| >A versatile low-volume manufacturing facility might have greater value than a specialized high volume one in places with mediocre industrial and commercial infrastructure. I would imagine you are correct. However, conventional manufacturing practices are not solely high volume operations, and can be implemented with fewer resources. >[T]hese are basically the same arguments people made about
cellphones and they turned out to be better option than trying to deploy the simple and robust technology of landlines. Cellphones don't cost $15k per village, nor do they require training to use special computer programs, or a constant supply of raw materials. If they did, you can bet that they wouldn't turn out to be a better option ;) >I suggest ad-hoc communication and manufacturing technology may be the best thing in an ad-hoc economy. I agree, provided the technology becomes sufficiently inexpensive and robust. But for today, use that cash to leave the community with an extra pallet of parts, instruction on how to maintain the well, and the rest to educate the people. Ultimately, I share your optimistic view. The technology will be there someday. We just can't force it in the meantime. |
Really? How much does a cell tower, a reliable power supply for same, etc cost? For widely spaced villages, I'd certainly think this cost would be well over $15K per village. Hell, I can't put a 50K sq ft office building size, cell phone repeater system in for $15K.
(I'd expect widely spaced villages would be the common case in areas where cell deployment is cheaper than copper lines.)