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The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

nytimes.com

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Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#121

Post by interpol_p »

Asbostos wrote: post #118
interpol_p wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can putting those numbers side-by-side in such a way mislead people on the social impact of those events? Murder is rare, but it has a very high impact on society and the surrounding people. It creates an environment of stress and fear. Car accidents do the same to a much lesser extent. Smoking related diseases are somewhat more expected, they aren't so sudden. People have time to adjust, receive medical attention, a…

The negative effects of mass shootings are largely because people don't understand the risks. So I think they'd go away if we realized they didn't matter. You're right though that smoking shouldn't be top. Everbody dies of something but we can't save all old people from old age diseases forever.

That's right, but the negatives are presently having a large impact on society. There is a balance to be struck, but it's something that viewing the raw numbers can obscure.

Non-domestic terrorism seems like a good counter-example, where we have gone too far in an attempt to eliminate it: a huge financial and societal undertaking (e.g., the TSA, the justified mass-surveillance, the increase in public fear) for relatively few deaths.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#122

Post by thetruthseeker1 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #30

Yes, a vast number of the world's poorest population have been raised out of nominal abject poverty, this is true. What Kristof doesn't state, however, are these facts: 1. Those people live almost entirely in China and India. 2. The rise in nominal wealth has come from a tremendous increase in energy consumption. 3. Both nations have extreme environmental problems, including the worst air pollution situations in the…

Again, the positive side of this is, 50 years back the resources of China and India could only support may be 1/5th of their current population. However with green revolution, white revolution, cheaper energy sources living has been sustainable. I will agree that US is not relatively as rich compared to other nations as it was once before, but that is not the point Kristof is making, he is talking about how most people in the world are making the cut to reach a basic std of living (which I think is more important than some rich countries slightly backsliding?).

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#123

Post by BurningFrog »

mc32 wrote: post #101

Implied but not stated directly is that because vast reduction in disease and proportionate increase in life expectancy people are having fewer children so that the small resources people have don't have to be divided into smaller slices but rather into larger slices. Globalization, the boogeyperson of lots of people, has allowed some income redistribution to the developing world -has the developed world not globaliz…

Nit pick: This is not about income redistribution to the developing world. The poor of the world has simply become more productive and generated more of their own income.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#124

Post by Retra »

arebop wrote: post #75
Frondo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't think I ever hear American progressives assert that they want less government. Less corrupt government? Absolutely, but the idea that government is "too big" seems entirely in province of the contemporary right (and you can partition that up into the industrialists who want to abolish the EPA, the code-worded-racists who want to end welfare, the bootstrappers who want to privatize everything, etc).

Really, you have never heard American progressives call for reduced military expenditure?

Mostly they aim to divert military expenditure into other things like education, healthcare, or research.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#125

Post by aianus »

mazerackham wrote: post #21

Another big secret, is that the source of a lot of poverty being lifted is because of China. That's right, that terribly communist government suppressing its people and free speech, is actually responsible for lifting 500 million people out of poverty over the last 30 years. That is definitely a big secret of american media, and something that it neglects to report on, in favor of free speech violations, naval exerci…

Great, so instead of starving to death they can live long boring lives full of grueling work enriching assholes who don't even let them have internet access or freedom of mobility within their own country.

There's a good reason the vast majority of rich Chinese people move to the West. It's an awful place to live if you have a choice.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#126

Post by Retric »

letitgo12345 wrote: post #58
beatpanda wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what sense is that view incorrect? The cost of access to the political process in America is astronomically high and keeps increasing, and acquiring the amount of money it now takes to be competitive in an election requires adopting a set of positions that are friendly to whatever industries have the most money to give. What part of that analysis is wrong? What counterexample can you offer?

While money buys political access, a large part of the responsibility does rest with the voters (who are mostly ordinary people, not big money) who keep voting for reps (or don't vote) who support regressive policies. Also big money doesn't control the govt -- there are lots of times where they don't get their way -- immigration reform being a prime example where nativist sentiment has stalled it for more than a deca…

You only get to vote for a tiny number of people, the groups with early access to pick who runs have far more power than the 'popular' vote. "I voted for Kodos." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kang_and_Kodos

PS: Obama might have been a better option, but I disagree with over half of what he has done.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#127

Post by Drumline »

interpol_p wrote: post #112
mninm wrote: post #35

"We cover planes that crash, not planes that take off." It always fascinates me how much my world view and the world view of those around me is based on the exceptional and not the mundane. The news outlets report the news assuming that the audience knows what's normal. When the news is used to become informed about the world many people come away with a skewed impression of reality. I am of the opinion that people w…

Can putting those numbers side-by-side in such a way mislead people on the social impact of those events? Murder is rare, but it has a very high impact on society and the surrounding people. It creates an environment of stress and fear. Car accidents do the same to a much lesser extent. Smoking related diseases are somewhat more expected, they aren't so sudden. People have time to adjust, receive medical attention, a…

> Murder is rare, but it has a very high impact on society and the surrounding people.

How do you know? What metrics are you using to form this opinion? Or are you using the same gut impression that the article alludes to and the GP specifically states?

By my math each murder could affect 10 people as to leave them in a state equivalent to death and still not come anywhere close to the impact as smoking.

Let me put it another way. Odds are that you've never known anyone that was murdered but there is a pretty damn high you've known someone that died from smoking. BTW, the number of people who die from second hand smoking alone dwarfs the number of people who are murdered.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#128

Post by baddox »

Asbostos wrote: post #116
baddox wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which side has the actual ability to forcefully implement their desired policies over a large population?

The side with the real power - the voters. You can blame businesses or activists or interest groups or governments or whatever but America still has a democracy and American people actually do choose the outcomes they get. You personally might not want them, but most of your fellow Americans either do want them or succumb to some personal greed to make them happen.

I disagree very much. The fact that concentrated interests win out over dispersed interests is not some failure of the population to educate itself and vote hard enough. It's an extremely basic game theoretical inevitability.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#129

Post by worldadventurer »

Max_Horstmann wrote: post #6

Since this is HN, here's a question: what role could technology play in eliminating extreme poverty by 2030?

I think technology has a key role (as a tool) to play in reducing poverty. Obviously poverty is a complex problem and technology is jut one tool to be used as part of solutions. As Kentaro Toyama wrote in his excellent book, "Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology" [1], technology is an amplifier of intent.

This is why we started engageSPARK (a not-for-profit social enterprise), aka "Twilio for Non-Techies", where we're building technology tools to help Non Profits/NGOs, Governments, and Civil Society Organizations globally amplify their work to engage the poor in ways that haven't been feasible for them before. These organizations already have money, intent, and people on the ground, but they don't have access to good technology tools to be more effective in their work.

Because most of the poor now have access to a mobile phone (note that most do not have smartphones nor regular access to the Internet), Voice Calls (pre-recorded in local languages) and two-way SMS are key mediums - which many people forget.

Some examples using interactive Voice & two-way SMS to engage the poor: 1) Education using Soap Operas delivered via phone calls: recipients get a phone call, answer, and hear a soap opera dialogue. A quiz at the end is used to reinforce the lesson and measure comprehension. In a study for 20,000 people to encourage them to save money, savings rates increased by 106%.

2) Information Retrieval: people dial into a phone number (or do a free Missed Call to get a call back) and press keys to retrieve information "Press 1 to learn about preventing Ebola, Press 2 to hear symptoms, etc".

3) Surveys: collect information from people quickly via SMS or Voice - "Press 1-5 to rate the training you received last week. Press 1 if you feel positive about finding a job, or 2 if you don't. Press the number of times your family had a meal last week".

Imagine the use cases in Health, Agriculture, Finance, Governance, Disaster Preparedness & Response to help the poor live healthier lives, grow better crops, increase income, have a voice in government, be more resilient to disasters, etc. - all by engaging them more effectively by leveraging technology.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Geek-Heresy-Rescuing-Social-Technology...

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#130

Post by mc32 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #123
mc32 wrote: post #101

Implied but not stated directly is that because vast reduction in disease and proportionate increase in life expectancy people are having fewer children so that the small resources people have don't have to be divided into smaller slices but rather into larger slices. Globalization, the boogeyperson of lots of people, has allowed some income redistribution to the developing world -has the developed world not globaliz…

Nit pick: This is not about income redistribution to the developing world. The poor of the world has simply become more productive and generated more of their own income.

Right, but would the hundreds of millions of destitute subsistence farmers of China have become more secure without the foreign investment and "job shipping" of developed countries like Japan, North Am and Europe?

Would Africa be emerging as much without the Chinese foreign investment?

How does India plan on getting its poor on better standing other than inviting firms from developed countries to invest in Indian manufacturing with the lure of lower labor costs --even syphoning jobs off from China now that China's workforce has become more expensive as they have become a rich country (the second largest economy in the world).

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