> it's not enough to have, or to build, you gotta maintain, fix, replace, and eventually, remove.
Indeed. I think many in the West fail to appreciate - and take for granted - the cultural dimensions (which include cultures of knowledge, skill transmission, cultivation, and development, and also worldview[0]) as well as the economic ecosystems and supply chains involved.
Dropping off a tractor in Africa or a bulldozer in rural India and calling it a day is superficial and worthless. Imagine shipping something suitably technologically advanced to some Germanic tribe during the Roman conquest of Europe if you need an analogy.
[0] The worldview bit might surprise some. As some have argued, there are reasons why enterprises like modern science arose and flourished only in the West, whereas everywhere else scientific development was historically quite limited. These reasons include a culture formed under the notion of the Logos which entails the belief in a thoroughly intelligible universe that can be fully known in principle; a rejection of pantheism with a distinction made between the transcendental and the immanent, allowing for exploration; a rejection of pantheism and so a world infested with capricious, personified natural phenomena; an omniscient and omnibenevolent God who is not capricious or voluntarist. Without these elements, the confidence and motivation needed to confidently exercise and develop intellectually, to try to understand the world - which contribute to the formation of a robust scientific culture - is stifled.
It's not just a failure to appreciate, it's an outright demonization of many of these observations as racist/imperialist. One of the prime motivators for this kind of development "aid" is the mistaken belief that the only issue is a lack of resources or external exploitation, and if you just provide the resources and/or remove the exploitation a given place will naturally turn into an enlightened Western nation-equivalent. Maybe with some fun unique cultural festivals, local cuisine, and some harmless, quirky native dances in exotic outfits!
Meanwhile even in the West it's easy to find people who win the lottery and are broke a year later, or rich celebrities/pro athletes who make tons of money and lose it all, or die with far less than you'd expect. Those people are laughed at and/or pitied, because even they are held to to a higher standard than some poor 3rd-worlder who's just a pure victim
Before the so-called scientific revolution and the later industrial revolution, that may be true - arguably for largely uninteresting reasons - but afterward, this is patently false.
Modern science arose only a couple of centuries ago in Europe. Prior to that, we see a long period of great European intellectual ferment, most notably the Scholastic period, that supplied the intellectual foundations and vocabulary that made modern science possible.
You're also reducing science to technology production, but even here, the sophistication of technology that modern science made possible far outstrips anything pre-scientific.
Indeed. I think many in the West fail to appreciate - and take for granted - the cultural dimensions (which include cultures of knowledge, skill transmission, cultivation, and development, and also worldview[0]) as well as the economic ecosystems and supply chains involved.
Dropping off a tractor in Africa or a bulldozer in rural India and calling it a day is superficial and worthless. Imagine shipping something suitably technologically advanced to some Germanic tribe during the Roman conquest of Europe if you need an analogy.
[0] The worldview bit might surprise some. As some have argued, there are reasons why enterprises like modern science arose and flourished only in the West, whereas everywhere else scientific development was historically quite limited. These reasons include a culture formed under the notion of the Logos which entails the belief in a thoroughly intelligible universe that can be fully known in principle; a rejection of pantheism with a distinction made between the transcendental and the immanent, allowing for exploration; a rejection of pantheism and so a world infested with capricious, personified natural phenomena; an omniscient and omnibenevolent God who is not capricious or voluntarist. Without these elements, the confidence and motivation needed to confidently exercise and develop intellectually, to try to understand the world - which contribute to the formation of a robust scientific culture - is stifled.