Biggest problem

[KukriKhan]

Please do 'stick to your guns'. I was trying to respond to Franconicus's poll question:

"From a global point of view, what is the biggest problem today? One that our generation has to solve."

I think global functional literacy is an achieveable first step to solving many of the problems he proposed, and that illiteracy is a problem in its own right, that he may have overlooked. I think there is significant correlation between literacy, poverty and the 'trouble spots' in the world, as reflected on the blue-er areas of that map.

You think...something else.

Of course, if the poor would just stop being poor, or fundamentalists would just stop being fundamentalists, or Americans would just stop being Americans, I guess that might work too.

[Byzantine Prince]

Ok here's some reasons why that extract you have is wrong.

My encyclopedia on the computer has the Congo(DRC) at 88% literacy(total literacy). Compare that with Canada's 96.6% and it's not that bad. Especially consider how many low level jobs there need no education whatsoever.
Also Eastern Europe has an average literacy rate of 98%(higher then Canada's) and it's definetly one of the poorest regions in the world. Also it has almost no wars. Thailand has 96% and it's also very poor.

Qatar has 82.5% and it's pretty rich. The standard of living there is probably higher the US's.

I think this requires a topic of it's own though.

[Al Khalifah]

The gap between the haves and the have-nots worries me.

More often than not the have-nots are those outside the loop. In the past I would have agreed that literacy was the main factor that influenced this prescence but nowadays I feel it takes more than just being able to read to consider oneself part of 'the revolution.'

If modern technology and computer literacy rates were available for the world's nations, as well as regular access to such resources, I think you would see a much more regular corelation to living standards and wealth.