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From: jpexg@mit-hermes.ARPA (John Purbrick)
Newsgroups: net.travel
Subject: Re: Re: Hedonism, visiting poor countries
Message-ID: <2366@mit-hermes.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 12-Apr-85 19:57:24 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-herm.2366
Posted: Fri Apr 12 19:57:24 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Apr-85 08:24:39 EST
References: <1452@decwrl.UUCP> <2351@mit-hermes.ARPA> <799@peora.UUCP>
Organization: The MIT AI Lab, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 27

I'm sorry if my earlier posting under this title offended anyone. It may
well have been a mistake to have mentioned specific countries as being
"poor", and it's especially unfortunate that a colleague of mine 
coincidentally got involved in a controversy involving India at the same time.

Maybe prosperous "westerners" are particularly struck by the open and severe
poverty of (as might be) Jamaica, Latin America, etc. So our media tend
to emphasize this rather than more optimistic features of those countries.
Still, though, the original person who wrote on this subject found Jamaican
poverty bad enough to ruin his vacation. Could it happen elsewhere (naming
no specific countries)? I think so, if one is susceptible to such things.

As for the question "Aren't there poor people in New York/Boston/wherever?"
I'd say "Very few of them". Sure, we have "poor people" by our 
standards, but by 3rd world criteria they aren't badly off at all. The
*really* poor people live in shantytowns--or on the streets--and have
no jobs, no welfare payments, no safe drinking water, go hungry every day,
and watch their children waste away and die. How many Americans suffer that 
badly? The word "poor" describes a position relative to some average, and by
world standards our average is very, very high. That's why, when we go
somewhere where people aren't so lucky, we can expect to be shocked.

			John Purbrick
			decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!mit-hermes!jpexg
			jpexg@mit-hermes.ARPA