These theories listed under concepts have little to do with agriculture, and are focused on the concepts and theories to reshape our world with different methodologies.
I will be using information from any and all places to be used in examples. The information provided on this page were designed to understand why this website is based on agriculture. "Agriculture is a precursor to civilization." This website was designed to solve poverty for places like Myanmar and other places that have poverty. The great thing is that similar systems can use similar ideas. Ideas that solve poverty can be used at different levels of economy and make better economies even better. Personal finance concepts can solve a villages financial problems. I will discuss simple concepts like agriculture and build up to creating a complex national social welfare system. My background is in IT, and I will discuss how we can build, design, and scale systems in the real world the same as we do these things in the virtual world. Also, much of the data gathered was while I was in Thailand. Therefore, many concepts on this page are referencing a perspective from Thailand.
(Note: There is another page called "Myanmar's Future Vision" that goes over similar concepts, but is a tribute to Myanmar. In that page, I chose to take a non-neutral stance and emphasize nationalism and patriotism. However, concepts from both pages should be used anywhere as applicable. Myanmar has so little in many places, so I chose to give them "so much" by making a dedicated page and writing specifically for them.) On that note, here is a cherry plum video. New things lead to a new future. The same things lead to the same future. I am glad our caveman ancestors decided to lead us into a new future.
For us to reduce poverty, we need to solve many other issues that lead to poverty indirectly or cause poverty directly. One of which is the lack of food or access to food, which in turn, leads to malnutrition. With agriculture we can solve so many of the world's problems like poverty, malnutrition, stagnant economies, unemployment, lack of resources, extend life expectancy, and mental and physical health issues like depression, and repair or build these locations to higher and higher levels. As well as preventive healthcare, so that with healthy eating, we will not need to pay or need medicine later. Especially in low-income areas, medicine may not even be available.
Before we continue, we need to understand something about poverty, child hunger, malnutrition, deforestation, and all of the other problems in the world. They all exist because we have not solved them. Plain and simple. Too many adults in the world are doing other things. All of the adults in the entire world (we have almost a 9 billion population) have not solved these problems or are not implementing the solutions. If you are not pursuing at least one of the UN's 17 goals, take the time to evaluate everything you love about this world, and try to help us fix problems that people in far less beneficial situations than ourselves cannot. If you are able to read this website, then you are a lot more fortunate than many others that do not have access to this information, internet, electricity, are illiterate, and may not even have the most basic of education. Work toward those UN goals. We have all of the power in the world, and still in places like Myanmar, children dig through garbage. All of the money in the world, and people still cannot afford even the most basic things in life. Why is the world not as great as this planet should be? Because so many spend each day not trying to fix any of the problems. However, trust me in saying that if you try and solve these problems, more people will come and support you. We are lucky to have the huge support that we do, so come join us. This website is hopefully a way in which we can support you too through free information.
These ideas and concepts will be based with an emphasis on US, Myanmar, and Thailand. (A special Thank you to Myanmar and especially Thailand for allowing me to stay in the places I did. Great people, great places, and a major part of the reason I was able to accomplish so much and build this website during my stays.) There will be tons of references to Myanmar and Thailand directly, indirectly, and in plenty of examples. However, these ideas can be easily used in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and other parts of the world. Also, there will be specific emphasis to the ongoing crisis of malnutrition and poverty that is all too rampant throughout Myanmar. There will be plenty of ideas to help rebuild and repair Myanmar, but please use these ideas to suit your areas and needs. Also, we cannot do this with only us. We need everyone to help. If you love Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, your country, where ever you are, you must come together to solve your problems. If you are waiting for your government, nonprofit, or anyone else, this is not a solution. Hopefully, this website will provide you solutions.
The truth is that we should not just want to help people in Myanmar get out of poverty. We should want them to be rich. We should want Myanmar to start making millionaires. The US has approximately 26 million millionaires and 770 billionaires. Myanmar's population is 55 million. We do not want Burmese and Thai to just get out of poverty, we want them to start multi-million dollar corporations. We do not want them to only have better toilets. We want them to have luxury bathrooms. We want these same people to figure out how to take their agriculture business, their community, and organize them into online e-commerce businesses that transport and ship products worldwide. We do not want to only help a Burmese farmer figure out how to grow corn. We want to help them turn that corn farm into a nationwide cow feed farm. We do not want to help a Burmese family to only grow rice. We want them to make the best rice wine Burma has ever seen. We do not want to treat people in poverty like they are any less capable of becoming the best in the world at things. Dream big, so that we can help them dream even bigger!!!
Why stop at helping people get water? Yes, of course, helping people dig a well or helping them purify water is great. However, help these people make vitamin water that they can sell and start a huge business and help other farmers with vitamin rich water! Even something so simple as adding fresh squeezed lime to cooked rice, can make vitamin rice. Add some parsley, dill, onions, garlic, and we have a way more nutritious rice dish. Keep going to higher and higher levels of complexity and organization. I don't want to help Burmese and Thai build a tilapia fish pond. I want to help them figure out how to make the largest salmon farm in Myanmar and Thailand and supply salmon for sashimi to every Japanese restaurant they can, as well as feed fresh salmon to people that can't afford salmon. I don't want to only help Burmese and Thai end malnutrition. I want to set up the largest nationwide welfare program, so that they can eat better, live better, and join the rest of the advanced world on how great life can be. (Not to say that their life isn't great, but a couple Bugattis and Lamborghinis around Myanmar and Thailand is not bad.) Think big. Dream big. This goes for the rest of South East Asia, and the rest of the world. Figure out how to grow and make caviar, truffles, the best wine, the best tea, the best high quality new Burmese matcha tea leaf salad. However, if you wait for your economy to grow enough that you can afford these things, or you don't do these things that I will teach, your great great grandchildren may still never get to drink the best wines and eat the best foods. (Not to say Burmese and Thai food isn't great, but even the best restaurants in the US strive to improve.)
I will be going through hypothetical and realistic scenarios, all to show examples of what is possible. As for myself, I have a background in IT, so there will be a lot of ideas that utilize IT technology, framework, and methodologies. There will be themes like data driven decision making (gathering and processing data), frameworks like scrum, and concepts learned from the IT industry ranging from processes, project management, virtualization, AI, and system engineering. Also, there will be concepts that I will be using from all kinds of different fields and applying them in many other areas. Ideas that improve one system that share qualities and properties of other systems can be utilized in both systems.
Leadership Principles
Before we get into reshaping our world, we need to understand what true leadership looks like to help guide us along the way. With great power comes great responsibility. [web]
Luckily for us, companies have various ethos, and for us, we will use Amazon's leadership principles. [web] Before we get in depth into leadership principles, we need to understand a few concepts. Traditionally, when people think of technology, they think of things like computers, laptops, TVs, and the latest gadgets. One of the definitions of technology is "the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry." Interestingly enough, leadership is a technology; although not always viewed as such. The ways in which we lead has changed from the 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's to present day, and still the application of scientific knowledge (how to lead) continues to evolve.
Early on in "management", there were certain concepts, frameworks, ideas, processes, and procedures that were used. Micromanagement was one such strategy. This strategy was based on the idea to "control every part, however small, of (an enterprise or activity)." Thankfully, in the US, we have learned that this is a horrible strategy. "Disengaged employees invest time, but not effort or creativity, in the work in which they are assigned." [web] Another strategy was to incorporate cubicles. [web1] [web2] This may not apply in most cases where we may not be working in cubicles, but we need to emphasize the importance of the workplace and the major role our environment plays.
What have we learned in the US? We do not just say that micromanagement is a horrible idea, we replace this idea with better ones. The far superior method is to have better trained people. Why do some countries have the best militaries in the world? Why do some countries have the largest and best corporations in the world? Why do some organizations do far superior than other organizations? Better trained people. This website is based on the idea that the better this website trains all of you, the better all of you will be at solving problems. Why is training people a superior method for improving systems? Think of centralized power or decision making. In IT, a single point that handles everything is really a single point of failure. [web]
Think about ideas. If there is a room with a thousand people, and one person comes up with the ideas for everyone in the room, then we only have ideas from one person. If we have a room full of a thousand highly trained people with leaders that have trained those thousand and listens to those thousand, then we have a room full of thousands of ideas. This is why some militaries are the best because they train people to be the best. This is why some corporations like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, SpaceX, and Tesla dominate and lead the entire landscape of US businesses with creative and innovative ideas and lead many industries worldwide. Other corporations around the world have followed in this way and have transitioned toward better trained people, whether this be employees, volunteers, teachers, hotel staff, farmers, government employees, and every single industry has benefited from this shift.
What is the greater harm in a single point management style? People that do not cultivate their ability to solve problems. The brain needs to be trained like any other muscle. The ways in which we train our brain is through problem solving. If we always listen to what we are told and are micromanaged, then we do not train our brains to find solutions. This is why companies that focused on micromanagement failed to really innovate, as opposed to companies that trained and harnessed their employees' innovative ideas improved at every level possible.
Why is the work environment so important? As much as we like to think that we are "human", we still have animalistic behaviors. We have known that the environment in which we live and work plays a huge factor in our mental health. Here is a study on the effects of noise pollution. [web] Here is a study on the effects of aromatherapy on depression. [web] Did we really need research to understand that smells from roses, lavender flowers, perfumes, colognes, fresh fruits, and sweets smell great and put us in happier moods? (Technically speaking, yes, because research validates our assumptions and hypotheses, or corrects our errors in thinking.)
Those were two examples, but we can see the importance of fostering environments that are conducive to high productivity. Part of agriculture is trying to cultivate the best and healthiest plants and vegetables to obtain the best fruits and vegetables. If we understand leadership, we will understand agriculture better. If we better understand agriculture, we understand how to become better leaders. If we become better leaders, then we create better environments for people to grow and be the best! This website will go well beyond agriculture. Agriculture is a means, but not entirely the solution. The real solution is to end poverty in a sustainable way.
Amazon Leadership Principles
Customer obsession - This is based on the idea that all of this revolves around the customer. We need to understand that in fighting poverty, the people in poverty are our customers. They are the reason we do what we do. They are the reason people all around the world come together and try to solve their problems. We must be obsessed with helping them. If you are in a leadership position, your customers are the people that you lead. If you are in agriculture, your customers are the plants and trees.
Ownership - "They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results." One possible common issue with people in poverty is that their mentality on certain things are short-term orientated. Also, ownership has to do with responsibility. When we take ownership of something, we become responsible for that thing. If we are working on someone's land, we "take ownership" (we do not actually take the land) of that land and take care of and treat the land like the land is ours. This is to help resolve issues where nobody takes ownership of something and nothing gets done. A prime example is garbage. People pass by garbage all of the time and nobody picks up the garbage. There is no other Myanmar. There is no other Thailand. There is no other planet. If Burmese throw garbage and destroy Myanmar, there is no other Myanmar for their children. If Thai people throw garbage and destroy Thailand, there is no other Thailand for their children. Can one person clean up all of Thailand? Of course not, but if every Burmese and Thai person picks up trash and does not throw trash, then there will be no more garbage on the streets. This is not complicated and cannot be more simpler. Everyone pick up garbage, and do not throw more garbage into the street. Garbage belongs in a landfill and dump site (technically, a recycling center), but if you throw trash on the ground, then you are telling the world that Myanmar and Thailand is a dump site and a landfill. If you love Myanmar and Thailand, then change. Everyone needs to help. We start by picking up the garbage in front of our houses. Then the streets in front of our houses, then our neighbors houses, then along the roads. If we truly want to be leaders, then we lead by example. If we want others to keep our countries clean, then we teach them and show them how to clean and keep things clean. In the US, we will start a clean up crew and get the community involved and clean up our streets. Thankfully, due to a lot of hard work, information, great leadership, and culture, our streets are clean and no one really throws trash anymore. Too many times have I seen Burmese and Thai not pick up trash. If you see trash in your neighborhood, start making signs that tell people to not throw trash.
Invent and simplify - This is amazing because in Amazon's leadership principle is the idea that Amazon encourages inventing. (I have worked jobs where the owners or management want nothing changed.) Simplify is a core concept of many different fields. The idea that making something simpler may make that thing more efficient, cheaper, faster, better, easier to understand, easier to fix, easier to duplicate, and easier to teach others. We must always encourage our staff, people, communities to invent and simplify. Train their brains!
Are right, a lot - "leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts." The interesting thing about this principle is not that leaders are right because they think something is right, tell others they are wrong, tell you why something can't be done, or dismantle or oppress all opposing arguments. Leaders are right because they understand the facts. They are data driven. They have the pertinent information as to why something is right. That is a huge and major difference. Some leaders think they are right, while real leaders understand why something is right. We do not tell someone that we are right. We tell people why something is right. We tell people why we water the plants this or that way, why we use this or that type of fertilizer, and why we grow seedlings this or that way.
Learn and be curious - This is the understanding that we are on a continuous path of gaining knowledge and experience and always trying to learn new things. Being curious is about exploration, discovery, and being a child. Children run every where, check things out, and learn about the world around them constantly. Stay curious! I learn new things all the time. Even now, I am growing new things that I have never grown before, and learning from things I am currently growing, while researching other methods about growing. Yes, making mistakes is learning too. I have made (and still do) all kinds of mistakes trying to grow fruits and vegetables.
Hire and develop the best - No one is an expert at a new job that they have never done before. We all learned to be better and to be experts. Hiring the best is great to raise the minimum standard and bring in talent, but this is not always a great practice. Why? Because you can hire the best that does not spend anymore time learning. However, you can hire someone that is not the best, and they can study and learn every single day and be the best. This is why you hire AND develop the best. Mike Tyson (youngest heavy weight boxer in the world at age 19) was not the best at boxing when he placed his foot inside the gym for the first time. His trainer (Cus D'Amato) and Mike Tyson's hard work and dedication helped make him the best. However, if that gym only hired the best, we would have never had a Mike Tyson.
Insist on the highest standards - This goes for anything and everything. We want the best quality. We want the best rice and best rice wine. We want the best stores and best products. We do not only want to sell garlic and mangoes, we want to sell 5k TVs. We do not want to only grow lychee trees. We want the best lychee trees in Thailand. If you have the best lychee threes in Thailand, then you have the chance of having the best lychee trees in SEA, and then the world. We do not want to only help farmers end malnutrition. We want them to help us end malnutrition for the entire country and continue to supply people in need with the best foods possible. Andy Warhol (famous American artist) was well known for painting Campbell soup cans. He loved eating Campbell soup. In a biography documentary on his life, he actually came from a poor family. He said that part of the reason that he painted the soup cans are because he loved the idea that all of the soup cans are exactly the same. He said that no one can have a better can of soup than another person. It does not matter if you are the president of the US or the Queen of England, none of them can have a better can of Campbell soup than anyone else. Can we make a world where everyone in Myanmar and Thailand has the best fruit, and the king or queen or president cannot have a better piece of fruit than the orphan because we give the best fruits to orphans too? Not just to those that can afford the best fruits, but to even the ones that cannot.
Think Big - If you think you can do it, then maybe you have not thought big enough. This website and the ideas in the website always put me in a state of doubt. Often times, I even wonder if these things are even possible. Sometimes I want to give up. Then, I try and remember the idea that I may not be able to do something, may not be able to accomplish something, the road blocks may seem to never end, people seem to have negative things to say like "this or that can't be done" and "that's impossible"... Yet. Try that. Anytime you think something cannot be done, put a "yet" at the end of the sentence. I can't help people in poverty, yet. I can't help people living in malnutrition, yet. I can't gather a list of all of the fruits and vegetables in Laos and Cambodia, yet. Then we see that people that said things were impossible were people that have not seen what is possible. People that say this or that cannot be done is because they have never done it or seen others do it. There limitation is not your limitation. Their limitation is their limitation. Do not try and only help a village. Think about helping an entire country. Do not think about only helping to clean your street, but how we can clean an entire country and keep the country clean. Do not only think to help some orphans, but how we can help every orphan. People all over the world right now are thinking about how to solve the world's problems. Be one of these people. We live in an age with the sharing of information and technology that when we solve one problem, we solve that same problem for the entire world. Every time I publish information on this website, I give this information to the entire world. Think about scaling the things that you do. If you have a great idea, scale it to the rest of the world. Think big!
Bias for action - At times, overthinking things or thinking experience is the right answer may actually be the wrong approach. ML and AI has taught us that many things we thought were right were actually wrong. Our universe constantly teaches astrophysicists what is possible. Here is a long list on the types of biases. This is why we try and make data driven decisions. Because our own biases may not be the correct answer. This is why "be right, a lot" matters. Because we have the data, understand the data, and can make fast great decisions.
Frugality - This is about being resourceful and making the most with the resources we have at our disposal. How can we use plastic bottles? Recycling is great, but what if there are no recycling centers? Not using plastic bottles is best, but what if there are a bunch of bottles? Maybe we can grow fruits and vegetables in the bottles and use them as pots. Maybe we can attach bottles to bamboo sticks and make tools to harvest fruit. Here is a video on a drip irrigation system. Maybe we can combine a bunch of bottles together like a raft, and make a floating garden to utilize the tops of ponds. Maybe we can make vertical gardens by attaching bottles to a bamboo structure. Maybe we can melt the plastic down and make new products. We can figure out how to use bamboo in other ways. I have a bamboo toothbrush. They make brooms out of a straw like material with a bamboo handle in Myanmar and Thailand.
Earn trust - We earn trust by giving trust in others. We trust our staff, peers, and cohorts to do the right things. We trust that the people we are helping will go on and help others. A relationship of any kind is built on mutual trust. Others trust that we know when we say we know because we admit when we do not know. We know that to be the best; we have to admit most of the times that we are not the best. Then, others will trust us. Remember that people project their fears. Their lack of trust in you may be because they are afraid. Educating people in poverty and those that lack education will help them overcome that fear.
Dive deep - We understand the processes, systems, and procedures inside and out. While in Thailand and Myanmar, I walked down and drove down every street I could. Stay curious, explore, and understand the inside and outside of your location, gather data, and dive deep and immerse yourself with knowledge. When we do agriculture, we understand all the layers of processes. In IT, we cross train individuals to make sure that everyone is an expert at every level of the project, so we can shift people to remove and reduce bottlenecks and help the system flow at the highest level with fast reaction times.
Have backbone, disagree and commit - The easy way is to agree. Agree that the way things are the way they are is because we cannot change them is the easy way. That is wrong. We must have the courage to disagree when things are not right. The children of the world living in poverty is not right. Yes, this may be normal for that area, but that does not make that any more right. People living in malnutrition and poor living conditions is not right. People living in grass and bamboo huts is not right. Not in this day and age when we have so much. The more people agree with something does not make the wrong things right no matter how many agree.
Deliver results - We are goal oriented. We strive to accomplish things. Once, I was working with a tired employee that was sleepy. I asked the person to walk with me to install a network switch, but we could walk slowly if need be. Why? Because even walking slowly is still walking toward accomplishing the goal. We may take two steps back to make progress forward. If a trail is blocked, we may go back a little bit, so we can move forward. We make progress, have results, analyze those results, and create more results. Every paragraph on this website and every information was a step toward ending poverty. Take in mind that poverty is not always financial and about money. One of the definitions of poverty is "the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount." [oxford] There is nothing about money in that definition. Fighting poverty can also mean those people that are in a state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount of education, health, and standard of living. Education helps fight against poverty. In fact, education is a necessary component to fighting poverty.
Strive to be the Earth's best employer. "They lead with empathy, have fun at work, and make it easy for others to have fun. Leaders ask themselves: Are my fellow employees growing? Are they empowered? Are they ready for what’s next? Leaders have a vision for and commitment to their employees’ personal success, whether that be at Amazon or elsewhere." We are the stewards of the planet. We were hired by the planet the moment we were born to take care of this planet and do the best we can at taking care of this planet for everyone else. Of course, while trying to have as much fun as possible while doing these things.
Success and scale bring broad responsibility - "We started in a garage, but we’re not there anymore. We are big, we impact the world, and we are far from perfect. We must be humble and thoughtful about even the secondary effects of our actions. Our local communities, planet, and future generations need us to be better every day. We must begin each day with a determination to make better, do better, and be better for our customers, our employees, our partners, and the world at large. And we must end every day knowing we can do even more tomorrow. Leaders create more than they consume and always leave things better than how they found them."
Trust me in saying that I am far from excelling at any of those principles. We try. Some times we succeed, some times we fail. If you think that we are having difficulty in helping people get out of poverty, then think about how hard things must be for them to get out of poverty. We have the resources that they may not. Think about a hole in the ground. If you had a hard time climbing out, do you just walk away, or do you look back and help others out too. Set goals. Even little ones, to make this world better.
Poverty
Poverty comes in many shapes and forms, but the two we will focus on is absolute poverty and relative poverty. Absolute poverty is "defined as a state in which a person cannot meet their most basic needs, such as food, clothing, and shelter. Relative poverty, on the other hand, refers to a situation in which a person's income falls below a certain percentage of the national median income." [web] Absolute poverty is easier to identify because these conditions are generally extreme.
However, relative poverty is a lot more difficult to understand because the comparison of which environment these states are relative to are not always known. In the US, we may not think of people living in poverty, but the people in middle class are living in relative poverty in comparison to those that are rich. We do not normally think of someone in middle class in poverty, but in relative poverty, these people are closer in finances to a person with no money, then they are to the extremely affluent. If a person in the US has ten-million dollars, that person is closer to a homeless person financially with no money, then the millionaire is to a hundred-millionaire. Technology is similar. We think of those people in poverty stricken areas as those that lack any technology, but we do not always understand that people can be in middle class and not have access to the vast amount of technology that is out there. I have been to locations in Myanmar that the people do not realize that they live in relative poverty. They are actually really far behind in many facets. Yes, they have a home, bathroom, rooms, beds, and a yard, but in comparison to advanced countries, the person in Myanmar is living in poverty. Yes, they may be "middle class" in Myanmar, but realistically, they are closer to the homeless person then they are to middle class Americans. (This is not to insult or degrade anyone. This is to point out concepts for us to understand how great things can be, in the hopes that we do not focus only on getting people out of poverty, but getting people to the highest levels of living.)
Here are some videos on kitchens. Take in mind that the designs of kitchens are a part of the technological advances such as the materials used, lighting, structure, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity and aesthetics. The appliances that are coming out have seen innovations as well. As well as, a couple other videos on technology.
Gather data. Find out the income level of everyone in your area and find out the absolute and relative poverty rate. This works in any neighborhood. If people are living in a middle-class neighborhood they often do not do these things, but these things work for their neighborhoods too. If we gather data and find the lowest incomes, then we can work to get them to be more financially fit. Here is google's free mymaps tool. [MyMaps] This will help out in various ways to give data based on different categories. Some things that I did not get a change to accomplish, but I will give to you. Create a mymaps of all the locations of fruit trees in your area that people are willing to donate to your cause. This means that if they have fruit trees that they are not picking, then you offer to get volunteers to come pick the fruit. These fruits will go to the people in your area with low-incomes as well as to help offset the cost of food, so that even people in middle-class have more money.
Use Mymaps to find all locations that are not doing anything productive. Thailand has a whole bunch of land doing nothing. Doing absolutely nothing. (Not to be confused with deforestation. We are talking about land that was cleared for farming, and is no longer being productive. This is actually better because instead of farmers clearing more land, we can repurpose land that was already cleared.) Use mymaps to map out all of the locations of land that is not producing anything. Then we can work with local land owners about using their land to plant trees and vegetables for the reasons above like feeding children to give them more nutritious food. And let us be honest. Who cares if a mango is really that nutritious or not? Give the kids free delicious fruits. Since we have our system of local vendors and people striving to make new products, then we can utilize the lands to grow new products. Take in mind that my example uses agriculture, but repurposing land for other uses is the real concept. How can we take things that are not being utilized, and turn those things into a valuable resource?
Take my fruits and vegetables list for example. we can start growing things not on the list of things in Thailand and Myanmar, and then give those new fruits and vegetables to our people to make new things, and we can scale our idea even more. New products with new ingredients and raw materials. Once we have a solid system in place for growing all kinds of things, we can slowly improve these things by grafting the best of the best fruit trees. Then we can spread these trees all over Thailand so that every child in every part of Thailand will have the best fruits at school. As for us (Thailand), we will have the best products to work with and can make even better products.This allows us to create a system that is infusing our local area with new products and helping all kinds of people. This has the potential to become self-sustaining because as the products improve and sell better in the markets, the markets get better. As the markets get better, then we may have products that are processed and have a longer shelf-life, then we can think about shipping these products to other locations. And maybe, even to other countries. Remember, new products, new technology, and growth will help make a healthy economy. Maintaining is really a path to deterioration and possibly collapse.
You can make up certain agreements as well. Things like, 30% of the fruit will go to local Thai schools for their children, 30% will go to low-income, 20% will go to creating new products, 15% will go to local markets to try and help fund people picking fruits and to the nonprofit savings to fund more projects, and the other 5% will be used to do whatever like use the seeds to grow a nursery to give away fruit trees. If we have more fruit trees in the future, then we can give more to children, development, and everything else above and more. The 20% to development and new products is to work with the local people and let them know that there are free fruits that they can have for free on the condition that they will try and do something or make something with that fruit.If we give them mangoes, and they make dried mangoes, then we will work with local merchants at the market to sell those dried mangoes. Since the mangoes were free, then they only spent their time making dried mangoes. The merchant did not buy the dried mangoes, so they will incur no loss and not have to deal with perishable goods expenditures and losses. The Thai people and market get a new product.
Use Mymaps to section off areas. This will allow us to subdivide locations and group people together based on different metrics like population. If for example, one street from the main road has a population of 200 people, while another street has 100, then we can group that geographic location of 100 with another location of 100. If we do that, then we can do things like Community Gardens. In the US we have all kinds of community gardens in low-income neighborhoods. Take in mind that this is not just an idea for low-income. Community gardens is a great idea even in rich neighborhoods! If we have a location with 100 people, we can identify the minimum number of land to grow a certain amount of fruits and vegetables. This will allow us to work with people that own land to allow a certain part of the land to grow fruits and vegetables for people that do not have land or cannot afford land.
Use Mymaps to find all locations that are not doing anything productive. Thailand has a whole bunch of land doing nothing. Doing absolutely nothing. Use mymaps to map out all of the locations of land that is not producing anything. Then we can work with local land owners about using their land to plant trees and vegetables for the reasons above like feeding children to give them more nutritious food. And let us be honest. Who cares if a mango is really that nutritious or not? Give the kids free delicious fruits. Since we have our system of local vendors and people striving to make new products, then we can utilize the lands to grow new products. Take my list for example. we can start growing things not on the list of things in Thailand and Myanmar, and then give those new fruits and vegetables to our people to make new things, and we can scale our idea even more.
New products with new ingredients and raw materials. Once we have a solid system in place for growing all kinds of things, we can slowly improve these things by grafting the best of the best fruit trees. Then we can spread these trees all over Thailand so that every child in every part of Thailand will have the best fruits at school. As for us (thailand), we will have the best products to work with and can make even better products.This allows us to create a system that is infusing our local area with new products and helping all kinds of people. This has the potential to become self-sustaining because as the products improve and sell better in the markets, the markets get better. As the markets get better, then we may have products that are processed and have a longer shelf-life, then we can think about shipping these products to other locations. And maybe, even to other countries. Remember, new products, new technology, and growth will help create a healthy economy. Maintaining is really a path to deterioration and possibly collapse.
We can do things like we do in the US where we use sections to identify areas and gather data like the total amount of income in that area. If one area is similar to another area, but has half the income, then maybe we can use information on the other area to stimulate growth in the area that is falling behind.
By helping put free food in people's hands that are in low-income or in general, we are boosting the economy to higher levels. If people spend less money on food, they will have more money to spend on more expensive items. Some of the major expenses for people are lodging (whether that is rent or mortgage), food (people eat three times a day everyday), then the rest is like clothes, entertainment, furnishings, cookware, daily living expenses. If we start to give people free food, then they can spend that money on the other things like clothes, entertainment, furnishings, cookware, and other things. We shift the money from place to another. As for the vendors selling food, we have infused that market with new products. They will be even better than before. More money that is going through the local economy is better for everyone, and maybe even stimulates other businesses to come to that location. This may even help bring in more people. People that know that if they rent in this area that we have get access to free organic fruits, may even bring in people from all around the world to want to rent and stay in these locations. The money that these people spend on rent and give to the local economy far outweighs giving out fruits and vegetables. They too will have more money, live healthier, and spend in the local economy in higher levels like renting motorbikes. Reducing spending or offsetting expenditure is a common strategy in personal finance and helping get out of poverty. This concept of using this idea on a community and larger scale is the same principles. If we grow our own vegetables economically, then we spend less money on food. If we spend less money, we have more money. If we have more money, then we can use that money to buy other things.
Also, as the economy grows, we are creating jobs. Even better, we are shaping a place that people want to visit, live, and come and love life that much more. Will this collapse the restaurant business? This is absolute nonsense. More money gives people the means to go out and eat. People eating at home because they cannot afford to go out and eat is actually more of the norm in many areas. How many times have you heard people say, "I don't want to go out to eat because it's too expensive", or "that restaurant costs too much." I will tell you from personal experience that people that have more money eat out more. How many parents in the US tell their kids "Why do you always eat out; we have all of this food at home!?" "I'm tired tonight, can we just go out and eat?" "I don't want to cook, let's go out tonight." When families have more money, they want to do more things that they love to do. If they have free food at home, they will go out and spend money. They will go to restaurants instead of sitting in front of the stove waiting for food to cook, or washing dishes after they are done eating. They would rather go out to a nice restaurant, each person will order what they want, sit with beautiful views, listen to great Thai live bands, and have some magnificent desserts and drinks. Also, the free fruits and vegetables will offset the costs of restaurants paying for ingredients while increasing their profits.
(I want to take a little bit of time to share and understand the idea of invasive species. These are species of plants, trees, animals, and things that are not native to a location. Bringing in new products can be great, but the wrong products can be detrimental to a location. Here is a list of invasive species. [Invasive species list] Also, depending on your location, I would work with government, specific and specialized entities, and universities to identify plants and trees suitable for import. [Invasive species wiki])
This is part of the beauty of capitalism that people do not always understand. Are there down sides to capitalism, of course, but there are more great sides. One of the great sides is that competitive businesses help the consumer. Why should any economy that is selling lychee for 50 baht a kilogram want to create a system in which lychee jelly is selling for 55 baht? In the system selling lychee we have farmers and people associated with farming like fruit pickers making 50 baht a kilogram. Why should farmers do the extra work when they can simply pick fruit and sell the fruit? Why spend all the extra time and effort just to make 5 more baht with another product? Here are more common traits associated with that scenario. Low and unskilled labor associated with farming lychee. All they need to do is learn how to pick lychee every season, then sell to the vendors or bring the fruit straight to markets and sell. The labor is low, their wage is low, the farmer gets to benefit, the consumers get higher priced lychee. In that scenario, the farmer makes most of the money, but endures much of the cost. The economy in that area really does not do that well. Maybe the farmer has enough sense to save money, buy more land, hire more workers, and repeat until the farm is a huge farm. Unfortunately, the farmer benefits more, while the others really do not benefit that much. Yes, the farmer creates jobs, but creates more low paying jobs. Until finally, the farmer reaches a maximum. This maximum is when their own lychee has saturated the market until there is not much increase in profitability by adding more lychee trees to that area. In most cases, these places become stagnant. The farmer may start to grow other products to break that maximum, but the cycle of low paying jobs continues with higher priced lychee and other fruits.
If we have the opportunity to saturate the market with lychee and ignore this maximum limit and let the price drop, then we will be giving low costing lychee to the market. This is great for the consumer and people because they get cheaper lychee and have more money to use in other areas. This is not that great for the farmer. Because of this, many times farmers never go beyond. What happens beyond? If we continue to grow lots of lychee, drop the price, create systems that allow people to have cheaper lychee, stimulate new products based on lychee, then we can create more products and process lychee. Part of the byproduct of that system is that by processing lychee, in many cases, processed lychee also lasts longer. Normally, lychee may last a week or two, but processed lychee can last for months or even years. Think of lychee jam and preserves. These can last for even years. If lychee only lasts for a week or two, we can only ship to distances reachable in a week or two, but we still have to sell the lychee. No one is going to want to buy lychee delivered from us that only lasts a day because we took a week to drive and deliver that lychee. Excluding refrigeration that can increase the duration of lychee before spoiling, and refrigeration technology increases the costs significantly. Also, fruits tend to ripen within a short window which in turn floods the market with massive amounts of fruits for a small window of time. If there are other farmers in the area, then this issue is further exacerbated. Another benefit of more products, is that we are allowing and stimulating a system in which new higher and diverse skilled jobs are developed.
In Thailand, people grow chickens and let them run around. People can work with each other, count the total number of chickens, find others with chickens, start to trade chickens with each other to continue to add genetic diversity in their populations, and keep raising chickens. With the surplus of chickens, they can give chickens to other Thai people in less suitable financial situations. It is that easy. These systems seem complex, but they are actually quite simple to start, maintain, and improve. If they continue and organize into larger systems, they can actually combine eggs together to sell at the local market. They can start an actual community cooperative egg farm easily. Granted, there are standards met that allow us to make sure we feed the chickens a certain diet.
Also, we are stirring more entrepreneurs to create new businesses. Now that we have all of these products that people are making, then the demand for lychee goes up. If demand increases, the price increases and the farmers make more money. This helps encourage other farmers to sell lychee and makes more land profitable and helps bring the price back down. Does the farmer lose money or go back to a system in which he makes little to no money? The reality is that the farmer ends up making more money than he ever did. His market is not just a market in which people buy raw lychee.
I mean honestly, who is eating that much raw lychee? However, in our new market, there are so many new products that come from our farmers raw lychee product, that the farmer is making money selling everything he can grow because people are buying and processing everything the farmer grows, and they are taking care of the processing and shipping for the farmer. No matter which product the consumer buys, all the money goes back to the farmer. If a person buys lychee jam, lychee cake, lychee jelly, or lychee soda, the farmer wins because he makes money through every product, the local economy wins because all of these jobs are created, the consumer wins because they have all of these great new cheaper products. In the US, the farmers end up becoming more efficient with their land and finding ways to grow more products because the demand is so high. Now, we have vertical farms where companies have found ways to grow all kinds of vegetables all year round. That is where the beauty of capitalism comes in to these economies.
Because of those types of systems, Americans get an enormous amount of great options in products at low (relative) cost. This is due to economies of scale. Making things in larger quantities reduces prices; therefore, either increasing profits, or passing those savings off to customers. The issue with places like Myanmar and Thailand is that there are imports of goods, but these goods may not be affordable or realistically viable in comparison to other expenditures. If ground pepper costs 300 baht, this might be affordable to a Burmese or Thai person, but may not be a practical purchase. However, if the price were significantly cheaper because of local production, then this may be an item that has more presence in foods. That goes for many other products.
Yes, some products can be a lot more expensive, but the US economy has products for all levels from low income to rich. People in low income can get great tasting wine for cheap, but the rich can get even better and the best tasting wine for more expensive prices. In the previous scenario of the farmer and low wage workers, we may see an import of wine, but usually at higher prices that the local economy usually does not consume. Also, because of the range in products, people can save money buying cheaper items in one area (while living a higher quality life and living standard because the cheapest quality is still of higher quality), and splurge in other areas. Part of my vision is to give people in poverty access to the highest quality items, yet be part of an economy that strives through profitability to encourage and stimulate growth. This system will hopefully become self-sustaining in so many different ways. Maybe, we can all come together to create these types of systems where everyone wins, instead of systems where only a few people win. This type of concept will help to break the ongoing cycles of poverty in these areas and help them thrive and get access to the best quality products by stimulating growth and creation of those products.
What have we done to much of this planet? We have taken and taken. Why? Because we lived in abundance. There was no need to gather data on fish, animals, nature, forests, and anything else because we took and took and there was never an issue on how much was left. Now, things have changed dramatically. Abundance turned into deforestation, malnutrition, depleted oceans, empty lands, extreme poverty, mass specie extinctions, and lack of wild life and wild life diversity. For those that have watched movies or documentaries have seen what the planet was like in the past during times of abundance. When buffalo roamed all over the US. When fish swam all over the ocean. When rivers were full of fish. When hunters could constantly get the biggest animals to eat with little time spent actually hunting. When fisherman went to the oceans and brought back nets full of fish. At any point, did people say, "this is horrible. All this fish in the ocean is really collapsing the fish market. All of these animals to eat is horrible. All of these fruits growing everywhere is ruining this planet." The truth is that we lived in abundance for most of humanity.
Can you imagine if people early on said, "we do not want regulation of the fishing industry. We are trying to catch fish, and they are telling us not to. They are telling us to catch less fish. They want more fish in the ocean? They are going to collapse the fishing industry. If there are more fish, the price will drop and everyone will lose their jobs." Here is a video of a thriving fishing industry due to abundance that became a 1.9 billion dollar industry, the second largest fishery in the world, and provided 30,000 jobs. [video] Instead, imagine another video saying, "South East Asia's warm, nutrient-rich soils support some of the largest and most successful commercial farms on the planet. These farms are the largest in the world worth an estimated 10 billion dollars and provides over 20 million jobs." What's another way to help people get out of poverty? By giving them better high paying jobs, is how to help people get themselves out of poverty.
Since we have a huge agriculture system that is growing and has new products and new fruits and vegetables, we can begin to teach people how to grow these things and maybe set up a vocational school and link these to local schools in our area to teach kids and adults about all the new technology we are creating. Remember, technology is not always about computers. As these children learn, maybe they take these ideas, new fruits, new products to new areas and start new businesses there. After all, the children are the future. Some day, they will take all the things that we have done, and take them even higher.
Another benefit to our agriculture system is that we are showing the world how to make new products and grow new things, as well as the rest of South East Asia all of the things that can be grown. This means that we have the potential to reclaim the land that is being used for rubber and palm oil farming. Thailand has already passed a level of rubber and palm oil farming that has deteriorated their value. This is great for the entire world. Cheap Thai rubber. However, we can begin to repurpose and reclaim those lands to help a lot of local people and allow these same land owners larger profits, as opposed to more and more people planting rubber and palm oil trees.
What does this mean for Burmese people as well? Thailand is in a huge beneficial state because of the neighboring Myanmar. Thailand has a huge resource and that resource is Burmese people. If Thai people have more money, they can do more things like remodel and build new stores. If they build new stores, Burmese can help do the construction work. If they build more restaurants with all these new products and dishes, they can hire Burmese people. This means that the real limit to Thai businesses in the future is their own funding. If they want to build or grow or start any new business they want, there is almost an endless supply of labor ready and willing to help their businesses grow. They will obviously hire Thai people, but they have access to a "cheap" labor force. Any country would love to have that. If US had a cheap labor force, we could do probably 1,000 times more things. These systems are linked together in so many ways. Burmese and Thai people helping each other. Remember, making places better is also about identifying resources and how to utilize those resources. For me, even people that are unemployed are a valuable resource in the right hands.
Also, about Myanmar, the average life expectancy in Myanmar is 65, almost 20 years less than Japan that has 85 year old life expectancy. The notable fact about that data is that the data is an average, which means that people in Myanmar are dying a lot earlier than 65, and people in Japan are living a lot older than 85. Burmese farmers have entered a cycle of generational poverty, lack of education, and constant practices that shorten their lifespan. If a Burmese farmer has 1 acre of land, they may plant rice on the entire acre. To them, increasing and maximizing profit is the most crucial aspect. However, they can use 70% of that land for rice, and 30% of that land for growing other fruits and vegetables to make sure they live long and healthy. They may actually make more money over time because they lived longer and spent less money on health issues. Also, if they continue to live in malnutrition, they may end up spending more money on medicine later in life and be in an even worse situation. Worst case scenario, they do not have or can afford the medication.
With some of these basic ideas, we can begin to fight against poverty in a self-sustaining way, help feed children with more foods, help boost the local economy, help fight malnutrition because we can identify more and more locations that need these free foods, and really change the world. We are not collapsing the agriculture business, we are helping develop the agriculture business to new heights. More money helps on so many other levels. Think about stimulating high end businesses. If done correctly and in the right areas, these businesses will start even more higher end businesses.
Gather more data. We gather nutritional data on people in different villages and check for malnutrition and deficiencies. Yes, people can live in Thailand, in a middle-class area, have a car, house, TV, AC, and still be living in an area with a limited number of fruits and vegetables. We can do a nutritional assessment, then compare their nutritional need to our database and nursery. We can send them or plant them all these new fruit trees and give them all these seeds to help give them the minimum number of fruits and vegetables they need for their population, as well as help them have free food to help build their economy. Among many other things, this system will slowly start to build into a national level welfare system if done correctly. The data gathering, the assessments, the Mymaps, the communities, the community gardens, and more. This will also build stronger and more robust systems to help in almost any situations in the future. Because why stop at agriculture? We will start building hatcheries and expand community gardens into community fish ponds. We will keep building higher and higher and more and more complex systems. We can form people into Scrum teams that solve problems, then scale that idea. What about a Scrum Nation? An entire nation willing to help give each other new vegetables and fruits and food and clothes and fish and keep raising the bar. We establish what the minimum is through our data. If the poorest person in Myanmar and Thailand is a millionaire, then we did alright.
I almost always try and keep my writings and teachings positive. Although, if people do not unite together for good and help each other, especially in vulnerable areas, they will surely fail together.
I want to make sure that we understand that agriculture is a major component, but is only a part of the overall things needed to solve poverty. To be honest, think about growing and grafting trees. If I plant fruit tree seeds right now, in 1-2 years I will have root stocks for grafting. Once I graft those trees, then we need about another 2-3 years for the trees to grow. How long do you think this will take to start growing and giving fruit trees away, and for these trees to bear fruit? All of the things above can be done to help people in poverty and to help feed children in schools. However, I really want to make clear that I am creating multiple systems all over that are designed to have us help each other. Raising chickens and giving chickens away is meant to create a system in which we give chickens to each other. Growing fruit trees and giving fruit trees away, and some day giving fruits from those trees to each other. Growing vegetables and giving each other vegetables to grow. Growing shrimp, clams, oysters, or fish, and giving each other fish and shrimp. Growing and making mealworms, vermicompost, wormcastings, to give to each other. Growing mushrooms and giving each other the means to grow our own mushrooms.
Does this have to be food only? I want people that make shirts to make shirts for others. I have been into people's homes all over that are in poverty. They lack everything. Can we not create an environment where people are producing so many things and giving things away? This is not difficult. The solution is really that simple. Nothing against large companies, but why do they get to pick who they donate money to? Why can't we make businesses by boosting the economy with all of these new products that we made, and give some of these products to people in poverty? Why can't we make the best wine, and give some of that best wine to people in poverty? Why can't we make the best fruits, and give some of those fruits to people in poverty and children? What about areas that do not have these large corporations? There was a saying, "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" [quote] Teach a community how to create a sustainable fish hatchery, and their entire community will eat for generations.
Not only giving each other these things, but teaching each other how to grow and raise these things. Right now, do you know how to make soap? We buy soap all of the time. Why should the soap company get our money? Why can't we make soap, teach others how to make soap, we can all make soap, we can all make more soap, and we can all make more soap for people in poverty? Why should some company get our money, and give none of that money to our schools? Do you know how to make cheese? Do you know how to make yogurt? Do you know how to make chocolate? Do you know how to make coconut milk? Do you know how to silk screen shirts? All of this information is easily accessible on places like Youtube. Not only do my systems try and help create excess in cheap, effective, efficient, and self-sustaining ways, but I am teaching people to funnel that excess to people in poverty. Also, I am trying to stir the concept of production back into these economies. Agriculture is one system and at the same time, an example. We can create all sorts of systems. All sorts!!! These are a few of the systems I talk about, but there are an endless number of things we can design. Even right now, I am growing fruits and vegetables. This is only a small part. I am making this website to show and teach people well beyond the fruits and vegetables I can grow. If you create all sorts of systems for your community, you will easily, easily, easily, make things better for people. If you teach others, they too will do the same. I will be honest in saying that, these concepts are so simple that I have no clue why we aren't doing more.
We will take our products and make the best products. We will make the best rice wine in the nation. We will make the best dishes with the freshest products. We will start to grow our own cultivars and know which ones grow the best in different locations. Why stop at a few, like Thai ginger and Thai eggplant? Why not have Thai watermelon, Thai mango, Thai blueberry, Thai grapes, Thai peas, Thai raspberry, Thai every new fruit and vegetable. With our new agriculture systems, new hatcheries, and new stores with new products, we will start to make new areas. Think about a location in Thailand that is not doing anything. We can now make this land into something new. We can plant new trees and build new communities. We can shift rubber trees to these new locations. Keep great organic fruits and vegetables close, while placing rubber tree farms in other locations. As we grow, so too will the world with us. People from all over the world will share their seeds with us too.
I would like to take the time to mention something that rarely gets addressed. Mental health.
Part of creating these systems is to help people, and just as crucial to helping them is to train them to be able to help themselves and each other. This is to give them hope. This is to inspire them. This is to give them the means and processes to uplift themselves out of poverty. This is to empower them to be in control of the change in their own environments. Does this mean that people in poverty cannot be happy? Of course not, but they can be a whole lot happier. Yes, we want to eradicate poverty, malnutrition, and raise the standard of living. What we cannot forget is that we are trying to make a difference in their lives, and they are seeing people try and make a difference in their lives. Are there people that will say negative things to your ideas. Of course. Does any of that matter to someone in poverty? Not at all. What matters are the people that try and help them. What matters is that we let them know that they are not forgotten and surely not left behind without any help. We let them know that there are people out there, strangers, people that they have never met, that are willing to help them because helping them is the right thing to do. We let them know that they may be in poverty, some may have lost everything, some orphans may have lost their parents, some may have lost their homes, but they have never lost their humanity. We empower them and help give them the confidence to know that all of their problems are solvable. These systems will also inspire the next generation that they can and will get out of poverty too.
And this is not even the best parts. Yes, it gets even better. This is the foundational level things.
We can save a lot of people.
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