Robot running

There are two seperate arguments being made here. One is in favor of the Green Movement which suggests that we should tear down the rich to improve the poor, and the other is the opposing side which believes we should improve the overall quality of everyone's life rather than destroy what some people have worked hard for throughout many generations. It's interesting to see people on both sides even though I personally believe one argument is flawed tremendously.

I really hope you realize that Africa as a continent has more than enough resources to feed it's population...and then some. The problem comes from the rebel factions and corrupt governments making deals with foreign governments. If you want to give African's food, then we need to figure out reform in the country. We need to figure out a government that works and to rid the nation of poverty.

You couldn't say it better. The problem lies in us stripping them of their resources so we can feed our appetites. The best possible solution would be two-fold, where we remove all MNC's and then systematically introduce infrastructure that is to be slowly turned over to Africa's needs. MNC's catalyze the problem of corrupt governments. It is our appetite for cheap and excessive goods that has decimated an entire continent for centuries. Something eventually has to give.

Our standard of living can only be attained at the cost of another. To assume that we can increase the standard of living of a continent while maintaining our own is ridiculous by simple logic. There isn't an infinite amount of resources to go around, therefore those who are pillaged to feed others can only take so much until there is nothing left to pillage. The dirty little secret of our great society is that it is built on the backs of those have nothing so we can have something.

If you can't see the connection between the technology used to create this robot and the technology used in the water filtration device, then you are not seeing the the whole picture, and if you can't envision how the exact technology IN the robot itself will in turn be used to in other 3rd world aid devices, then you are indeed very short sighted.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Unnecessary add-ons that contribute to the difficult application of their solutions. Solutions these devices offer are impractical in that they require an infrastructure that only we can provide but furthermore the bottom line must be met and in doing so it is an inevitability that the expenses that go into making these devices outweigh the benefits.

A solution that entails a dependency on a foreign manufacturer to supply crucial life-sustaining supplies has ulterior motives written all over it. Besides that it isn't a solution if the problem in of itself isn't solved, that being a lack of domestic infrastructure for water purification treatment plants. Solutions must be cheap and simple to work in an environment that is economically unsound and politically harsh. Technology isn't conducive to either.

Doesn't setting up a water purification plant imply the use of many forms of technology?
I don't know if its fair to prescribe the use of technology to set up life-sustaining systems and at the same time preach that its future development won't help anyone and is a waste of time and resources.

Yes a water purification plant will use many forms of CURRENT technology. We already have the means to construct them and yet we look for every reason to justify long-term research into a problem that exists today.

It seems to me that putting an end to long term research is not the solution to the problems you have issues with.
If there was an end to long term research, why would that mean the resources would be spent (for example) on water purification?
I might argue that there are plenty of resources for both, and that the reason we haven't built these water purification facilities has nothing to do with robotic research at all.