Wow, and sometimes we wonder at the death toll of the earthquakes in South America and Asia (Turkey, too) and dismiss it as due to bad building practices resulting from corruption.
Oh, it's the bad building and corruption, too. Something like a 8.5 and up a lot is going to get trashed, but the lousy construction makes it far worse.
Few years back saw a test of a system for stone/rock/adobe structures to reinforce them; basically a set of light steel straps tightened around them. In tests it made a world of difference in keeping such structures from collapsing, and it's cheap, but I don't think any of the countries it was intended for ever bothered. With a lot of them, probably inshallah. And a lot of the others either don't care or just don't want to bother.
The third world cesspool philosophy of fatalism "Your fate is written on your forehead" bullshit is Mother Gaia's attempt to dip the World's most ignorant and backward our of her gene pool. And we, in our misguided pity for the unfortunates, keep trying to shove 'em back in by sending money and aid. Look at Haiti, billions in aid and all of it wasted, utterly wasted. Things would be better if we sent them tons of cholera infected blankets, it would be over more quickly. It's kind of like a husband shoveling money in the frond door, and his wife heaving more out the back window with a teaspoon.
With a national average IQ somewhere in the range between high 60s and low 70s, coupled with a government and bureaucracy which plunders any attempts by the population to save up to buy equipment to mechanise their work...
Haiti is unlikely to break out of poverty any time soon.
National average IQ figures are listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_Global_Inequality#National_IQ_and_QHC_values
4 comments:
Wow, and sometimes we wonder at the death toll of the earthquakes in South America and Asia (Turkey, too) and dismiss it as due to bad building practices resulting from corruption.
Oh, it's the bad building and corruption, too. Something like a 8.5 and up a lot is going to get trashed, but the lousy construction makes it far worse.
Few years back saw a test of a system for stone/rock/adobe structures to reinforce them; basically a set of light steel straps tightened around them. In tests it made a world of difference in keeping such structures from collapsing, and it's cheap, but I don't think any of the countries it was intended for ever bothered. With a lot of them, probably inshallah. And a lot of the others either don't care or just don't want to bother.
The third world cesspool philosophy of fatalism "Your fate is written on your forehead" bullshit is Mother Gaia's attempt to dip the World's most ignorant and backward our of her gene pool. And we, in our misguided pity for the unfortunates, keep trying to shove 'em back in by sending money and aid. Look at Haiti, billions in aid and all of it wasted, utterly wasted. Things would be better if we sent them tons of cholera infected blankets, it would be over more quickly. It's kind of like a husband shoveling money in the frond door, and his wife heaving more out the back window with a teaspoon.
With a national average IQ somewhere in the range between high 60s and low 70s, coupled with a government and bureaucracy which plunders any attempts by the population to save up to buy equipment to mechanise their work...
Haiti is unlikely to break out of poverty any time soon.
National average IQ figures are listed here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_Global_Inequality#National_IQ_and_QHC_values
Post a Comment