[lbo-talk] Race to Nowhere... && Obama got Osama

[// ravi]

On May 6, 2011, at 1:17 PM, // ravi wrote:
> 
> <snip happens… this guy is verbose!>
> 
> The question then is for nations with a poor health and longevity track record, is technological progress the solution? I will use once again the example of India. According to the US Census Bureau India (at the turn of the last century) has an infant mortality rate of 66 per 1000; in comparison, it’s neighbour Sri Lanka has a rate of 20 per 1000. Is that because India has access to lesser technology than Sri Lanka does? Sri Lanka comes in ahead of even China (a major supplier of technology to the world) which is at 40 per 1000. What else does Sri Lanka do better at? Life expectancy, as can be expected, clocking in at an impressive 74 (to repeat for the sake of comparison: Indian life expectancy is 64, and US life expectancy is 79).
> 
> I think it would be an uphill climb to assign credit to technological progress for these impressive Sri Lankan results. Surely they are not privy to some industrialised nation techno-secrets and advances that are withheld from India and China?
> 
> Why does India do badly at infant mortality? The Census Bureau lists some reasons: inadequate antenatal care and delivery services, low level of immunisation among children, and a substantial proportion of high-risk births. What is a high-risk birth? “Births falling in one or more of the following categories: occurring to women under age 18 or over age 34, occurring within 24 months of last birth, and birth order higher than 3”.
> <…>

Things get even clearer when you drill down the data, to state level. To bend over backwards in fairness, I am going to compare not some backwater, but two of the most successful states in India - Punjab and Tamil Nadu, to Kerala (data from the early 90s):

Life Expectancy
===============
Punjab		65/67 (male/female)
Tamil Nadu	60/62
Kerala		68/73

Kerala is not a beacon of technological progress in India. Call centres, manufacturing, top research institutions? Not really. So they must be doing poorly at least by other standards:

Infant Mortality
================
Punjab		55 per 1000
Tamil Nadu	58
Kerala		15

Now, perhaps that’s an outlier. How about this one:

Female illiteracy (over 6 years of age)
=======================================
Punjab		48
Tamil Nadu	44
Kerala		18

Now I am going to provide an empty space here. This is for “India experts” to chime in on how Kerala lives off of remittances from the Gulf and should never ever be used for any data/comparison. Have at it:

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With that behind, I will return to the issue at hand. What do we make of Kerala and the role of technological progress in shaping the lives of individuals? You write that modern socialists have turned into anti-industrial eco-fanatics (btw, I do not hold new environmentalism(*) in much esteem) who devalue life and that maybe that’s because they have lost faith in the idea of socialism or communism. Funny thing about Kerala and the idea of socialism/communism… you should look it up! :-)

	—ravi

P.S: by “new environmentalism” I mean the “oops, my arse is on fire!” awareness that has crept into the affluent populace (personified in Al Gore and his followers), who had so far been enjoying “technological progress” at the cost of *someone else*.