Satellite phones can currently be purchased by individuals or towns, and yet even the most affluent towns that fear being attacked don’t appear to be purchasing them. A nonprofit could be set up to (in increasing order of importance)
Donate satellite phones to more impoverished towns.
Be a centralized location to which emergency messages can be sent.
Actually do something about genocide beyond issuing a press release.
My guess is that 3. is the sticking point—that a satellite capability on cell phones is actually only helpful to lost Westerners outside the range of a cellular tower, and might be best marketed to hikers.
An even lower cost universal solution might involve green lasers and Morse code, though various governments will object.
I have to agree with this post. Everyone ALREADY knows about, for example, Darfur, and they didn’t need any satellite cellphones for it. Nothing got done about it. The amount that this would help people seems trivial to the hundreds of possible and obvious other interventions money could be spent on.
Satellite phones can currently be purchased by individuals or towns, and yet even the most affluent towns that fear being attacked don’t appear to be purchasing them. A nonprofit could be set up to (in increasing order of importance)
Donate satellite phones to more impoverished towns.
Be a centralized location to which emergency messages can be sent.
Actually do something about genocide beyond issuing a press release.
My guess is that 3. is the sticking point—that a satellite capability on cell phones is actually only helpful to lost Westerners outside the range of a cellular tower, and might be best marketed to hikers.
An even lower cost universal solution might involve green lasers and Morse code, though various governments will object.
I have to agree with this post. Everyone ALREADY knows about, for example, Darfur, and they didn’t need any satellite cellphones for it. Nothing got done about it. The amount that this would help people seems trivial to the hundreds of possible and obvious other interventions money could be spent on.