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

Open Source Low Tech

opensourcelowtech.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 143 posts

Re: Open Source Low Tech

#11

Post by benj111 »

xmprt wrote: post #3

I like the idea behind this. I feel like far too often, the solutions we build for poor communities involve specific materials that can't be manufactured locally, so it just creates more dependence rather than self-sufficiency. It's one thing to build and ship 1000 bicycles to a poor village, but it's another to teach a village how to make bicycles with random spare pipes and materials they can find anywhere. That wa…

What would be nice is setting up as much manufacturing as possible in Africa for making bikes designed for Africa.

Bike maintenance isn't a skill issue. It's an issue of specialised tools and hard to get spares. Talk to your own Grand parents. If they weren't rich they'd have had to fix their own bike, and they wouldn't have had Google helping them.

Re: Open Source Low Tech

#12

Post by bloqs »

nchmy wrote: post #5
xmprt wrote: post #3

I like the idea behind this. I feel like far too often, the solutions we build for poor communities involve specific materials that can't be manufactured locally, so it just creates more dependence rather than self-sufficiency. It's one thing to build and ship 1000 bicycles to a poor village, but it's another to teach a village how to make bicycles with random spare pipes and materials they can find anywhere. That wa…

I strongly agree that it's incomparably more important to teach a man/village how to fish/build a bike than to give them one. Unfortunately most people who focus on "helping" are grossly incompetent and have largely misaligned incentives (and oversight). As for local innovation, it think it very much depends on where. I've visited and lived in many communities in developing nations in Latin America and there's a dist…

I had never really considered the _competence_ of help before. It makes a huge amount of sense and is a strong argument for intelligent younger folk looking for a meaningful career. Instead of engineering for the pocket lining of your chosen billionaire, why not use those incredible skills to use in frugal or humanitarian engineering

Re: Open Source Low Tech

#13

Post by sublinear »

samuell wrote: post #10
sublinear wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As other comments have implied, but not explicitly said, they do their own engineering already with what they have. Since materials can be scarce and inconsistent, much of it is improvised. That in no way diminishes their efforts, results, or knowledge. If anything, that's way more impressive. Lots of engineers in the first world will throw a tantrum if they can't have things exactly their way and probably still make…

As someone who has spent some time in sub-saharan Africa, I can tell you that there is lots that can be done if just seeing the possibilities. Not everyone everywhere are "engineering oriented", and having people with the skills and eye for practical solutions based on available materials, can help tons, and also open up people's imagination for what can be done. In fact, this goes for northern Europe too, just that…

I've never been to sub-saharan Africa, but I did grow up broke enough to be on the receiving end of people with good intentions.

I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but the realities of a situation guided by those who more deeply understand it can very quickly prune the possibilities that an engineer sees. Many engineers would just get frustrated and give up. Many leaders would become impatient with those engineers.

I think to get people's heads out of the clouds and produce real results requires a very special kind of engineer. That is most likely going to be someone local, not an outsider. One can definitely help on the education side of things for the locals, but I'm not convinced that's where the real problems are. It's more likely political and economic. Not even the best engineers in the world are going to solve that.

Re: Open Source Low Tech

#14

Post by nchmy »

benj111 wrote: post #11
xmprt wrote: post #3

I like the idea behind this. I feel like far too often, the solutions we build for poor communities involve specific materials that can't be manufactured locally, so it just creates more dependence rather than self-sufficiency. It's one thing to build and ship 1000 bicycles to a poor village, but it's another to teach a village how to make bicycles with random spare pipes and materials they can find anywhere. That wa…

What would be nice is setting up as much manufacturing as possible in Africa for making bikes designed for Africa. Bike maintenance isn't a skill issue. It's an issue of specialised tools and hard to get spares. Talk to your own Grand parents. If they weren't rich they'd have had to fix their own bike, and they wouldn't have had Google helping them.

What would be different about a bike designed for Africa than one designed for anywhere else? What parts that require specialized tools should be redesigned to use standard tools?

Re: Open Source Low Tech

#16

Post by nchmy »

sublinear wrote: post #7
CurtMonash wrote: post #2

I recall predecessors to this idea from the 1970s, which probably implies I heard about them from Futurist Magazine and/or the book Small is Beautiful. It has always been suggested that engineers could do something worthwhile by inventing very simple yet useful things that could realistically be made in poor/underresourced countries or villages.

As other comments have implied, but not explicitly said, they do their own engineering already with what they have. Since materials can be scarce and inconsistent, much of it is improvised. That in no way diminishes their efforts, results, or knowledge. If anything, that's way more impressive. Lots of engineers in the first world will throw a tantrum if they can't have things exactly their way and probably still make…

I suspect you've never spent any meaningful amount of time in the local environments, or you wouldn't have made this comment.

As I elaborated on in another comment, it is commonplace to find that people who have little to no education and resources are missing countless opportunities to implement simple improvements to almost everything.

This mindset of "locals know best" is, frankly, toxic. (just think about the locals wherever you live to see how incompetent they are as well)

What is needed is genuine collaboration and communication between people living in whatever situation and others who are fortunate to have more access to information, resources, education on critical thinking etc...

Re: Open Source Low Tech

#17

Post by sublinear »

nchmy wrote: post #16
sublinear wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As other comments have implied, but not explicitly said, they do their own engineering already with what they have. Since materials can be scarce and inconsistent, much of it is improvised. That in no way diminishes their efforts, results, or knowledge. If anything, that's way more impressive. Lots of engineers in the first world will throw a tantrum if they can't have things exactly their way and probably still make…

I suspect you've never spent any meaningful amount of time in the local environments, or you wouldn't have made this comment. As I elaborated on in another comment, it is commonplace to find that people who have little to no education and resources are missing countless opportunities to implement simple improvements to almost everything. This mindset of "locals know best" is, frankly, toxic. (just think about the loc…

> This mindset of "locals know best" is, frankly, toxic. (just think about the locals wherever you live to see how incompetent they are as well) [...] others who are fortunate to have more access to information, resources, education on critical thinking etc...

This is insane.

Re: Open Source Low Tech

#19

Post by bratbag »

bloqs wrote: post #12
nchmy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly agree that it's incomparably more important to teach a man/village how to fish/build a bike than to give them one. Unfortunately most people who focus on "helping" are grossly incompetent and have largely misaligned incentives (and oversight). As for local innovation, it think it very much depends on where. I've visited and lived in many communities in developing nations in Latin America and there's a dist…

I had never really considered the _competence_ of help before. It makes a huge amount of sense and is a strong argument for intelligent younger folk looking for a meaningful career. Instead of engineering for the pocket lining of your chosen billionaire, why not use those incredible skills to use in frugal or humanitarian engineering

Because i would rather solve the problems close to home, the problems involving those billionaires.

Im not going to put effort into turning those other people in another country into a new cash crop for billionaires.

Re: Open Source Low Tech

#20

Post by nchmy »

bloqs wrote: post #12
nchmy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly agree that it's incomparably more important to teach a man/village how to fish/build a bike than to give them one. Unfortunately most people who focus on "helping" are grossly incompetent and have largely misaligned incentives (and oversight). As for local innovation, it think it very much depends on where. I've visited and lived in many communities in developing nations in Latin America and there's a dist…

I had never really considered the _competence_ of help before. It makes a huge amount of sense and is a strong argument for intelligent younger folk looking for a meaningful career. Instead of engineering for the pocket lining of your chosen billionaire, why not use those incredible skills to use in frugal or humanitarian engineering

In my fairly extensive experience, non-profit organizations are not just full of and run by grossly incompetent people, but deeply arrogant and/or deluded ones as well. I have NEVER found an organization that has a genuine desire to seek truth, efficacy etc. They often go with whatever their first (inevitably insufficient) idea was, and not only reject all criticism but respond with indignity, etc...

There's no meaningful/competent oversight. It's all just about feels and optics. And thus no real progress has or will be made.

Anyway, yes, I agree that competent and genuine people (who are extremely rare) ought to try to make a meaningful impact in the world. But there's generally more money in something else.

(one rare exception that comes to mind, though i haven't visited them, is The Ocean Cleanup project. They seem to be experimenting and succeeding towards the worthwhile goal of making effective engineering interventions for cleaning up waterways and oceans)

Post reply on HN