CB> Do you have any reason to  believe they are trying to "buffer the 
 CB> onslaught of being overrun by powerful industrial countries" other 
 CB> than YOUR projections? 
MM>Read Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States.  It gives
MM>a lot of examples, starting from 1492.
For Africa?
 MM>Consider your wording : "leading the world".  Do you think that to
 MM>lead the world is an honorable goal?
 CB> Yes.
 
MM>I don't.  I consider it rude, offensive, and uncalled for to impose our
MM>standards on other cultures.  There's many Cherokee, Navajo and Pueblo
MM>Indians where I live to testify to the same.
Rude yes...  What you're espousing means status quo; no 
growth... Would we be better off if the Native American 
culture had been unimpacted?  Certainly THEY might have
been better off - HOW would that happen?  It means no
expansion of population to the Americas, because once that
happened, the impact on the culture was inevitable.  Was
the expansion fair - no; was the expansion inevitable -
probably yes.  As the planet becomes more and more crowded,
a culture that embraces wide areas of open land, and a
predominately hunter approach to life is going to have to
give way.  Not because it is fair or right, but simply 
because OTHER men will covet the land and what the land
offers....
 CB> There have been others before Illich who have dreamed of Utopian 
 
MM>I don't think Illich dreams of a utopia at all.  He advocates a greater
MM>degree of fairness, entirely plausible and do-able, and I say would be
MM>very appealing to most people if they were media-detoxified and given
MM>the chance to hear about it.
It may appeal to some, but as you describe it, it is not
a reasonable way to run a technological, population-dense
society...
MM>But the only way to open it up, is to abolish the
MM>schooling/ educational system.
Your opinion...
MM>Illich is saying that the art of _learning_ shouldn't be sold as if it
MM>is a commodity.  In today's world, education is a commodity.
It never was to me; education was a means to knowledge, AND
it was "free"!  I could go and learn about science!  Of
course, I ALSO learned some other things along the way, and
discovered other interests.  One of the most beneficial
results, however, had to do with interactions with other
educated people.  My education enabled me to understand them,
make inferences and extrapolations to my knowledge.  I 
learned JUST as much or more on my own, however, because
education is something YOU do for yourself, it is not a gift
from others, and therefore it can be found in lots of places
if one simply seeks it.  The problem for educators is that
a great many kids simply don't care about education...
MM>....but the alternatives, Illich's alternatives --
MM>which aren't utopian but are common sense ideas -- are rich and full.
Your opinion, and here, only YOUR opinion....
 MM>Every current third-world fringe culture and most pre-19th century
 MM>world cultures.
Preindustrial, pretechnological societies...
 CB> I'm not sure I understand this very well either.  As I understand it, 
 CB> people in pre-19th century civilization were, for the most part, very 
 CB> poor.
MM>No, there's a big difference.  _Poverty_ is modern.
It's clear you're not talking about the same thing... Please
provide YOUR definition of "poverty".  I consider it to be a
financial lacking which goes beyond (below) what the majority
of people enjoy.  Now if the majority of people have very
little, then poverty doesn't really exist.  This, it seems,
is what YOU'RE talking about.  In a nonindustrialized and
nontechnical society, based largely on agriculture and the
hunt, this may work out.  In OUR society it does not, except
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