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Poverty-Fighting Startups

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Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#111

Post by ptaipale »

baursak wrote: post #105
megaman22 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Citation needed. The estimate of pre-Columbian population itself is highly debated, I fail to see how you can so confidently state a number that must be derived from that estimate.

In any case - whether the pre-Columbian population in North America was 2 M or 20 M - the proportion of indigenous population killed by "America", (meaning United States of America) is certainly at most a few percent. Most of indigenous peoples of America lived in Central and South America, and most of the perished cultures of North America (e.g. Mississippian mound cultures) were gone long before founding of United States, and before major English immigration.

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#112

Post by robotbikes »

ptaipale wrote: post #111
baursak wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. The estimate of pre-Columbian population itself is highly debated, I fail to see how you can so confidently state a number that must be derived from that estimate.

In any case - whether the pre-Columbian population in North America was 2 M or 20 M - the proportion of indigenous population killed by "America", (meaning United States of America) is certainly at most a few percent. Most of indigenous peoples of America lived in Central and South America, and most of the perished cultures of North America (e.g. Mississippian mound cultures) were gone long before founding of United…

The cultures weren't gone. There were still mound building cultures active in the South when Spaniards arrived. Disease most likely played a large factor but to a certain extent it is a mystery. The American policies ensured that there cultures were nearly wiped from the planet. There was no chance for a rebound of population because of the constant disruption due to displacement and forced migration. This is without the warfare which wasn't the primary source of devastation although it was quite brutal at times. There were a large number of promises of land that were never honored. Look at the Wyandotte's removal from Ohio, they were promised 175,000 acres of land in the West but received nothing of the sort once they gave up their last remaining homestead. They had to find a spot to stay with a fellow tribe. This is all documented and the removal of the American Indian was and remains a real injustice and the impacts are still being felt.

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#113

Post by robotbikes »

lsc wrote: post #42
eartheaterrr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your reasoning, and I agree that we need more effort toward social programs that provide basic needs for the population. One argument against such programs is that they could allow people to have a lifestyle where they choose to never work, yet live a comfortable life and have lots of children. It seems like this could cause extreme population growth, but in a very bad way. Am I missing something, or is there…

>One argument against such programs is that they could allow people to have a lifestyle where they choose to never work, yet live a comfortable life and have lots of children. It seems like this could cause extreme population growth, but in a very bad way. Am I missing something, or is there a solution to address that problem? So, I'm talking largely about rich nations like the USA. Here? it has been a long time sinc…

Our current social welfare programs actively discourage people from saving money to get out of poverty. If you have more than 2,000$ in your bank account you are disqualified from reviving EBT in many states. So people either have to save and hide or lie about their money or get cut off the second their able to build their own safety net. Predatory lending and an inability to plan beyond their immediate survival also incentives what could be considered bad financial decisions. While start ups might in theory help buffer some of the negatives what objectively is needed is opportunities and examples of alternative means of livelihoods. People don't generally sit around and have babies because they don't have anything better to do, although I'm sure sex out of boredom does result in some unplanned pregnancies.

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#114

Post by baursak »

BurningFrog wrote: post #110
baursak wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. The estimate of pre-Columbian population itself is highly debated, I fail to see how you can so confidently state a number that must be derived from that estimate.

It's a well established fact that 80-90% of the pre-Columbian population died from European infectious diseases, often before seeing a single European, since the diseases travelled faster than the people. This was centuries before the germ theory of disease became mainstream in the late 1800s, and no one on either side had a clear understanding of what was going on. Divine intervention was probably the most common th…

Like I said, citation needed. There are still countries in the Americas with either majority or very significant indigenous populations. Were they immune somehow?

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#115

Post by BatFastard »

megaman22 wrote: post #99
BatFastard wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is SouthPark considered a citable source?

http://southpark.cc.com/clips/154073/blankets-covered-in-sar...

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#116

Post by maged »

songzme wrote: post #76

Its important to know that you don't need millions of dollars to help people and do good. My salary was 145k with it I started a non profit that pays low-income earners minimum wage while they learn how to code. These people could really benefit from learning how to problem solve but they don't have the luxury to quit and join a bootcamp. With my salary, I was able to help 3 people at first but now (after getting a n…

Are you accepting/looking for volunteers?

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#117

Post by ZenoArrow »

subcosmos wrote: post #109
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…

Having worked in nonprofits for years, I have truly learned the hard lesson about how hard it is to raise funds for altruistic endeavors! It's so much easier to raise funds from someone who expects a return to their life in one form or another. We have the wealth on earth, yes, but fundamentally people are selfish. I think this behavior is largely driven by fear of losing everything, even for those most privileged.

> "We have the wealth on earth, yes, but fundamentally people are selfish. I think this behavior is largely driven by fear of losing everything, even for those most privileged."

I think it's a little more complex than that. Something that still doesn't seem to be well understood in the non-profit field is that of dependency.

The idea "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" should be the guiding principal of pretty much all non-profits (with the only exception, in my opinion, being for disaster relief). The idea being that the end goal is self-sufficiency.

I'm not a millionaire, nor am I likely to become one in my lifetime, but I recognise my own patterns of donating to charity, and I can see the charity/non-profits that I'm most likely to donate to are either involved with disaster relief, or are doing something that makes a lasting change. When I've donated to charities outside these groups, I've resented the expected "thank you for your donation, can you donate any more please". At that point, the charity has become, in a small way, dependent on my generosity, with no end in sight. I'd imagine there's similar resentment for millionaires and billionaires also.

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#118

Post by [deleted] »

masonic wrote: post #51
aaron-lebo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The economy crashed after the revolution The loss of the war with Japan didn't help, either.

[deleted]

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#119

Post by ZenoArrow »

baursak wrote: post #106
aaron-lebo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Russia had lots of natural advantages, especially after winning WW2 What? How is having all your industrial infrastructure destroyed and 20 million of young, able-bodied males killed an advantage?

I believe GP is referring to natural resources (oil, gas, etc...) rather than the human cost of war.

Re: Poverty-Fighting Startups

#120

Post by ptaipale »

baursak wrote: post #114
BurningFrog wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a well established fact that 80-90% of the pre-Columbian population died from European infectious diseases, often before seeing a single European, since the diseases travelled faster than the people. This was centuries before the germ theory of disease became mainstream in the late 1800s, and no one on either side had a clear understanding of what was going on. Divine intervention was probably the most common th…

Like I said, citation needed. There are still countries in the Americas with either majority or very significant indigenous populations. Were they immune somehow?

No, they had a much larger population to begin with. Life was very hard in North America before arrival of European technology and crops, and populations were small.
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