"A Modest Proposal" to Third World Countries

The category of third world, or undeveloped countries includes most of Africa, some of South America, and parts of Asia. In these parts of the world, people have to live in crude, uncivilized, and unsanitary conditions such as outdoor huts or tents without plumbing or running water or even electricity. The citizens these countries produce rarely have more than a few years of elementary education, which causes little technological advances. First world countries don't want to invest in these poor countries because there is no chance of improvement due to this lack of education. This is an imbalance in the world. Technology is so advanced: in America we have phones that we can talk to, but in Africa some people have never even seen a phone. As human beings, we should realize this is unjust and try to level the opportunity for everyone on the earth. Some try to instill better education in Third World counties, but this is pointless.  Third World countries are already so far behind the rest of the world, there is not possible way to bring them all to our level. I propose a better solution that will put everyone on an equal level in education and will save money and resources: every country should stop educating its citizens. It is much easier to keep everyone uneducated than it is to keep everyone up to date with the best and most useful knowledge. Millions of dollars go towards education in America alone, and even all American citizens don't earn college degrees or graduate from high school! The only objection I can possibly think of to be raised is that the world needs educated people to maintain its status of technology and craft. Of course, there will have to be a specified group of educated people to keep the world running, which can be selected by an IQ test or something else that measures learning ability and capacity. To be fair, each country can submit its brightest citizens to oversee and carry out jobs that require skill, like medicine, science, etc. The rest of the population will be capable of doing simple tasks and manual labor, and will be paid equally. It is the only way to give everyone an equal opportunity. I truly cannot think of a better solution to this injustice of our world.

Can People Show a Measure of Restraint?

Chet Raymo's passage "A Measure of Restraint" proves the point that the human race in general needs to show restraint when it makes new discoveries in the scientific world, or else suffer horrible consequences.  I completely agree with his opinion, but I also think it's impossible for humans to resist progress.  It's natural for us to take risks.  The first cave man who ever hunted was taking a risk by attacking an animal that could probably eat him, but if no one was ever willing to take that risk, we would be a weak and malnourished race!  I know that's an extreme example, but anything unknown is a risk simply because the consequences are unknown!  If humans showed restraint when dealing with new discoveries, the world would be much less advanced, or civilized even!  While Raymo is probably right about showing restraint with genetic engineering, it could be the cure to many diseases, maybe even cancer.  I also agree that it could go completely wrong and end up causing really bad consequences, but my point is no matter what the outcome, people can't resist taking the risk. 

No Expansion Means No Progress!

In Scott Russell's piece "Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World, Russell expresses his opinion of the expansive nature of people, especially Americans. He says Americans can't be satisfied with what they have and therefore are always moving to new places, taking the value out of the places they pass through in the process. I agree that there should be a point when a person settles down, but the urge to progress isn't a bad thing. If people were always satisfied with what they had, no would have strived to improve society and the world would be a very different place than it is today. Many discoveries probably wouldn't have taken place, like the progression to modern medicine and science, and people would probably still be using outhouses! The Europeans wouldn't have discovered the Americas, there would have been no French Revolution, there would have been no American Civil War. If people didn't have the urge to move forward, literally to different lands and with ideas and technology, the world would be primitive. It's true that chasing an impossible dream can consume a person's whole life with no reward, but simply settling is not the solution. Russell criticizes this aspect of human nature too heavily. The urge to improve is a part of human nature, and it's not something we can get rid of, or something we should.

Not Racist but....Sexist?

In Brent Staple's piece "Black Men and Public Space", he explains the hardships of being labeled as dangerous by strangers simply because of his race. Staples comes to terms with the stereotypes automatically attached to him and learns to live with them. The general attitude of the piece is positive. Even though Staples is expressing his frustration with the way people judge him because of his race, he doesn't have a 'woe-is-me' attitude. The main focus point in this piece is Staples race, but I picked up on an underlying theme: gender. In all examples and anecdotes Staples uses, he is either intimidating a woman or he is not gender specific. In his first paragraph, he writes about a woman who started running when she saw him coming down the street. He also writes about going into a jewelry shop, where the female proprietor brought out a guard dog to get him to leave. In paragraph five, he writes "After dark...I often see women who fear the worst from me", and then states that women are very vulnerable to violence. However, he makes no mention of men. The he implies that men are effected by his presence is when he writes about people, "black, white, male, or female" (paragraph 2), who lock their car doors when he crosses the street in front of them. All his examples make women look weak. Not only that, but because he uses the examples to prove that people are judging him incorrectly, he makes women look foolish for being scared of him. His point was that he affects the atmosphere around him in negative ways, but I think he should have represented both sexes more equally. We no longer live in a world where women are defenseless. Many women can fend for themselves, some even better than other men! Staple's portrayal of women is sexist and slightly offensive.