7 ms·

I recall predecessors to this idea from the 1970s, which probably implies I heard about them from Futurist Magazine and/or the book Small is Beautiful. It has a

I recall predecessors to this idea from the 1970s, which probably implies I heard about them from Futurist Magazine and/or the book Small is Beautiful. It has always been suggested that engineers could do something worthwhile by inventing very simple yet useful things that could realistically be made in poor/underresourced countries or villages.

nchmy 3mo ago
What do you figure happened, such that people largely haven't done this?
- justinmarsan 3mo ago
  It doesn't make anyone money...
- stdbrouw 3mo ago
  One aspect is perhaps that simple things aren't necessarily cheap. One Laptop per Child struggled to get costs down, whereas a mass market solar panel is not self-serviceable but at their current cost, who cares. Even in the developed world, you get noticeably more bang for your buck if you buy a cheap, basic car than if you buy a cargo bike that could replace it, because of the fierce competition and huge economies of scale for cars. Touch screens are cheaper than seven segment displays. And so on. (Not a snub on the Open Source Low Tech community, their designs look great!)
  - nchmy 3mo ago
    Yeah, I agree with this. Though, I think you could make bikes for much cheaper with some ingenuity. Certainly some bike-powered appliances. Also I think OLPC was a misguided project, as most of these things are. Its out of stem with maslows hierarchy of needs. Folks who are subsistence farmers with drought, smoke filled homes and stomach parasites don't need a laptop and academic education. They need practical and actionable tools and techniques to better meet their basic needs, a state from which they could better pursue academics etc
- JuniperMesos 3mo ago
  There's not actually all that many useful things that can be made in poor, underresourced countries and villages. It's cheaper to buy them from a Chinese factory that is highly specialized at making those useful things in huge quantities and send them via container ship to the place where they're needed. This is as true for random poor people in Africa as it is for me when I buy stuff cheap on AliExpress.
- CurtMonash 3mo ago
  No scale at which it really took off. Village-wide stuff requires a bit of politics, and anyhow there are donors out there for capital equipment and even a bit of organizing help. Factory-level stuff -- well, the product idea isn't the hardest part of a new business, is it? Etc.
sublinear 3mo ago
As other comments have implied, but not explicitly said, they do their own engineering already with what they have. Since materials can be scarce and inconsistent, much of it is improvised. That in no way diminishes their efforts, results, or knowledge. If anything, that's way more impressive. Lots of engineers in the first world will throw a tantrum if they can't have things exactly their way and probably still make something that doesn't work as well. Entire businesses have shit their pants and gone bankrupt the moment a part is discontinued. Trying to do better than the people who live there is not only arrogant, but it's own variation of Chesterton's Fence. EDIT: I can't help myself and have to post an engineerguy video. It's too important of a topic to not drive this point home crystal clear by someone who is far more respected than me. "Building a Cathedral without Science or Mathematics: The Engineering Method Explained" https://youtube.com/watch?v=_ivqWN4L3zU https://youtube.com/watch?v=_ivqWN4L3zU
- 2b3a51 3mo ago
  Over here in the UK I've seen some pretty original bicycle adaptation with electric motors and even a 2 stroke engine added to aid propulsion. In India there is a word for this kind of thing Jugaad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad
- samuell 3mo ago
  As someone who has spent some time in sub-saharan Africa, I can tell you that there is lots that can be done if just seeing the possibilities. Not everyone everywhere are "engineering oriented", and having people with the skills and eye for practical solutions based on available materials, can help tons, and also open up people's imagination for what can be done. In fact, this goes for northern Europe too, just that more people can manage without home-built solutions and can "buy away the problem" here. Also, people where immensely thankful e.g. when my quite clever and crafty father managed to repair a water tank tower that'd been broken for months and years, by sourcing some local material, coming up with a repair design, and having local welders create it, etc etc.
  - sublinear 3mo ago

nchmy 3mo ago

What do you figure happened, such that people largely haven't done this?

justinmarsan 3mo ago
It doesn't make anyone money...
stdbrouw 3mo ago
One aspect is perhaps that simple things aren't necessarily cheap. One Laptop per Child struggled to get costs down, whereas a mass market solar panel is not self-serviceable but at their current cost, who cares. Even in the developed world, you get noticeably more bang for your buck if you buy a cheap, basic car than if you buy a cargo bike that could replace it, because of the fierce competition and huge economies of scale for cars. Touch screens are cheaper than seven segment displays. And so on. (Not a snub on the Open Source Low Tech community, their designs look great!)
- nchmy 3mo ago
  Yeah, I agree with this. Though, I think you could make bikes for much cheaper with some ingenuity. Certainly some bike-powered appliances. Also I think OLPC was a misguided project, as most of these things are. Its out of stem with maslows hierarchy of needs. Folks who are subsistence farmers with drought, smoke filled homes and stomach parasites don't need a laptop and academic education. They need practical and actionable tools and techniques to better meet their basic needs, a state from which they could better pursue academics etc
JuniperMesos 3mo ago
There's not actually all that many useful things that can be made in poor, underresourced countries and villages. It's cheaper to buy them from a Chinese factory that is highly specialized at making those useful things in huge quantities and send them via container ship to the place where they're needed. This is as true for random poor people in Africa as it is for me when I buy stuff cheap on AliExpress.
CurtMonash 3mo ago
No scale at which it really took off. Village-wide stuff requires a bit of politics, and anyhow there are donors out there for capital equipment and even a bit of organizing help. Factory-level stuff -- well, the product idea isn't the hardest part of a new business, is it? Etc.

sublinear 3mo ago

As other comments have implied, but not explicitly said, they do their own engineering already with what they have. Since materials can be scarce and inconsistent, much of it is improvised. That in no way diminishes their efforts, results, or knowledge. If anything, that's way more impressive. Lots of engineers in the first world will throw a tantrum if they can't have things exactly their way and probably still make something that doesn't work as well. Entire businesses have shit their pants and gone bankrupt the moment a part is discontinued. Trying to do better than the people who live there is not only arrogant, but it's own variation of Chesterton's Fence. EDIT: I can't help myself and have to post an engineerguy video. It's too important of a topic to not drive this point home crystal clear by someone who is far more respected than me. "Building a Cathedral without Science or Mathematics: The Engineering Method Explained" https://youtube.com/watch?v=_ivqWN4L3zU https://youtube.com/watch?v=_ivqWN4L3zU

2b3a51 3mo ago
Over here in the UK I've seen some pretty original bicycle adaptation with electric motors and even a 2 stroke engine added to aid propulsion. In India there is a word for this kind of thing Jugaad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad
samuell 3mo ago
As someone who has spent some time in sub-saharan Africa, I can tell you that there is lots that can be done if just seeing the possibilities. Not everyone everywhere are "engineering oriented", and having people with the skills and eye for practical solutions based on available materials, can help tons, and also open up people's imagination for what can be done. In fact, this goes for northern Europe too, just that more people can manage without home-built solutions and can "buy away the problem" here. Also, people where immensely thankful e.g. when my quite clever and crafty father managed to repair a water tank tower that'd been broken for months and years, by sourcing some local material, coming up with a repair design, and having local welders create it, etc etc.
- sublinear 3mo ago