the best example of problems resulting from nondevelopment that i can think of is on the medical side of things. think of all of the ailments that, with technology, are easy to heal but without lead to death. for example, i would have died in childbirth without the few interior stitches that i needed.

from what i hear, people in less developed countries and countries with less access to medical care have death, sickness, injury & disability more deeply integrated in their lives. there are some advantages to this as well, such as a familiarity with death (and birth for that matter), greater cultural sensitivity to disability, lack of an unnatural norm, no life support and extended chemo pain, ..... but when yr talking about people close to u especially, it's very difficult to imagine not helping when the technology does exist.

it's difficult to say where effective medical borders need to be drawn, but i do believe that 75% of it is hooey.