68> Haiti and Thinking Small

This is off-topic. The regularly scheduled post will be along in a day or two.

Having a bit of a soapbox to stand on, I realize, has some advantages. I want use mine now to share an idea that’s been in the back of my mind for a couple of years now. The situation in Haiti illustrates a problem that occurs again and again the world over. It is the problem of distributing aid. Specifically it is the dependence of aid agencies on having a top-down system, where airports must be secured, warehouses must be secured, roads must be secured etc, all before food can get to people in need.

The traditional wisdom is that the aid packages cannot be parachuted in, for fear of crushing people and/or causing riots. As a guy who loves to design, giving up the whole idea drives me crazy.

The problem is distributing the aid fairly and evenly. In many cases gangs steal the aid by hijacking the trucks or taking over the warehouses. Often conflict prevents aid workers from getting to affected areas.  In Haiti, there are villages that will be cut off (by road) for some time. Surely there must be some way to get food and water to the people directly.

I submit that the distribution problem is actually a packaging problem. If individual portions of food and water could be dumped from a plane in a form that would not clobber the people below, they would self-distribute on the way down. Long brightly colored ribbons would make them easy to find. When a maple tree drops its seeds, they disperse by means of papery little wings that make them gently spin to earth. Can’t we do the same for a food bar and a half a cup of water? Think about it. You can’t hoard what you have to search out to collect, and small amounts aren't worth stealing. In many cases the children in these disasters watch helplessly as their parents struggle to get the family through. This would give them a chance to go on an Easter egg hunt and be heroes. There would be no favorites, at least in terms of social position or gender.

People could also be encouraged to migrate away from unsanitary conditions. If the drops occur north of town, people will pick up and go to where the food shows up.

I guess in one way this IS related to PRT. The key is to think small. The problem of making something safe to drop from a few thousand feet becomes exponentially harder as the weight increases. This strikes me as similar to the nasty tendency to think big with transportation, or at least not take small vehicle mass transit PRT seriously. It just seems that if you mention moving ten people instead of one or two, suddenly you are taken much more seriously. Small is counter-intuitive.

Similarly the idea of moving tons of food aid with thousands of little parachutes or whirly-gigs sounds ridiculous, until you consider that, as a society, we are already the kings of over packaging. We mass-produce and (over) package little items by the millions every day. These aid items just need to be highly compactable for transit, but, when falling, have enough drag to fall at speeds too slow to be dangerous. Is that really so hard? Not if you think small. Heck, I’m pretty sure my kid’s packaged lunches are almost ready to go as is! Think origami, and plastic that you can fold and will spring back. Think tails with multiple wind catching discs that stack tight for shipping. Let’s solve this problem before the next big disaster, shall we?