heroin. But, they could grow peanuts! So, they got them to growing nuts and even put in a nice, new peanut butter making machine. Next trip, they noticed it was in the corner, covered by a tarp. Did it break? Nope. What was wrong? Nobody around there likes peanut butter.
Likewise, some other friends work with an orphanage in Nicaragua. They set them up into aquaculture. Tanks for fish, shallow trays for leafy veggies, pumps to recirculate. They hired a guy full time to run the thing but he never could get it. He couldn’t wrap his mind around working now to grow food to feed the orphanage and then sell at the market. Folks in other countries don’t automatically think like us.
My dream is to help missionaries and others make the most of what they have through efficiency and alternative energy. But, it has to be bone simple before I’m going to offer it. Teachers, pastors and doctors are sharp but we need to make it straightforward enough for them to use and eventually teach others. By the way, I have a URL reserved but nothing on it right now. Someday I hope to share stuff on www.missionarytechsupport.org.
So, in the meantime, if I can get stuff to work, I feel confident I can teach others. In time…
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@SteveUnruh is this the book you were talking about?
Small is beautiful
This is a link to the PDF
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://terebess.hu/keletkultinfo/Schumacher-Small-is-Beautiful.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwiG5eSc-tfKAhUCvRQKHTw1AnoQFggaMAA&usg=AFQjCNF_z8uZT6XGBX8pkK4-A3afZa_ZEA&sig2=fFJE39QwZZMj7BcM54xWxg
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