Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive
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Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive
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Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive
#2Taking a look backwards, Theodore Nelsons "Computer Lib: You can and must understand computers NOW!" takes on a whole new meaning 38 years later. (And is sadly out of print.) The hacker culture that contrasted itself against the IBM priesthood has itself become a priesthood.
We've given a significant portion of the world personal computers. And told almost nobody how to use them.
Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive
#3Excelllent view from the inside. The problem the article highlights is filling out gov't forms that have moved to the web; these are often just PDF scans.
These gov't forms are often ripe for improvement via improved UX with step-by-step inputs, contextual help, and multi-language capabilities.
Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive
#4A thousand times this. I find the ultra-libertarian stance that our community sometimes takes to be counter to what web applications have been about. Are we empowering people or aren't we?
Libraries are hugely important knowledge transfer hubs (and, as the MeFi commenter rightly says, community centers). Furthermore, selfishly, for us as builders, they're the only place a lot of people will ever come into contact with the stuff we make. They can't be allowed to die.
The entire California library system was given $12m in state funds in 2008. It's now down to zero. How can we, as a community, help?
Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive
#5I wonder if big, successful tech companies should be dipping into their pockets to fund internet training- not as charity, but as an investment. eBay, Facebook, Netflix and Google, for instance. Between those four, there must easily be an annual $100 in revenue from having an extra US person online.
So for them to invest $15 each in free classes for someone seems like a no-brainer. Plus it buys good PR and goodwill. Plus it's almost certainly tax deductible.
Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive
#6A thousand times this. I find the ultra-libertarian stance that our community sometimes takes to be counter to what web applications have been about. Are we empowering people or aren't we? Libraries are hugely important knowledge transfer hubs (and, as the MeFi commenter rightly says, community centers). Furthermore, selfishly, for us as builders, they're the only place a lot of people will ever come into contact wit…
The libertarian stance is not "there should be no libraries" but more like "if there is a genuine need for libraries, and value in having them (quite plausible), then Government funding is not the best approach to creating them or running them efficiently".
Just because something is good doesn't mean the tax payers should pay for it. There are other options.
If they are a great idea, why not persuade people to voluntarily pay for them?
Or if they are providing value, why don't they make money? Perhaps they could provide some services for free and charge for others. Or profitably provide some services very cheaply.
Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive
#7A thousand times this. I find the ultra-libertarian stance that our community sometimes takes to be counter to what web applications have been about. Are we empowering people or aren't we? Libraries are hugely important knowledge transfer hubs (and, as the MeFi commenter rightly says, community centers). Furthermore, selfishly, for us as builders, they're the only place a lot of people will ever come into contact wit…
The libertarian stance is not "there should be no libraries" but more like "if there is a genuine need for libraries, and value in having them (quite plausible), then Government funding is not the best approach to creating them or running them efficiently". Just because something is good doesn't mean the tax payers should pay for it. There are other options. If they are a great idea, why not persuade people to volunt…
> ust because something is good doesn't mean the tax payers should pay for it. There are other options.
if you remove 'good' with 'useful', and it seems to me that this is exactly what tax payers should pay for. There are tons of useless shit tax money is used for, libraries is not one of them.
Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive
#8A thousand times this. I find the ultra-libertarian stance that our community sometimes takes to be counter to what web applications have been about. Are we empowering people or aren't we? Libraries are hugely important knowledge transfer hubs (and, as the MeFi commenter rightly says, community centers). Furthermore, selfishly, for us as builders, they're the only place a lot of people will ever come into contact wit…
The libertarian stance is not "there should be no libraries" but more like "if there is a genuine need for libraries, and value in having them (quite plausible), then Government funding is not the best approach to creating them or running them efficiently". Just because something is good doesn't mean the tax payers should pay for it. There are other options. If they are a great idea, why not persuade people to volunt…
Without wanting to get into a political debate (although I'm happy to do that off-site), I see this as baseline infrastructure: part of the solid platform underlying a healthy economy. I do see it as government's job to provide that.
Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive
#9Excelllent view from the inside. The problem the article highlights is filling out gov't forms that have moved to the web; these are often just PDF scans. These gov't forms are often ripe for improvement via improved UX with step-by-step inputs, contextual help, and multi-language capabilities.
In my experience, practically anything to do with a government and technology is certain to be a terrible mess. Forms are just the tip of the iceberg; take a look at any interface created to "replace" a paper form. I haven't seen one that looked or functioned like it had been updated in a decade.
Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive
#10Excelllent view from the inside. The problem the article highlights is filling out gov't forms that have moved to the web; these are often just PDF scans. These gov't forms are often ripe for improvement via improved UX with step-by-step inputs, contextual help, and multi-language capabilities.
"These gov't forms are often ripe for improvement via improved UX with step-by-step inputs, contextual help, and multi-language capabilities."
Sure, and this would undoubtedly relieve a lot of pain points. But the authors intent here goes deeper than just interface. A significant, very non-trivial portion of the population is being left behind by digitalization. These people have no recourse if certain government institutions only handle online forms. Imagine for a second that you have no web experience whatsoever, and you are greeted by the firefox startup screen.
A hard thing to do I know, but as it stands if this is your position it's hard to get out of. Where do you even start? Who can you ask for help in an increasingly competitive solipsistic environment? (Solipsistic, according to my spell check, is not a word, but it's meaning should be obvious to those familiar with solipsism.)
It's hard to imagine the peasants plight when your sitting in the Vatican.
EDIT: Going further, even the people that you wouldn't expect, generation Z, don't really understand computers either. And I'm not sure if they really want to. I mean, sure they can use facebook, but if they ever have "a cool idea" good luck to them figuring out how to express it in digital media. I wonder how many brilliant web startups, game changers, and generally disruptive ideas are trapped in the heads of people who will never get an opportunity to try them out.