"Digg commentary is at times, physically painful for me to read. Like someone punched me in the gut. What stupidity and ignorance. What a cesspool.
What is it about certain internet places that make people so awful? Anonymity? Or are there people actually that bad all around me, in real life, and I simply don't notice?" - Danielle Fong
The trick: "You need to give people the freedom to spend and the freedom to make mistakes," says Takeo Fukui, Honda's 61-year-old president. "If management oversight is too strong, then it's difficult to innovate." - Rob Schonberger
"To be a company that society wants to exist." - Bill Strathearn
Entire industries, and nations, can rise or fall based on their understanding (or lack thereof) of this phenomenon. - Sean McBride
The motto "to be a company that society wants to exist" brings to mind Kevin Kelly's recent post on the near future and whether we can create a vision of collective betterment that motivates people instead of galvanizing them with fear of others: http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/... - Keith Pelczarski
"It shows how Africa (30,3 million km²) is larger than the combination of China (9,6 million km²), the US (9,4 million km²), Western Europe (4,9 million km²), India (3,2 million km²) and Argentina (2,8 million km²), three Scandinavian countries and the British Isles" - Paul Buchheit
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It's as big as all the countries of Africa combined! - Gabe
hotbed of innovation and manufacture within 30 years - Gregory Lent
Alex: spot on. lol reading these comments. A dash of pedantry, a little bit of bigotry, some serious lack of geographical knowledge: so much fun! :) - Mathieu Ayel
beg to differ somewhat with Gregory. It might become hotbed of innovation but not any time soon. Conflicts, political instability, lack of decent governance and underlying infrastructures and institutions will not allow it to resonate in a way to become a hotbed of innovation. In small pockets though, it happens even now, especially in countries like Kenya and Ghana in everything from innovative approaches to private education to inventing incredible devices for water cleaning. - Hayk
Moreover, the size and comparison of African continent with other continents and countries is little more than a nice figure illustrative of geography. - Hayk
30 years, hyak, things will move fast, but i know what you are saying, seems nearly hopeless, impossible .. but the world "vibration" will make it happen faster than is logical (my opinion) - Gregory Lent
Gregory, i did not mean logic. Living on this continent since 1.5 years and seeing their mentality and their potential, I believe that nothing short of dramatic consciousness change, to borrow your term, will turn people on this continent into economic machines of production. I generalize, apparently. - Hayk
me too :-) ... i really have nothing to base this on .. except two things .. the creativity they have with basically nothing, even bricks are rare sometimes .. the way they are doing the cellphone thing is a hopeful sign .. and the other is from african art, every culture made masks with some sort of design feature where the third eye is .. there is an innate plugged-in-ness there, so that when it gets a bit stable, it will flow .. and the gates foundation should only do education, malaria will then take - Gregory Lent
Also, Africa had this "misfortune" of being on top of all kinds of natural resources which became valued at one point or another. As it said in Blood Diamonds, "every time a precious resource is found on this continent,innocent people die, country is plundered." Pouring money only to sustain lives without any solid self-sustainable policies in education or infrastructure is sort of a band-aid. Tackling malaria is what appeals the most to inner sensitivities of Gates :) - Hayk
Africa is the cradle of our species.. says a lot about how out of touch we have become when we treat our birthplace with such distain. No wonder we're raping and pillaging everything we can. Makes you wonder if the attempts at keeping the African nations as undeveloped as possible is to turn the place into the next middle east when the rest of our resources have been spent. - alphaxion
Thinking economy is taking out limited resources is wrong... Economy is added value man made... Today wealth comes from service... picking was thousands years ago, agriculture hundreds and industry last 2 centuries... - jfayel
