The concept of shipping psychotherapists and psychologists to Ethiopia has some validity. Members of the American Psychologists Association have proved very helpful in working out torture procedures for Guantanamo. Ethiopia would probably be a good place to get rid of them.

Upon further consideration, psychologists are not the best instrument to convince the Ethiopians that they are not starving. Advertising is much more effective. It's a scientific fact that people who eat less live longer. If you can convince the Ethiopians that a starvation diet is healthier the problem gets solved right there. By eating nothing, they may believe they can live forever which is in tune with religious beliefs of an afterlife.This is in contrast to the campaign of McDonald's in conjunction with AlQaeda to kill off the citizens of the West under an avalanche of their own body fat which seems to be very successful indeed.

Sand, the idea is not for Ethipians to be convinced that they are not starving. In fact, I'm saying that they shall NOT starve by working for food. (This work would then be traded for food from from other countries.) The only problem is that they may dawdle in pain, which is why they would need therapy.

I've also added a new idea concerning reducing welfare by giving multivitamin supplements instead of a decrease in handouts. (I've also mentioned two problems over there.) The same principle can apply here as well.

Here's the URL address for the other idea: www.whynot.net/ideas/3657

The idea of work is a generality that makes no practical sense. Industry requires financing, skills, some plan for creating salable products, a source of capital, government cooperation in encouraging entrepreneurs, and many other factors. There is the implication in your proposal that Ethiopians are not productive because thy are lazy or stupid or insufficiently motivated. Frankly I doubt this. There are many other factors involved that have nothing to do with psychological analysis and you have indicated none of them.

It is a complicated problem. But I appreciate your concern for the Ethiopian people, Yaakov. Complex situations are sometimes most easily solved by unconventional ideas. So keep working on it. Cecilia

I guess it would be nice to start off seeing if there are valuable things that Ethiopia has (something like oil or jewels, for example) that many others don't. I'm assuming no one has done this before, so it's worth asking the appropriate historians if this was REALLY the case.

That Ethiopia has been a country for a long time suggests it has a standing army. Otherwise it would have been invaded & divided long before now. That there is an army suggests there is something worth protecting. That the country can pay an army suggests that they have an income from that something.

The fact is that not all the people in Ethiopia are destitute and starving. The fact is that the government of Ethiopia is ineffective in distributing aid to the people who need it (Kinda like the Bush administration) and the newsreel highlights are always of those people who need it the worst.

Yes, people are starving. In Ethiopia. And elsewhere. Been happening since the dawn of mankind. Our challenge is to develop a system of distributing aid to the people in need. A system that can't be corrupted or interfered with by the standing government. The cynic in me says that ain't gonna happen anytime soon.