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[Shades]

Ok, well the main thing wouldn't be to raise literacy rates and just supply the books, and I didn't look at the numbers after reading what you wrote, so yes, you are correct. Would you despise me if I edit my former posts to not look like a tard for not seeing what I wrote in the several pages this has gotten up to now? Also, I'm not your enemy, why are you turning this from a productive discussion into something else?

Feel free to edit the posts

In this case however go back to my other point:

USA ... why should they be the guys that we (as a group interested in the betterment of mankind) turn to to achieve an improvement

They are pretty much one of the worse examples in the western world for promoting positive relations. If it's purely for securing the economics of the USA via book production then I think there would be other issues in your plan.

I'm not sure I see the point in what your suggesting. Initially I assumed it was to try and help other countries but if it's not about the literacy rate what are you trying to improve?

[Zangi]

I'm not sure I see the point in what your suggesting. Initially I assumed it was to try and help other countries but if it's not about the literacy rate what are you trying to improve?

'Merican e-con-no-mi by book exports?

Seriously though, it does sound like "we are better, so we should give em our cultural makings".   ...  Then we can assimilate them more easily down the line.

[Duuvian]

Have you ever heard the phrases "knowledge is power" and "knowing is half the battle"?

Lets take my father for example in my previous post. Let's say he still has a farm, but this time he's African. He still has the same farm, but he doesn't have the books that he read as a young man that told him he should  be hauling seaweed to his sandy garden with poor topsoil and starting to compost in cheap plastic barrels. Now our farm is already fertilized and ready to go. Go to the present day, where his basic techniques have allowed him sustenance to the point where he his ready to expand. In my father's case it isn't because of crippling poverty like the African's but because he was working and didn't have time to spend expanding the farm.

Anyways, my American father will soon reach retirement so he now has the time and money to work on the farm. My theory is, what if my AFRICAN father had read those same books and managed to eke out the same living, because we did live off of our garden in America because of my father's books, and now was reading the same books my father is reading about solar energy and other modern farming techniques in the current time to expand his garden and make a profit from it. These books claim to increase yields by incredible percentages over conventional farming. I can dig up some figures from the books if you'd be interested in learning some quick farming facts from them. Even if the African farmer had the money to expand his farm like my father does, however, he can't because he simply DOES NOT HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE because there is no Solar Energy book in Swahili or whatever. On that same note there is likely a similar lack of books about even the most rudimentary farming techniques in Swahili (or whatever). Does this make sense?

[Askot Bokbondeler]

the US has nothing to teach to the rest of the world, and you american papa knows nothing about mihogo cultivation

also, swahili is not a country nor a region, there is no "in Swahili"

[Duuvian]

I'm not sure I see the point in what your suggesting. Initially I assumed it was to try and help other countries but if it's not about the literacy rate what are you trying to improve?

'Merican e-con-no-mi by book exports?

Seriously though, it does sound like "we are better, so we should give em our cultural makings".   ...  Then we can assimilate them more easily down the line.

Well, when I first started this topic I was thinking the government should eventually branch out to more culture oriented after distributing things like farming, technical or manufacturing books and the like. I really don't mean it in an aggressive sort of way, but you have to understand that cultural blending is what happens all throughout history and explains why a Frenchman is different than a Spaniard who is different from the English who is different from the American who is different from the Norwegian. I'd like to think that the American South is different from the American North in some (small?) ways due to their respective proximity to Mexico and Canada due to the cultures blending in addition to the obvious factors in American History such as the Civil War and the two region's economic backgrounds. If you think about it that way, also think about how it might be in 100 years. It's hard to forecast the future but I'd imagine the southern US will continue to be influenced by it's proximity to Mexico and also vice-versa.

[Duuvian]

the US has nothing to teach to the rest of the world, and you american papa knows nothing about mihogo cultivation

also, swahili is not a country nor a region, there is no "in Swahili"

That's absurd about the US having nothing to teach the rest of the world. Swahili is a language in Africa. I think I was probably saying we should print books in Swahili. Could you quote what you are referring to please Askot in my previous post?

EDIT: Also, I'd say he could know quite a bit about it if we grew it. Maybe not my American papa, but my African papa would certainly be interested in reading books about growing mihogo. The US knows a lot of facts about mihogo that could help my African papa. It took me ten seconds on the internet to search for this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava

http://www.springerlink.com/content/bpw1020281026631/

http://webapp.ciat.cgiar.org/ciatinfocus/cassava.htm

So your telling me that if an American printed up a book filled with things like this and gave it to poor people to free in their own language that they wouldn't read it and more importantly benefit from it?

[Zangi]

Does that book take into account the climate, soil, weather, whats growable, and whatever tools an African in X location would typically have access to?

And yea, I know those phrases. 

This conveys your message better, if its what you originally wanted to say. 
Oh yea, blocks of texts are annoying to decipher, just so ya know.

[Duuvian]

And yea, I know those phrases. 

This conveys your message better, if its what you originally wanted to say. 
Oh yea, blocks of texts are annoying to decipher, just so ya know.

Sorry, I just like to make sure I have everything correct as I can when I post, I know this could be an inflammatory topic and it's easy to be misunderstood over the internet with a poor choice of words or by being wrong as I'm sure I've demonstrated several times 

Does that book take into account the climate, soil, weather, whats growable, and whatever tools an African in X location would typically have access to?

I don't see why not. Since this book is still theoretical lets assume it's actually very well planned and thought out for whatever situation it's printed for.

EDIT:

Well, I've got to get off of the internet for today but I really appreciate the discussion. You guys are really helping me think about this and clarify the idea and especially exploring the possible downsides. That's something I'd especially like to hear your opinions about. I've been going off about how it's a wonderful idea but there is always a hole in the bucket. Something to think about might be how other world powers, namely how you think Russia and China would react to such a shift in foreign policy by the US now that we are hopefully extracting our country in the next few years from these two embarrassing (from a foreign and domestic policy standpoint) wars (occupations?) we are embroiled in. I'll try to respond to anything you'd like next time I'm on via quotes, but I can't promise it won't be a whole block of text if it's something I find interesting.

[cganya]

I will echo the statement that "America having nothing to teach the rest of the world" is absurd. There is certainly a place for international based education, it just isn't in sending other countries fiction books or books related to skills they don't need or want.

I'll give an example. There is a region in Africa that is basically remote villages with little to no modern development or equipment in them. You could send in a group of engineers and build them modern buildings but that wouldn't help them much. What one of my previous bosses did (Canadian here) was organize a team of like minded individuals who spoke their language (which was french) and travled to these remote villages to promote, teach, build and implement stigmatization techniques. Things like keeping urine and fecal matter away from water and food sources, covering prepared food to keep insects out of them, covering windows and doorways with nets to reduce insect's access to their homes, how to create modern out-houses out of basic materials in order to prevent contamination and reduce/vent odors and insects.

Lastly they brought with them the knowledge and materials to make low tech water filtration systems (sand and charcoal filter barrel) so that the villages could have a clean source of water.

The intention was not to make Canada look good or to teach them about Canada or how to do what they already do, better, but to give them the basic building blocks to reduce illness and disease.

The problem I see with books is that America isn't really well liked in the rest of the world. people smart enough to read the books will feel additional disdain for America and people who can't read would use them for fire fuel.

edit - the above statement about books would refer to fictional or historical books. manuals and guides for relevant things such as farming would probably be cherished in low tech communities. They would have to be edited by someone who knew the language really well to make sure the average person in that country could interpret it correctly.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

the US has nothing to teach to the rest of the world, and you american papa knows nothing about mihogo cultivation

also, swahili is not a country nor a region, there is no "in Swahili"

That's absurd about the US having nothing to teach the rest of the world. Swahili is a language in Africa. I think I was probably saying we should print books in Swahili. Could you quote what you are referring to please Askot in my previous post?

EDIT: Also, I'd say he could know quite a bit about it if we grew it. Maybe not my American papa, but my African papa would certainly be interested in reading books about growing mihogo. The US knows a lot of facts about mihogo that could help my African papa. It took me ten seconds on the internet to search for this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava

http://www.springerlink.com/content/bpw1020281026631/

http://webapp.ciat.cgiar.org/ciatinfocus/cassava.htm

So your telling me that if an American printed up a book filled with things like this and gave it to poor people to free in their own language that they wouldn't read it and more importantly benefit from it?

To show me what America has to teach to the rest of the world you show me the site for an international organization whose name is the acronym of a Spanish or Portuguese sentence, and article on an international journal written by a british researcer and 3 from Ghana, and a wikipedia article written by people from all over the world. The internet does not belong to the US. Also, i exaggerated a bit when i said America has nothing to teach to the world, what i meant was America has more to learn from the rest of the world than what it has to teach.

About the Swahili thing, it was my mistake, i failed to notice that you were referring to the language the books were written in.

[Grakelin]

Once Duuvian said "I imagine that a book about the Cuban Missile Crisis would be very enlightening to Cubans", I knew for sure that he is a troll.

Let's stop feeding him.

[Duuvian]

Once Duuvian said "I imagine that a book about the Cuban Missile Crisis would be very enlightening to Cubans", I knew for sure that he is a troll.

Let's stop feeding him.

I thought a troll was someone who comes into other people's topics and then tries to steer the topic away from what is being discussed? Explain to me why it harms you for this topic to be active? Like you said, if people don't want to participate it is their choice, but why try to keep them from discussing it? Do you really feel the need to interfere with me so badly that you are willing to be a hypocrite by ignoring YOUR OWN ADVICE? If your definition of "trolling" is starting a topic and asking for people's opinions then I guess I am. From this point grakelin I am going to ignore your blatant attempts to derail this thread. I'm afraid as long as people are interested in this thread and want to talk about it then I will continue to participate. If you seriously have a problem with this thread to the point you continue to attempt to derail it through petty namecalling then by all means take it up with a moderator and we'll all have an honest discussion about it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

the US has nothing to teach to the rest of the world, and you american papa knows nothing about mihogo cultivation

also, swahili is not a country nor a region, there is no "in Swahili"

That's absurd about the US having nothing to teach the rest of the world. Swahili is a language in Africa. I think I was probably saying we should print books in Swahili. Could you quote what you are referring to please Askot in my previous post?

EDIT: Also, I'd say he could know quite a bit about it if we grew it. Maybe not my American papa, but my African papa would certainly be interested in reading books about growing mihogo. The US knows a lot of facts about mihogo that could help my African papa. It took me ten seconds on the internet to search for this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava

http://www.springerlink.com/content/bpw1020281026631/

http://webapp.ciat.cgiar.org/ciatinfocus/cassava.htm

So your telling me that if an American printed up a book filled with things like this and gave it to poor people to free in their own language that they wouldn't read it and more importantly benefit from it?

To show me what America has to teach to the rest of the world you show me the site for an international organization whose name is the acronym of a Spanish or Portuguese sentence, and article on an international journal written by a british researcer and 3 from Ghana, and a wikipedia article written by people from all over the world. The internet does not belong to the US. Also, i exaggerated a bit when i said America has nothing to teach to the world, what i meant was America has more to learn from the rest of the world than what it has to teach.

About the Swahili thing, it was my mistake, i failed to notice that you were referring to the language the books were written in.

You are right, I was honest when I said it only took me about 10 seconds to find those links. It's also true the internet doesn't belong to America. I thought about this topic and the form it's taken and I think maybe assuming it would have to be the American government that distributes books in such way was a major mistake on my part. It is also very true there are things other countries have more knowledge of, and your example of Cassava or Mihogo is an excellent one because other countries have more experience in raising it as a crop. If that is true then surely there also are a great many things American can teach developing countries that we have more experience in. However, I think it would be best if we dropped America from the picture altogether.

Lets just take a hypothetical developed nation that has the capabilities to print a large number of books for distribution in poorer countries on topics such as agriculture, basic medicine, and manufacturing. Would distributing the books be a good idea or not? Would it benefit both the country receiving the books and the country distributing?

The problem I see with books is that America isn't really well liked in the rest of the world. people smart enough to read the books will feel additional disdain for America and people who can't read would use them for fire fuel.

edit - the above statement about books would refer to fictional or historical books. manuals and guides for relevant things such as farming would probably be cherished in low tech communities. They would have to be edited by someone who knew the language really well to make sure the average person in that country could interpret it correctly.

I agree. Anyone else have thoughts on this?

[Askot Bokbondeler]

a troll is actually a magical creature that wanders the internet doing stuff for the lulz, Grakelin probably thinks you don't actually believe the things you are defending, and just do it to make fun of us, because he thinks your arguments are ridiculous. i don't think their ridiculous, just misinformed and insulting, you're no troll, just a victim of a country too patriotic for it's own good.

There is already an international exchange of knowledge, actually it's been happening probably since the first cro-magnon met the first neanderthal, and happened through the ancient and modern times.
My sister is in med school studying under a Cuban teacher on an teacher exchange program, and a few of my teachers (i study fine arts) are on a collaborative project with a brazilian university and a few african villages, not just teaching, but learning from the local cultures. i'm not the kind of person that is into charity so i care little for the stuff they do in africa, but the african folk influence on some of my teachers' works is fascinating.

The american culture could also improve if they increased their importation of international books and films, and the rest of the world could also benefit culturally if the usa actually decreased it's exports of shitty books and crappy hollywood movies.
There are many decent american products, among which is dwarf fortress, and many crappy products from various places, but every year there's a new twilight, or da vinci code, and it's getting really tiresome to have to search among the piles of crap to find anything interesting.

[RedKing]

America doesn't corner the market on crappy movies by any stretch of the imagination. Hong Kong and Mumbai can shovel out the crap just as well as Hollywood.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

they produce it in quantity, everybody does, they're just not as good at shoving it up everyone's ass