It worries me how ignorant we are of our rights as humans. For starters, the video above has only been viewed 4,451 times since it was uploaded over a year ago. Almost 7 billion people on the planet. Let’s be conservative and say that 1 billion have access to broadband. That’s serious right there. It is still even more serious if you were to tighten the pool down to 1 million people with enough access to broadband. Only 4,451 have viewed this one. Out of 1 million. There are five separate uploads of this same video with a total of only 8,401 views as of this posting. I guess everyone is distracted with Lady Gaga’s latest video, Alejandro with nearly 100 million views as of today.

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Professor Philip Zimbardo giving a talk at the RSA Comment. The animations that go along with the talk really bring the subject matter to life. You can check out more of these vids on the RSA Animate site.

A few quotes caught my attention, notably in regard to technology and education – two topics I talk about with passion in relation to how I look at development in Africa:

“We are underestimating the power of technology in rewiring young people’s brains. Kids don’t wear wrist watches, they say ‘it is a single-function device. We don’t waste time with a single-function device…’”

And this:

“In America, a child drops out of school every 9 seconds… By the time a boy is 21, he has spent at least 10,000 hours playing video games alone, probably more watching pornography alone… it means they live in a world they create… their brains are being digitally rewired, which means they will never fit in a traditional analog classroom… Meaning it is boring. You control nothing. You sit there passively.”

You might not be able to follow my wild-haired brain as it thinks outside the box, but let me put this out there. Africa’s education system about to get an infusion of leap-frogging on a scale never before imagined. Fantastic things are possible when you are working with a carte blanche.

ANOTHER GEM:

Here’s another one by renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek on charity and worth ruminating over: “First as Tragedy, Then as Farce“

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