Poverty-Fighting Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#91

Post by TFYS » Sun, Jan 14, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

Fuzzy_Logic wrote: post #20

john_moscow wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Fighting poverty is a social and political problem. It is simply a question of will. We have enough wealth on earth to provide food, clothing, and housing to every single human being. Why don't we do it? That's a political question. The technology is trivial. Because there is a huge and complex domain of human motivation, appreciation for hard-earned things vs. taking them for granted and so on. USSR tried doing exa…

An additional problem is one of economic calculation. Mises argued one hundred years ago that a planned economy where the state owns the means of production and arbitrarily sets prices without an open market to determine prices by supply and demand would result in economic waste and shortages. He was largely proven right by the disastrous Soviet experience. https://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/excursion…

While he might have been right one hundred years ago, the economic calculation problem might not be a problem anymore. We're starting to get to the point where we have enough computing power to simulate the world economy. Everyone also now has a way to communicate their needs instantly to a computer. Compared to what could be achieved with todays technology, the price mechanism is inaccurate and slow.

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#92

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 14, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

azernik wrote: post #54

noobermin wrote: post #10

I'm not from Silicon Valley, so the only sampling I have of SV culture comes from this site[0]. From what I see, the article has a refrain that being anti-libertarian goes against the SV gain, but I see political opinions from across the political spectrum here, and my leftist opinions are often upvoted. So, while I can see investors being skeptical, would the tech community as a whole be anti-welfare? I don't necess…

I think SV culture tends to be politically extremist, or to be more accurate fundamentalist, in whatever ideology it pursues. I see more hard-line libertarians, but also more hard-line socialists, than in other subcultures. There's a long tradition of political extremism among engineers in cultures around the world; something to do with seeing society as a system simple enough that a single human being can understand…

[deleted]

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#93

Post by splitrocket » Sun, Jan 14, 2018, 2:36 PM UTC

sbierwagen wrote: post #3

Is it... a "startup"? Do they make money? Is Propel even a for-profit company?

For profit. FreshEBT raised a round from A16Z.

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#94

Post by splitrocket » Sun, Jan 14, 2018, 2:38 PM UTC

CapacitorSet wrote: post #87

Poverty-fighting? They're quite literally poverty-exploiting.

They save people money on their groceries. They save people time looking up their balance (previously it was a phone call).

How are either of those things exploitative?

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#95

Post by andrepd » Sun, Jan 14, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #37

gumby wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> USSR tried doing exactly that with the planned economy and trying to distribute the wealth more or less evenly and failed miserably. Actually if you look at where they started and where they got, they did a pretty good job in raising the very poorest our of poverty, electrifying the country, and really eliminating a lot of the abject poverty that was most of the country at the time of the revolution. Changes that t…

They were successful by the late 30s (after lots of misery), but the Russian economy had been growing for a long time. I'm not sure the imperials or republicans couldn't have pulled it off, Russia had lots of natural advantages, especially after winning WW2. GNP: Country 1890 1900 1913 1925 1938 Russia/USSR 21 180 32 000 52 420 32 600 75 964 Germany 26 454 35 800 49 760 45 002 77 178 Britain 29 441 36 273 44 074 43 7…

> They went from the second smallest economy in 1890 to the biggest in 1913 (imperials).

What does it matter, if 90% of the population lived in near complete destitution?

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#96

Post by splitrocket » Sun, Jan 14, 2018, 3:26 PM UTC

zappo2938 wrote: post #26

aphextron wrote: post #9

Fighting poverty is a social and political problem. It is simply a question of will. We have enough wealth on earth to provide food, clothing, and housing to every single human being. Why don't we do it? That's a political question. The technology is trivial. >“One of my ambitions is to help our users put more food on the table,” says Jimmy Chen, the founder of Propel. His company makes a mobile app called FreshEBT t…

Governments shouldn't take care of people. People should take care of people. (Over course, we should take care of ourselves first but that doesn't always work out.)

Strange, is the government somehow not made up of people?

This line of reasoning is so strange, like government is some sort of alien being, not an institution of the people, for the people.

Taxes are how you buy civilization. Voting is how you decide what sort of civilization you want.

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#97

Post by known » Sun, Jan 14, 2018, 3:34 PM UTC

Govt should go for https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

Citizens can opt for https://www.givedirectly.org/efficiency

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#98

Post by BatFastard » Sun, Jan 14, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

ptaipale wrote: post #71

gumby wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume you're referring to the ab original inhabitants? Sadly, quite effective.

That was pre-industrialization, though, and mostly due to things like smallpox for which indigenous population had no resistance, even before actual immigration from Europe.

Which handing out blankets infected with the smallpox virus certainly quickened.

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#99

Post by megaman22 » Sun, Jan 14, 2018, 3:44 PM UTC

BatFastard wrote: post #98

ptaipale wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was pre-industrialization, though, and mostly due to things like smallpox for which indigenous population had no resistance, even before actual immigration from Europe.

Which handing out blankets infected with the smallpox virus certainly quickened.

90% of the pre-Columbian population was already wiped out long before Jeffery Amhurst may or may not have tried doing that. Regurgitating trite myths and legends is not particularly helpful in increasing knowledge.

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#100

Post by stult » Sun, Jan 14, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #9

Fighting poverty is a social and political problem. It is simply a question of will. We have enough wealth on earth to provide food, clothing, and housing to every single human being. Why don't we do it? That's a political question. The technology is trivial. >“One of my ambitions is to help our users put more food on the table,” says Jimmy Chen, the founder of Propel. His company makes a mobile app called FreshEBT t…

I have several objections to your argument, many of which others have covered, including the actual lack of user fees. But even at the most basic level your argument doesn't make any sense. Technology enables more efficient service delivery, which means we can do more with the same budget. Budgets are constrained by politics, which as you say is probably morally wrong and an inadequate response. Yet we can change the technology more easily than the politics. Or, at least the people who choose to contribute with technology can do so more easily than they can completely transform the US political discourse. Plus, even if the politics change, more efficient services will continue to benefit society by reducing the total costs. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.