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Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

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Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#71

Post by diogenescynic »

auggierose wrote: post #22
schneems wrote: post #20

My S/O used to work at a company AuntBertha. They're a "search engine for social services" but they are a for-profit company (a B-Corp). Their biggest clients are hospitals and insurers. There are people called "frequent flyers" who come to the emergency room frequently and while they might only be 2% of clients they account for a huge share of costs. It's actually cheaper to hire social workers to provide these peop…

Let's just say if you live in a country where you cannot get insulin if you need it, that is a pretty fucked up country.

> if you live in a country where you cannot get insulin if you need it, that is a pretty fucked up country.

Welcome to America. Land of the free.

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#72

Post by PeanutCurry »

jimmaswell wrote: post #63
fatalogic wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would help some people but for most of the people I worked with money was more a symptom of their issues than a root cause. Lets say we have a child who is in 5th grade who reads at a 1st grade level. Most programs will say oh well he/she just needs more education so they create after school tutoring. That's great but there are so many things that can be hindering that child's ability to read. The real root may be…

>People aren't equations, you can't just input x and expect y. People react in mostly predictable ways to certain environments and situations. We're largely deterministic state machines. This kind of mystical thinking devalues the importance of a scientific, objective, data based approach to solving human problems. We aren't an exception to science.

I'd like objective data that sustains your argument then. I think approaching problems, including social problems, as rationally as possible is important. I, similarly, believe that leveraging all available data is important. However, as far as social issues are concerned, American psychology and western psychology in general have shown themselves to be inadequate when addressing the universal set of humans and not the western set. We've seen evidence of this not only in western vs. east-asian psychologies but also in the psychological treatment of refugees from areas like Sudan. I appreciate that there might come a day when human psychology is a solved problem, but unless that problem is currently solved then it seems like leaving room for mysticism is more pragmatic because it permits us to identify, and adapt around, areas of uncertainty while still providing some amount of care.

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#73

Post by BenjaminTodd »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #68

People are failing to recognize that it doesnt matter what percentage of programs fail/succeed. The metric that matters is the ROI on programs. If 25% of programs succeed, giving a 100x ROI, then they more than make up for the failed programs. Unless we know a better way (UBI seems promising) to help people, then programs seem to be the best bet. The problem is that people hear "75% of programs fail" and think "Dont…

We totally agree - we go into that in the post e.g. see the conclusion section.

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#74

Post by zebraflask »

I would imagine most of them can't, it amounts to trying to bail out the ocean, one bucket at a time.

In less hyperbolic terms, many of these programs are attempting to tackle intractable societal problems when - even for ones that are relatively well-funded - the cost of organizational overhead, limited ability to cause lasting impact outside of their specific area of influence, etc., reduce what they do to a lot of good intentions and few meaningful results.

Depending on the "clientele," it amounts to attempting to provide assistance to people who really can't or don't want to be helped (hard drugs and the chronic homeless, for example).

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#75

Post by prawn »

BartSaM wrote: post #43
shubb wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a programme was recently tried here in the UK. I don't know the details but friends effected mentioned: * Being required to attend an office full time where they were monitored job searching and required to do soft skills courses, which they perceived as not useful. * After an extended period of joblessness, being required to work for free (while recieving normal out of work benefit), for instance at a supermark…

This is another contradictory to what I said. I said working for public good - not supermarkets etc. Working in public spaces for community benefit. That is a huge difference. Why should someone on benefits work for a private business or even public offices? That is ridiculous! They are receiving public help, they should help the public. There is absolutely no place for the nanny state. Try not to look at things blac…

I'm interested in seeing something as you've described too. All the little tasks that would make a community look really attractive, but that are ignored by councils. The sort of things you see industrious, elderly (often migrant) men do around their own gardens when they have endless spare time. Not back-breaking labour or anything especially unenjoyable, but tasks for people who have pride in having things look presentable.

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#76

Post by intended »

ticviking wrote: post #30
thegayngler wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Salt Lake City they gave their homeless peeps homes and many of them ended up going right back to work once their living situation was stabilized.

And attracted every homeless person from 3 states around. The situation is so bad(both in terms of crime, and total population) that our state legislators are non-ironically talking about calling the national guard. To clear out camps where violence is becoming a problem. They already totally cut to the ground the shrubbery near one major camp because there were multiple assaults and a rape using those bushes as cove…

So basically the solution works - the local solution was fixed.

The extra local issue - national homelessness - ended up suffocating the resources made to solve a much smaller program.

So the solution seems to be to scale up this system in other cities and distribute the load.

Again, assuming that people make a genuine effort to do this, as opposed to deciding "lets put a homeless housing center in the middle of nowhere. We can then say that homeless don't work while discrediting the idea and earning political points with my base"

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#77

Post by intended »

yarrel wrote: post #23
BartSaM wrote: post #19

I would love to see more work-for-benefits programs. Where you are required to do some labour work for the community (cleaning wild areas, swiping side walks, planting trees etc.) in exchange for some better than average benefits. IMO everyone should be entitled to such a work. This way we would eliminate involuntary extreme poverty.

I think this is a great idea, and we should apply it to insurance benefits in other areas. Go to the doctor? You have to clean the gutters in a street for a few hours. Claim for stolen property? You have to help paint fences. House burns down? Get on those overalls. Car accident? Time to dig a hole. You wouldn't have to do it, you just wouldn't get full payment unless you did.

Why?

What does that solve, what purpose does it serve?

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#78

Post by shubb »

prawn wrote: post #75
BartSaM wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is another contradictory to what I said. I said working for public good - not supermarkets etc. Working in public spaces for community benefit. That is a huge difference. Why should someone on benefits work for a private business or even public offices? That is ridiculous! They are receiving public help, they should help the public. There is absolutely no place for the nanny state. Try not to look at things blac…

I'm interested in seeing something as you've described too. All the little tasks that would make a community look really attractive, but that are ignored by councils. The sort of things you see industrious, elderly (often migrant) men do around their own gardens when they have endless spare time. Not back-breaking labour or anything especially unenjoyable, but tasks for people who have pride in having things look pre…

There is though a workforce of gardeners employed by local governments and individuals that you would be displacing. Perhaps from a good job onto the work programme.

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#79

Post by BartSaM »

shubb wrote: post #78
prawn wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in seeing something as you've described too. All the little tasks that would make a community look really attractive, but that are ignored by councils. The sort of things you see industrious, elderly (often migrant) men do around their own gardens when they have endless spare time. Not back-breaking labour or anything especially unenjoyable, but tasks for people who have pride in having things look pre…

There is though a workforce of gardeners employed by local governments and individuals that you would be displacing. Perhaps from a good job onto the work programme.

I do not see it would happen on a large scale. Those work-to-benefit could work on things, that local government cannot afford or are not planning to do. Even cleaning wild areas which are a serious problem in some parts of woods for example. Or cleaning beaches, or planting trees in remote areas. There are those things that simply are hard to achieve when you are tight on a budget already.

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#80

Post by nonbel »

matt4077 wrote: post #50
nonbel wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about actual science? Where you figure out how to get reproducible results, come up with theories to explain why those results are the way they are, then make predictions with the theories to test on new data?

"Actual science" tends to move towards empiricism, not theory-building. See for example the evidence-based medicine movement, or effective altruism. Besides that–how is what you're proposing different from the status quo? Every social program ever was born from a theory, i. e. "education creates agency, and is therefore a better investment than direct money grants". It just happens to be a lot more difficult to run r…

"Evidence based medicine" is your best example of science? No, that does not meet the definition I gave. RCT's are not the gold standard of research (how did solar system astronomy get so good with only a couple dozen objects?).
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