Merry-Go-Economics
A water pump in South Africa shows that games power survival.
May 16, 2006
Geoffrey Hamilton
A PBS Frontline / World segment, called
The Play Pump
on a South African entrepreneur's, Trevor Field's, charity project
to help his country's rural people get drinking water, shows simply and directly that games do power survival.
When the old hand pumps proved to be lacking the power needed to bring water from deep wells, and
secondly, not pleasurable enough to motivate pumping in excess of immediate needs, Trevor and a designer came up with
a solution: make pumping a game which already has value. He made a pump 'handle' the size and
shape of a playground merry-go-round.
The idea works because typical local kids would be
attracted to such a game; there
are few competing games to play with, like tv, or even other playground games like slides. Kids
play on it for hours - incidentally pumping water into a ten metre high water tower which gives
easy access to clean drinking water for anyone who needs it.
Game power as opposed to 'survival power' is a real phenomenon of existence and is
demonstrated in this case and in many other ways, from the rutting seasons, to hang gliding.
Few, if any, beings wish to survive as a
goal. If anything they will be hoping for a game to come along -- which is a game in and of
itself which happens to keep these beings alive while waiting and hoping, and at times using
boring old hand pumps to get adequate drinking water in the mean time.
Games can have no connection to vital stuffs, and can
not only deliver the necessities but can get you what your heart never dared to desire.
The downside of a trick like this merry-go-round is that it gives kids motion sickness
and, besides, they all will get bored of it soon and move on. What the merry-go-round plan really counts on
is a fresh crop of young kids to pump the water. It might even degenerate into some local people having
babies just to man the pump with these short term suckers. What could be worse for them all is if the play pump
becomes uncool to play with. No one might go there except as mules
to pump water that they alone need.
For all the good work that Trevor thinks he is doing there is no end to the
need. Time for him to begin from the ground up and examine everything.
GRH
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