Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

metafilter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 337 posts

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#161

Post by nimblegorilla »

xenophanes wrote: post #123
nimblegorilla wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dam building example illustrates exactly why the public good argument makes sense. Let's say a town of 100 farmers need a dam built and there is a net benefit even if only 50 contribute to building the dam. Now there is a huge incentive for the farmers to play chicken with each other to see who will pay up first. The "free riders" that don't pay for the dam will have extra money to buy more land or other resource…

People are not "rational economic actors" and do not make all their life choices by "incentives" of this type. Most people will care a lot more about, for example, how they are perceived in the community. So simply making the payers list public would, in some cases, prevent people from playing chicken. Many other solutions are possible, depending on context and culture. It's the job of the businessman to use creativi…

Interesting points, although I respectfully disagree.

It's pretty silly to talk about economics if you don't believe in rational economic actors. A public list is a nice theory, but then you would still have people trying to get on the list for the minimum amount possible and hoping that others would donate more to be higher on the list of donors. And what happens when you have 60 local farmers and 40 corporation farms. Most corporations would be pretty hard to shame into paying if they could somehow get others to pay.

Point #2 goes both ways. If the project becomes a net benefit then the dissenters get the benefit and win even though their judgement was incorrect.

Point #1 also goes both ways and points towards the need for public goods. In reality the sick farmer will benefit the most from public services such as dams and health care being shared by all of society. By sharing the cost of the dam and healthcare across all of the farmers they can help prevent one of them going bankrupt due to a bad case of cancer.

It's true that the government isn't better than everyone else at knowing which dams should built, but that doesn't mean that society can't figure out that some projects are best funded by the entire society.

Anyway - interesting perspective on your part. I wish more people could talk about the pros and cons without getting downvoted for disagreeing with the majority.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#162

Post by tomjen3 »

unimpressive wrote: post #80
tomjen3 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are 53 you have had plenty of time over the last ten years to learn to use computers. As for what I would do if I was operating firefox for the first time? Try. Or ask somebody next to me (or one of those standing in line).

While I like to think that if you asked for help you would get it, how do you normally respond when people ask you to help them with computer tasks? Now I don't know about you, but my first instinct is to flee. Helping people with computers, a lot of the time, is annoying . This is compounded by the condescending attitude that most computer users have towards "non-computer" people. If you ask someone to help you with…

"I need to fill out this form. If you help me you can use the computer sooner". Said to the person behind you.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#163

Post by politician »

jberryman wrote: post #93
clintjhill wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know about this and it's quite interesting. But I wonder why it no longer exists this way? Is there a reason why a "for-profit" discontinued a service like this? EDIT: Seems I found a clue .... "In 1862 insurance companies told the government that they were unwilling to be responsible for London’s fire protection as the cost of compensation was becoming too high. The government decided that the Metropolitan…

It's also worth remembering that fires spread. If the house two doors down is on fire you better hope they and the house next door have insurance (and remembered to pay the bill this month).

You hit the nail on the head which naive interpretations of libertarian isolationism often miss -- unchecked problems spread viz fire, pollution, garbage, disease outbreaks, crime and poverty.

As one's liver combats the effects of pollution in your bloodstream by filtering it, so, as a society, we have developed certain organs to combat the degrading effects of similar sorts of problems.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#164

Post by icebraining »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #84
lemmsjid wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm struggling to understand what conclusions you can draw from that. For one thing, what of that 14%? Do those people not exist? Are they not statistically significant for you to care about them? For another, are the 47% who own a computer somehow automatically well off? Do you understand the economic situation a family can be in? They own a computer whose net worth is about $50. At some point they bought a televisi…

The 14% you describe are bottom 14% of the bottom 10-20% - i.e., the bottom 2-3% of the nation. They can be dealt with by a small, targeted program. The rest can turn off cable and go pay for a computer at kinkos once in a while. Last time I was in NYC, it was about $0.10/minute, so if the "struggling" man skipped one or two big macs he could afford to pay for internet service (and he'd be slightly closer to a health…

Last time I was in NYC, it was about $0.10/minute

And as we know, everyone lives in NYC, and nobody lives in places where there aren't any Kinko's and where the closest computer place is 50 miles from their home.

Oh, and certainly everyone has to buy their own PC, it's not like there are dozens of charities and individuals donating them to poor people.

And now sarcasm free, you can get a desktop on Craigslist for $50 and a Playstation for $30. That tells you absolutely nothing about whether a family is poor or not. Most electronics are simply too cheap compared to the unavoidable recurring bills.

Cable TV is a different thing, though. I have no idea what the plans around there are like.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#165

Post by friism »

AlexMuir wrote: post #5

I 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.…

I think the Facebook profit per user (from the IPO prospectus) is only ~1$ and it seems likely that the potential users generated using your suggestion will be below average in terms of revenue generation.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#166

Post by hermannj314 »

jonhohle wrote: post #138
tptacek wrote: post #121

Can I add to this one little point, which is a counterintuitive thing you can do to help your local library: Use your local library . During the year we started Matasano our Chicago team spent about 40%-50% of our time working from the Oak Park Public Library, sometimes in meeting rooms we booked, more often at study desks. It was great. The Internet access wasn't amazing but it was totally functional and we could VP…

I leans heavily toward the libertarian side, but I think libraries are one of the most important social services provided by local governments. Unlike other programs, absolutely everyone can get some direct benefit from the library - no matter what age or income level. Libraries, in my opinion, are a model of what social services should look like: universally beneficial, only practical at the community level, little…

I'd like to believe that but the tone I got from the story is that we shouldn't be using our local libraries.

I'd hate the thought that I have checked out a book I could otherwise afford to buy and deprived the use to someone that could not. Or that I am using a computer to read Hackernews that an ex-convict needs to use to apply for a government program to keep his grandson alive.

Using the library deprives a slice of the pie to the very people that need it more than you. If you use the library and you can afford the alternative, then you are just as bad as the people that want to close it.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#167

Post by sliverstorm »

drewcrawford wrote: post #125
tptacek wrote: post #121

Can I add to this one little point, which is a counterintuitive thing you can do to help your local library: Use your local library . During the year we started Matasano our Chicago team spent about 40%-50% of our time working from the Oak Park Public Library, sometimes in meeting rooms we booked, more often at study desks. It was great. The Internet access wasn't amazing but it was totally functional and we could VP…

I would LOVE to work out of my local library, unfortunately, here in Austin libraries have the policy that meeting rooms etc. are only for non-profit groups that are open to the public. No private meetings, no "open to the public meetings" that are run by for-profit companies. I suppose your garage startup could probably _get away with_ meeting there, but it's a big no-no.

When I was in high school we made much use of library meeting rooms. Do they turn away student groups?

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#168

Post by sliverstorm »

lbotos wrote: post #154
tptacek wrote: post #121

Can I add to this one little point, which is a counterintuitive thing you can do to help your local library: Use your local library . During the year we started Matasano our Chicago team spent about 40%-50% of our time working from the Oak Park Public Library, sometimes in meeting rooms we booked, more often at study desks. It was great. The Internet access wasn't amazing but it was totally functional and we could VP…

A friend of Mine just graduated with a Degree in Literature and we talk about the futures of libraries all the time. We often ask what would happen if libraries opened up a small coffee shop/stand inside of them? With enough "marketing" would people go to libraries instead?

What you do is co-opt a coffee stand to open shop right outside your front door, or in a secluded corner. That way people can get food and stay longer, but the library doesn't just turn into a coffee shop with a few books.

I've seen a few libraries with the just-outside-the-door model, and a Borders with a small Peet's upstairs. Both were well-executed.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#169

Post by eropple »

philwelch wrote: post #98
xenophanes wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're wrong and should stop hating people you're ignorant of. I'll give brief examples in hopes you, recognizing you really were wrong about some basic facts, will either learn about the subject or stop making nasty, ignorant accusations in the future. Ayn Rand did not have a policy of "never accept handouts", said so, and, for example, signed up for medicaid. Ayn Rand's argument I cited does not consist of denying…

I was a fanatical Randroid myself in my younger years, and while she may not have gone as far as "never accept handouts", she did go as far as "never expect handouts", and in Rand's system there is explicitly no right or expectation to anything unearned. Rand's opposition to "libertarians" was purely a personal dislike of the people in Rand's time who called themselves libertarians. Most sensible definitions of the w…

I'm in the same boat. I used to think that Rand had legitimate points and that hey, a society like that could work.

Of course, I was fifteen at the time. Finding the intellectual discipline necessary to realize that Rand's philosophy was predicated on nonsense and that I had been wrong was important to my intellectual development.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#170

Post by ashayh »

Shenglong wrote: post #31

Drawing a parallel to the Canadian healthcare system: I haven't been sick in 12 years. Yet, every year, I pay taxes to keep the public healthcare system running. Even though it's not something I use, undoubtedly, there are people who need it, and wouldn't be able to pay for it if it wasn't public. About a month ago, I exhibited the symptoms of some kind of ventricular tachycardia (heart arrhythmia). As advised by a f…

Can you pay and get one? How much would that cost?
Post reply on HN