Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: Duuvian on April 25, 2010, 07:35:31 am

Mexico's the example.

Literacy rate: 92.8%

How much do you think you can achieve?

USA is only at 99%, why should they be the guys that we (as a group interested in the betterment of mankind) turn to to achieve an improvement, Cuba for example is at 99.8% so surely they are better equipped to teach the world. Or Georgia at 100% but I figured you'd know more about Cuba being that it's closer to the USA.

OK. So by your statistics you are agreeing with me? People could read the material the USA would put out in this idea? Are you suggesting we send the books to Cuba then? Perhaps those excellent books mentioned earlier in the thread about the Cuban Missile Crisis would be very enlightening in Cuba. That is an interesting point you make. That is something I'll have to think about and learn about some time, how the Cubans themselves feel about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Thank you for opening that window of thought for me. It could very well be that in that case those books would be detrimental to US Foreign Policy.

This happened to a squad of military dwarves I had. I switched them to civilian or something while they were training

Could we go back to the idea of distributing a bunch of cheap/free books in native languages to people? That's the main idea of this thread, it's more of a foreign policy discussion rather then a "Oh no We're an evil race and we're doomed to kill ourselves!!!!!"  Just because Nuclear Weapons are something you can learn about doesn't mean you shouldn't spread knowledge. How do you think the government should go about it?

EDIT: As to the type of books that would be necessary, if we could come up with a book that gives step by step directions in a native language how to do things it would do a lot of good if a child reads it when he's young. He'll know how to do the things he read for the rest of his life. A boyscout type book would be a good start for a mass printing in various languages as a trial run. Basically things that the boyscouts learn for fun that people would use in real life all over the world. For our "culture war" I'd say histories of their local region first, histories of the world second, basically anything educational. Also pump out technical books for the urban areas, like how to use software books and construction theory books. Everything should be printed, but you are right, everyone would have a different idea of what should be printed. For it to work a group of intellectuals (perhaps on the internet) would have to circumvent government and political party alliances as best they may and have an honest discussion on an open forum so that persons with an interest in the subject at a later date might take a look; through the relatively new wonders of the internet. Hmm.

I'd say we should send all books, fantasy, science fiction, thrillers, mysteries. I also think we should REALLY REALLY focus on putting out our classic works such as Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer and such. The developing countries are at a stage where they would be able relate to Huck Finn as he floats down the river, if you catch my drift. At the same time they would learn some history of America and more importantly the backgrounds, morals, feelings, and customs of Americans.

"Printed in America" on the second page would be a victory every time it's read by a foreigner in another language.

Also, if there was less need for the military there would be more doctors, engineers, and such. A military is realistically necessary in the current time period obviously, this thread is discussing the possibility of trying to plan for the future instead just bumbling through one year to the next and just reacting instead of planning.  There is a need in America at the moment for Soldiers and so our economy and infrastructure is hurting. Since obviously world peace shouldn't be achieved through force and everyone agrees on that, why not actually plan to do something else for once?

Also, I think Bay-12 is a good forum to talk about this because of the fact that the nature of Dwarf Fortress attracts intelligent people who may have relevant opinions on this. I'd also like to hear from international people, whether you'd like to have an influx of American made literature to read in your country and have it distributed for free or at least cheap and whether you think your people would read and appreicate it. I'd honestly like to hear  opinions from any country, this will be an interesting topic if people will participate.

Also, if we get enough good ideas I may submit them to a representative of the American government since as a citizen of the Democracy it is my right to do so.

Right, so eventually everyone would know we'd better not use that bastard, right?

I'm saying we should export our culture through our printed word en-masse to developing countries that have never had a local library before. It's like an alternative way to take over the world in an in-depth video game such as df except it might work in real life.

They'll probably become much more interesting once Toady adds the magic arc. Remember he has this all planned out. He was nice enough to make a steam monster vulnerable because he hasn't programmed in ways to hurt steam yet. In a year or two all of this will make sense and we will continue to heap praise upon Toady for his brilliance in being uniquely farsighted.

A new market is born!
EDIT: Misread the first post, I thought he was paying the person who genned the world.

This thread makes me feel like weeping, willow you stop it?

EDIT:

I'm also bamboozled.

I was thinking and it would be funny to me if we could take over Paraguay and turn it into a Communist Paradise, where no one makes a profit yet everyone can afford the necessities. You would have to have a country made up entirely of bay-12 or others who are willing to set aside e-profit for that to work though. Theoretically if your prices were so low due to lack of profit you would be a very influential country since there is a good chance countries would buy what raw materials they can't produce from you and that would affect the whole market. You would be able to make money by making penny profits, like a gas station.

Has that ever been tried in E-republic that anyone knows of? I'd imagine it would be practically impossible but it's interesting to imagine. It might also require a mathematician/mathemagician.