Man Creates Shoes That Grow with the Kids

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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May 9, 2000
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There is all variations of technology and sometimes the least profound brand can make the biggest impact on the world. A World Health worker has designed a new shoe that has the ability to grow with children in the third world to provide them with comfortable fitting shoes for at least five years.
 
Apparently, no one has ever heard of the term "adjustable."
 
These are sandles. with straps.

They do not "grow" and definitely don't protect you from contaminated soil like the video said.
 
Cool concept, but I don't see why they couldn't apply a similar idea to a completely closed shoe. As mentioned above these are nothing more than adjustable sandles
 
What's wrong with strips of old tire and twine like they use now?
 
Unfortunately like all "shoes" they will wear out long before your children out grow them.
 
I guess the irony is being besides the fact that this is not a 'shoe' in the regular sense of the word is... lots of kids change shoes with style, not because they wear out.
 
Yossarian22 said:
I guess the irony is being besides the fact that this is not a 'shoe' in the regular sense of the word is... lots of kids change shoes with style, not because they wear out.
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but we're talking about third world countries, what style ?

unless by style you mean they switch from a bridgestone tire shoe to a goodyear tire shoe
 
Neat idea, but this (as others have mentioned) is a sandal.

What about areas where it snows?
 
why do I get the feeling that his shoe is more expensive than simply getting new shoes as kids grow.
 
Any benefit of this would be limited due to the lack of resell of used shoes or hand-me-downs.

Don't see the point unless you live in an area so remote and unpopulated that you wouldn't be able to trade with someone else.
 
Countries around the world have been capable of making sandals and general foot protection for even the poor for thousands of years. Why is this country which will not be named since we all know which one it is, incapable of doing something everyone else has for thousands of years? Why is this even needed? Has it become such a charity case at this point that it has lost the ability to do anything outside of handouts?

It is really damn pathetic when you think about it.
 
I remember something similar that grows with your kid...(when I was a kid :D)




I gotta get on this bandwagon of finding old shit and re-innovating it for present day use.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Countries around the world have been capable of making sandals and general foot protection for even the poor for thousands of years. Why is this country which will not be named since we all know which one it is, incapable of doing something everyone else has for thousands of years? Why is this even needed? Has it become such a charity case at this point that it has lost the ability to do anything outside of handouts?

It is really damn pathetic when you think about it.
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Because there's a generation there that's scoring on average 70 on standardized IQ tests... and no, I'm not making a joke.

They performed various IQ tests in the region and found that the median score is what we would classify in the United States as borderline retarded and requiring special education (the same test administered in other regions like east-asia with high scores). Poor nutrition and lack of mental stimulus of children many of whom do not go to school or are challenged academically and lastly brain drain where the most intelligent typically emigrate to other countries are to blame, but can you imagine? Its no wonder under those circumstances that something so simple as developing a clean water distribution system is beyond their grasp... something the Greeks had well developed long before the birth of Christ, and the Chinese and Egyptians before that.

So, no, they can't make their own sandals, plan the size of their families, develop or maintain irrigation and trash collection systems and so forth, and so the area is in a general state of disarray and relies on a constant stream of aid of food and medicine.
 
Ducman69 said:
Because there's a generation there that's scoring on average 70 on standardized IQ tests... and no, I'm not making a joke.

They performed various IQ tests in the region and found that the median score is what we would classify in the United States as borderline retarded and requiring special education (the same test administered in other regions like east-asia with high scores). Poor nutrition and lack of mental stimulus of children many of whom do not go to school or are challenged academically and lastly brain drain where the most intelligent typically emigrate to other countries are to blame, but can you imagine? Its no wonder under those circumstances that something so simple as developing a clean water distribution system is beyond their grasp... something the Greeks had well developed long before the birth of Christ, and the Chinese and Egyptians before that.

So, no, they can't make their own sandals, plan the size of their families, develop or maintain irrigation and trash collection systems and so forth, and so the area is in a general state of disarray and relies on a constant stream of aid of food and medicine.
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the main problem is this kind of charity only creates dependency which perpetuates poverty. They are never going to get smart with the current trend. The goal should be to teach them how to be self sufficient like making their own shoes from common materials like hemp and straw. That way when the charity money runs dry as it does from time to time, those people won't automatically go back to being shoe-less.
 
OlIv0rIolI said:
the main problem is this kind of charity only creates dependency which perpetuates poverty. They are never going to get smart with the current trend. The goal should be to teach them how to be self sufficient like making their own shoes from common materials like hemp and straw. That way when the charity money runs dry as it does from time to time, those people won't automatically go back to being shoe-less.
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This, teach skills and cut off the fund raisers from idiots who just want to look like they care while the cameras are on. If they can't learn to progress without the constant aid network then let them sink. Sometimes the best way to teach someone a lesson is fear of death.
 
Lots of yapping from people who don't know or understand what they are talking about.

Way back when I was 2-4 years old, my family was in a refugee camp in Thailand, fled from Laos due to the aftermath of the Vietnam war. I remember getting a new pair of red rubbery sandals. They were girl's shoes and they hurt, but I loved them because they were mine. Fully enclosed shoes weren't needed for the environment. If it rained, the shoes would get wet and smell. We didn't have to worry about wet sandals, they dried just fine. I can see something like this very useful if it was priced cheap enough.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Countries around the world have been capable of making sandals and general foot protection for even the poor for thousands of years. Why is this country which will not be named since we all know which one it is, incapable of doing something everyone else has for thousands of years? Why is this even needed? Has it become such a charity case at this point that it has lost the ability to do anything outside of handouts?

It is really damn pathetic when you think about it.
Click to expand...

Were there 10s of millions of people there at the time? Are there enough natural resources, locally, that they can actually "make" their own materials there now?

Further, even if that is the case, with private ownership and property rights now, I'm willing to bet the land and resources that they used to be able to use to do these things are now privately owned, meaning they don't have access to them/making sandals and general foot protection as they have for thousands of years would now be called theft.

Ducman69 said:
Because there's a generation there that's scoring on average 70 on standardized IQ tests... and no, I'm not making a joke.

They performed various IQ tests in the region and found that the median score is what we would classify in the United States as borderline retarded and requiring special education (the same test administered in other regions like east-asia with high scores). Poor nutrition and lack of mental stimulus of children many of whom do not go to school or are challenged academically and lastly brain drain where the most intelligent typically emigrate to other countries are to blame, but can you imagine? Its no wonder under those circumstances that something so simple as developing a clean water distribution system is beyond their grasp... something the Greeks had well developed long before the birth of Christ, and the Chinese and Egyptians before that.

So, no, they can't make their own sandals, plan the size of their families, develop or maintain irrigation and trash collection systems and so forth, and so the area is in a general state of disarray and relies on a constant stream of aid of food and medicine.
Click to expand...

IQ tests, really? Even in the US you can't really use them as a measure of intelligence, and I believe it's pretty conclusively shown that they're also very culturally sensitive, making them inapplicable. But this is an easy way to not feel bad about consigning people to their fate.
 
TwistedAegis said:
Were there 10s of millions of people there at the time? Are there enough natural resources, locally, that they can actually "make" their own materials there now?

Further, even if that is the case, with private ownership and property rights now, I'm willing to bet the land and resources that they used to be able to use to do these things are now privately owned, meaning they don't have access to them/making sandals and general foot protection as they have for thousands of years would now be called theft.



IQ tests, really? Even in the US you can't really use them as a measure of intelligence, and I believe it's pretty conclusively shown that they're also very culturally sensitive, making them inapplicable. But this is an easy way to not feel bad about consigning people to their fate.
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Individual families should be able to make their own, numbers are irrelevant. Grass is the most basic material used in foot protection sandal making especially over in area's like that which have plenty of savannah. I'm pretty certain access isn't a problem. Likewise it isn't terribly difficult to make a basic grass sandal. Quit apologizing for a culture of laziness. Yes centuries of colonialism fucked the place up, but continued efforts are making it worse not better. I know some like to pretend that all those charity drives are accomplishing something but they aren't.
 
Right, because this slum surely looks like it has enough grass to make sandals for the 300,000 to 1 million people that live there? And being grass, I'm sure they would need to make several pairs throughout the year, at least, as they wear out:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/indiaatlse/files/2012/10/indian-slum1.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi

And as for charity, focused efforts, etc, the global extreme poverty rate has been halved in the past 20 years, a pretty damn remarkable achievement - nearly 1 billion people:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/06/economist-explains-0
http://www.economist.com/news/brief...e-billion-people-out-extreme-poverty-2030-not
 
TwistedAegis said:
Right, because this slum surely looks like it has enough grass to make sandals for the 300,000 to 1 million people that live there? And being grass, I'm sure they would need to make several pairs throughout the year, at least, as they wear out:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/indiaatlse/files/2012/10/indian-slum1.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi

And as for charity, focused efforts, etc, the global extreme poverty rate has been halved in the past 20 years, a pretty damn remarkable achievement - nearly 1 billion people:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/06/economist-explains-0
http://www.economist.com/news/brief...e-billion-people-out-extreme-poverty-2030-not
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We aren't talking about india and you know it. Also you should read the article you linked, it doesn't really support your argument. It paints a pretty clear picture that the rate has been halved due to the efforts of developed nations on their own people, there has been almost no change in the area's where it matters.
 
TwistedAegis said:
IQ tests, really? Even in the US you can't really use them as a measure of intelligence, and I believe it's pretty conclusively shown that they're also very culturally sensitive, making them inapplicable. But this is an easy way to not feel bad about consigning people to their fate.
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1) Sub-saharan Africa has as many diverse cultures as Europe, Asia, and South America.
2) Only sub-saharan Africans scored so unusually poorly among all tested groups... and there is no possible way to construe the tests as culturally sensitive anyway. If I ask you questions about baseball, yes, that's culturally sensitive. But these are the types of questions posed which work for any language or background, which is why people in Norway, China, and Japan all score about the same despite different languages and cultures:
riq3.png


So somehow all these diverse cultures in one region inexplicably do very poorly on tests while multitudes of cultures outside that region all over the world do well... care to explain exactly how you can dismiss that fact? :rolleyes:

And no, "I don't like the result, therefor it doesn't count" isn't a valid reason. There's a reason that sub-saharan Africa is in shambles with AIDS epidemics and economical struggles since your grandmother's grandmother was alive, and its because of the collective actions of the citizens that live there. Smart people make smart decisions and lifestyle choices and priorities, and dumb people don't. Hit a critical mass of dumb people, compounded with all the smart people moving to the US/Europe/Asia and you end up with a clusterfuck. The United States was absolutely devastated by the most bloody civil war in recorded history worldwide and recovered. England, Germany, and Japan were bombed into oblivion and all recovered. They all have unique access to resources, geography, language, and culture, but what they share is that generally speaking if you burn a reasonably intelligent guys house down, he just builds another one.

I promise you, take the entire population of Madagascar, and move them to Japan, and house all the Japanese in Madagascar and within no time you would see Japan fall into disarray and economic collapse while the Japanese people would have Madagascar built up into an industrial powerhouse in no time. After all, think about it... what natural resources does Japan have? Almost nothing (mediocre fishing, poor quality iron ore sands, minor copper deposits)... they have smart people. Madagascar has tons of coal, minerals, rare earth elements, precious stones, and richer fishing opportunities than coastal Japan.

And they could certainly make sandals for themselves.
 
p.i.m.p said:
but we're talking about third world countries, what style ?

unless by style you mean they switch from a bridgestone tire shoe to a goodyear tire shoe
Click to expand...

First problem. "3rd World Country" is not so often the same thing as impoverished. My wife came from one of the up and coming 3rd World Countries and no one was running around barefoot or walking on tire sandles. they had shoes, they had socks, they weren't starving.

So more then enough of the 3rd World doesn't have a problem with the basics, they just have trouble with the finer things. Impoverished countries have a different set of problems and these shoes would be awesome, unfortunately, just like shipments or rice, shipments of adjustable sandles will be stolen and abused as well because some of their larger problems are machetes and AK-47s.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
We aren't talking about india and you know it. Also you should read the article you linked, it doesn't really support your argument. It paints a pretty clear picture that the rate has been halved due to the efforts of developed nations on their own people, there has been almost no change in the area's where it matters.
Click to expand...

Sorry, here's an image of the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, where the original idea was gathered from:

http://www.conquistaweb.it/harambee/img/kenya/kibera_nairobi.jpg
http://www.igrooveradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/kibera-1-of-1.jpg
http://www.africanleaf.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Nairobi-slums-21.jpg

I'm missing the expansive savannah full of lush grasses with which to build their shoes.

As for the IQ tests, you don't think some of those things like AIDs, nutrition, etc, don't feed on themselves? Perhaps getting critical nutrition as a child might be important. But instead, it's much easier to simply write off a whole mass of people with the IQ argument and blame it completely on them rather than look at a fuller picture.
 
Also in regards to IQ, as an example, the IQ of 70 you quote as being "dumb" is the same average national IQ of the Netherlands in 1950.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100121155220.htm said:
The scientists point out that the average African IQ is currently comparable to the average level in the Netherlands around 1950. However, IQ scores in Western countries have risen sharply over the course of the 20th century. In view of this trend, Wicherts and his colleagues claim there are no reasonable grounds to conclude that sub-Saharan countries are poor due to the lower IQ scores of their populations. As it turns out, the average IQ of African adults is seeing a similar rising trend, which is expected to continue if living conditions in Africa improve in future.
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TwistedAegis said:
Sorry, here's an image of the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, where the original idea was gathered from:
Click to expand...
I wonder how these people get any natural resources and don't starve to death: http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/03/9b/2d/f2/new-york-city.jpg

Oh yeah, they get the resources from outside that area and bring it in... something medieval markets in ancient greece were doing long before the birth of christ. Not exactly rocket science here.

And regarding the average score of the Netherlands in the 1950s not being close to 100, cmon, if you're going to pull "facts" out of your butt you better try at least a little harder than that. IQ scores are always normalized to a score of 100, and the Netherlands was never that far off from the international average score the way that most of sub-saharan africa is today: http://www.statisticbrain.com/countries-with-the-highest-lowest-average-iq/

And no, I don't profess to know the answers for why they do so poorly, and yes certainly failure begets failure. I can simply point out failure when I see it staring me in the face, and point out that's why they can't make sandals for themselves. The smart people leave, and you're left with dumb people that can't take care of basic needs. Its sad but true, and trust me, nobody would be happier to see the constant need for our resources to be sent to a region that can never manage self-sufficiency and relies on global welfare for centuries now.

That's often the number one question though for example; does overpopulation create poverty or does poverty create overpopulation? Who knows, but just recognize a poor and overpopulated place when you see one, and start handing out condoms and the chicken or the egg debate becomes irrelevant.
 
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