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Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#91
First of all, I think, you are greatly underestimating the role of productivity growth in fighting poverty.

Apart from the forces that directly increase productivity (science, markets, entrepreneurship, etc), I think, the most important factor for creating broad based wealth is transparent, evidence based, predictable governance and a functioning legal system. It's not about low taxes or high taxes or small or big government. There are very low tax countries that work and very high tax countries that work and everything in between.

So if I was going to do non profit work, I would look into ways of creating transparency, shedding light on areas that affect many people but suffer from lack of good data. Try to connect new sources of data related to poverty and make it available to the public, to economists, social scientists and governments. Or try to make money flows visible to fight corruption or misinformation. Things like that.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#92
I think it's too easy to focus on specific problems (food/water/medicine), rather than focusing on the cause of these issues. There are many countries that have the resources to take care of themselves, but lack the social and political structure to do so.

Someone needs to take care of these problems in the short term of course, since there are people suffering today, but it is also important to focus on how to reduce their needs.

There's no technological magic bullet to solving political and social issues, but there are ways to reduce them. One major problem in some parts of the world is corruption. I'm not thinking of the white collar corruption that can be found in the western world, but basic corruption such as having to bribe your child's teacher so that he will let your child in. In some cases you even have to bribe health personnel for the right to "free" health care or other forms of aid. In some countries the corruption is everywhere and is hurting the society.

If someone could find a cheap and reliable way of reducing corruption you would do a lot of good.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#93
post #34
post #28

This might be an unpopular opinion, but a nonprofit/charity will never make as big a difference as a true for-profit vehicle that is pointed at the same problem. Nonprofits are ultimately financially unustainable; they survive on donations and government grants (tax) rather than direct contributions from customers. As such they usually can't scale to employ many people or make a worldwide impact. There are exceptions…

"This might be an unpopular opinion, but a nonprofit/charity will never make as big a difference as a true for-profit vehicle that is pointed at the same problem." It's certainly not an unpopular opinion on HN, home to hordes of corporation-loving, free-market worshiping libertarians.

I have downvoted you because your comment is an unwanted personal attack on this sites users.

If you disagree with his, in my opinion correct, assumption then please argue such so that we can all be smarter.

Thank you.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#94
They say you don't need to do great things, just little things with great love. That's pretty true in my experience.

Also, there's always that snarky little angle when seeking for something meaningful to do: you're in effect seeking a meaningful life, or just a meaning, for yourself. So there's that selfish aspect there as well. And that sort of implies judgment: you decide it's wrong that other people are wronged; however, the world is often a bit gray and it is gray on that, too. You don't know what these people are going through by living their poor lives and great suffering. And you don't know why. And no matter who it is you can't just go out and decide some people need help: these people need to ask for help themselves, only then they can receive.

That's what I think the starting quote means: you can ask for being a helper yourself and then wait how that unfolds in your case. Most likely it's something that comes up in your everyday life, hence the little things with great love. That's where you have the greatest possible leverage to do good because it's your everyday life and you're invested in it yourself as well.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#96
Start by doing something small. Do it well. Do it again and again and again. Until you think you can scale it up and it doesn't interfere with any of your personal commitments or dreams.

I was really impressed with this video by Derek Sivers about how startups don't need funding to start. Though in a different context, it puts the point across. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KLnXjqKL5g) If you want to make a big difference, start by doing smaller things and scale up.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#97
There are some great NGOs for hackers that do awesome stuff: e.g. the Sunlight Labs in the US, MySociety and the Open Knowledge Foundation (disclaimer: associated) in the UK. They build apps for government transparency (also international aid transparency) and participation. I believe that these are the hackers who actually make the world a better place.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#98
post #28

This might be an unpopular opinion, but a nonprofit/charity will never make as big a difference as a true for-profit vehicle that is pointed at the same problem. Nonprofits are ultimately financially unustainable; they survive on donations and government grants (tax) rather than direct contributions from customers. As such they usually can't scale to employ many people or make a worldwide impact. There are exceptions…

pg has an interesting essay on the subject: http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#99
post #90
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My estimate is that the US currently spends roughly $3 Billion (with a B) on medical care for a mere 30,000 people with CF. This is mostly covered by insurance, state aid, federal aid, and charities. The families are typically under enormous financial stress and can ill afford to spend money on some risky unproven source of advice, which is the category my experiences fall into. I think it's very repeatable and peopl…

While I appreciate the sentiment, I have to take issue with your comments here. I have cystic fibrosis, and have been diagnosed since I was 3. As you surely know, this disease is not the same for everyone, since it is caused by a wide array of genetic defects that manifest themselves differently in each patient. Beyond this, the major health effects of CF are not directly due to these genetic defects. The main sympto…

Thank you for your reply.

I am guilty as charged of thinking that the whole thing is rather stupid. When I discovered that addressing excess acidity was effective in helping me need less medication, I thought this was some major revelation. It turns out it is rather well established in the CF community that CF leads to very extreme excess acidity. Yet it goes largely untreated, in spite of acidosis being a known serious medical problem. Additionally, the salt issue is so well established as an issue for CF that a sweat chloride test is the single most common initial test for CF, yet nothing is really done to address that issue. Both seem very obvious for anyone in the know yet both go largely ignored in treatment modalities.

As for victim card, I've really had the crap kicked out of me for trying to share info. I have no doubt that at this point that negatively impacts the way I come across when discussing the issue. I don't have some magic wand for how to make that go away. I think the ugliest thing said to me publicly was that someone implied that my son was the product of an incestuous relationship. Moderators routinely side with my attackers and act like I have some unreasonable expectation for thinking I should be able to participate in conversation on the same footing as other members where such attacks would not be tolerated. I have left lists over such incidents.

Researchers and doctors have expressed no interest in what I am doing. My doctor's response to my dramatic improvements in health was to schedule me fewer and fewer appointments and express zero curiosity as to how I was doing so much better. For the most part, people on CF lists are also not really interested. Their primary response is to be very defensive and default to accusations that I am a charlatan and a snake oil salesman. I find this personally very difficult to comprehend or deal with. I have CF. Why on earth would make any of this up? People are suffering and dying and begging for a cure. One would think that my testimony about my experiences would be warmly welcomed rather than viciously attacked. I am both baffled and hurt by this consistent response over the past five years.

I didn't get myself well in order to impress anyone. I am willing to help if I am able, but I am not interested in martyring myself. I got well to get my life back, not to find new ways to be tormented by life. If getting my life back is all it accomplishes, that is enough in my book. (I have heard similar stories of health improvement due to diet/lifestyle changes about other people. I am apparently not the only one who made significant changes to diet and lifestyle and saw major improvements. Most people apparently just go on living quietly rather than fight with other people about it, an approach I continue to work on in spite of my big mouth.) The degree to which the CF community plays the victim card and expects other people to pay for their survival and very high on-going medical expenses is something that looks to me like a big part of the problem, both in terms of mental models and logistically.

As for the "excess mucus" theory, I do not buy it. I have seen more than one public discussion about women with CF suffering vaginal dryness, in some cases so severe it ruined their sex life. I see no reason why one set of mucus membranes in the body would work the opposite of the rest for a genetic disorder that impacts all cells in the same manner. One study I ran across indicated that it was not excess mucus clogging up the lungs of people with CF, it was phlegm -- ie infection -- and that, in fact, people with CF produce too little mucus, not too much. This fits with my experience that when my sinuses are too dry, that's when I have more lung issues and sinus issues. I have seen women with CF complain of "goopiness" (vaginally). I see no reason to believe that isn't also a form of drainage from infection, similar to phlegm build up in the lungs. It seems to me if it were mucus, then women with CF shouldn't have any of the difficulties with sex which they report.

I am not claiming that lack of reports of egregious problems is proof positive that it works, much less that it would work equally well for all people with CF. I am claiming that people who have tried some of my suggestions and also reported back have indicated surprisingly good results, often in quite a short period of time (for example, one parent whose teenaged child was supposed to be listed for lung transplant put them on supplements I suggested and in a very short period of time -- something like two weeks -- saw such dramatic improvement in lung function that listing for transplant stopped being a consideration). I am also indicating that while people in the CF community are very critical, often in a very ugly fashion, none of the criticism I have received so far has come from someone who tried my ideas and got sick from it. It seems to come from people who reject all of it out of hand as "too good to be true" without further investigation.

Peace.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#100
Make an app that somehow pushes US politicians to see the merits of a reality based worldview?

That's about what it would take for small towns to start doing well in the US again. It's a matter of political will, not technological progress.

Ross Perot predicted what you're seeing in small towns today about 20 years ago. He called it, the "giant sucking sound" of jobs leaving America if NAFTA was passed. That's exactly what you're experiencing today.

TL;DR: Trade deficits matter.

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