Demotech/Learning from Poverty: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 09:43, 29 November 2006

Why

What bothers us most is that successfully participating in a rich society often creates little joy for its members. Notwithstanding the immense use as well as destruction of recourses. Notwithstanding the cheap labour of poor people that is abundantly made use of. What amazes us most is joy and merriness that we observe in the streets of poor countries. The lack of economic wealth in poor countries is often not a barrier to it’s people being happy in spite of a hundred fold lower income. As a research organization Demotech wants to explore the reasons why wealth does not necessarily bring happiness nor poverty necessarily lead to it’s lack. According to generally held economic beliefs this should not be the case. Demotech uses radical design to create economic conditions that differ from the norm. As such Demotech can execute action-research to determie the consequences when relatively advanced technologies become readily available to poor people without development of new infrastructure or education normally claimed to be a precursor.

How

The way in which the Rope Pump was successfully designed and introduced by Demotech may be repeated with other design initiatives. We want to learn what the right conditions for this work are. We want to find out if by this work the capacity for experiencing the joy of poor people can be enhanced. We want to find out if the interaction between joy and economy that seemed to be inverted can be corrected. We want to find out if a different economy based on a different technology can cure the lack of joy the present economy brings to the rich. From all the design initiatives taken in the past, we have a clue that poverty can be redesigned into a sustainable economy that offers more security, comfort and joy than is achieved even in a successful modern economy. Demotech research will be directed to give a firm base to this expectation and hope.

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 ==Why==
-What bothers us most is that successfully participating in a rich society creates little joy for its participants. Notwithstanding the immense use as well as destruction of recourses. Notwithstanding the cheap labour of poor people that is abundantly made use of. What amazes us most is joy and merriness that we observe in the streets of poor countries, where people live with a hundred fold lower income. As a research organization Demotech wants to explore the reason for the lack of fun when being rich and the presence of joy when being poor. According all economic know-how it should be the other way around, but this is clearly not the case. Demotech uses radical design to create economic conditions that differ from the normal. As such Demotech can execute action-research to find out what happens when poor people suddenly find that far more effective technologies are within their grip, without new infrastructure or education that normally is claimed to be a prerogative.
+What bothers us most is that successfully participating in a rich society often creates little joy for its members. Notwithstanding the immense use as well as destruction of recourses. Notwithstanding the cheap labour of poor people that is abundantly made use of. What amazes us most is joy and merriness that we observe in the streets of poor countries. The lack of economic wealth in poor countries is often not a barrier to it’s people being happy in spite of a hundred fold lower income. As a research organization Demotech wants to explore the reasons why wealth does not necessarily bring happiness nor poverty necessarily lead to it’s lack.
+According to generally held economic beliefs this should not be the case. Demotech uses radical design to create economic conditions that differ from the norm. As such Demotech can execute action-research to determie the consequences when relatively advanced technologies become readily available to poor people without development of new infrastructure or education normally claimed to be a precursor.
-'''Possible Edit'''
-What bothers us most is that successfully participating in a rich society often creates little joy for its members. Similarly, the lack of economic wealth in poor countries is often not a barrier to it’s people being happy in spite of a hundred fold lower income. As a research organization Demotech wants to explore the reasons why wealth does not necessarily bring happiness nor poverty necessarily lead to it’s lack. According to generally held economic beliefs this should not be the case.  Demotech uses radical design (of what, social systems, technology etc???) to create economic conditions that differ from the norm. As such Demotech can execute research to determine the consequences when relatively advanced technologies become readily available to poor people without development of new infrastructure or education normally claimed to be a precursor.
 ==How==
 The way in which the [[Rope Pump]] was successfully designed and introduced by Demotech may be repeated with other design initiatives. We want to learn what the right conditions for this work are. We want to find out if by this work the capacity for experiencing the joy of poor people can be enhanced. We want to find out if the interaction between joy and economy that seemed to be inverted can be corrected. We want to find out if a different economy based on a different technology can cure the lack of joy the present economy brings to the rich. From all the design initiatives taken in the past, we have a clue that poverty can be redesigned into a sustainable economy that offers more security, comfort and joy than is achieved even in a successful modern economy. Demotech research will be directed to give a firm base to this expectation and hope.