Comments on: The Elephant Toilet: New technology for an old problem https://gregladen.com/blog/2009/10/29/the-elephant-toilet-new-techno/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:14:33 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.6 By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2009/10/29/the-elephant-toilet-new-techno/#comment-549732 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:14:33 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2009/10/29/the-elephant-toilet-new-techno/#comment-549732 That is what the Peace Corps was/is, to some extent.

]]> By: Katharine https://gregladen.com/blog/2009/10/29/the-elephant-toilet-new-techno/#comment-549731 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:03:41 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2009/10/29/the-elephant-toilet-new-techno/#comment-549731 Really, I think it’s a lot better to provide resources for people in economically disadvantaged regions to capitalize on their own industriousness (c.f. water-filled glasses) than to build stuff for them.

Because getting people to make use of their own creativity not only helps roads and sanitation, it helps the mind.

Teaching communities some very simple engineering techniques – a sort of Engineers Without Borders sort of operation, though I think the people in Engineers Without Borders don’t teach the people how to do simple engineering stuff such as how to make simple machines from local tools – would go a long way.

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