Stop building dumb stuff

I disagree with this. It's essentially the same argument that there should be a single societal focus on shipping all of our extra food to those who are starving. True, in sheer numbers we have the gross resources to do just that. We have the infrastructure in terms of ships, planes, and boots on the ground. But there are other reasons we don't do this.

Capitalism doesn't work like this. Resources are allocated via crazy, unfair market actions. 300 years ago, most of Europe resembled what we would call the Third World now. Epidemics, warfare, starvation, etc. The big driving force that changed Europe wasn't the generosity of kings, but the base-level trading and investing among the poor and emerging middle classes.

There were a lot of resources being misspent back in those days. Anyone remember a particular Dutch fascination with tulips? Money was spent on doomed voyages of exploration, fake medicines, flower-based stock bubbles, and any number of other "follies" that in hindsight could have been avoided.

But among all the mispenditure of resources over hundreds of years, hundreds of millions of people were lifted out of poverty. We went from an average lifespan of 40 years to over 80. We live in an actual age of marvels.

In our modern world, we have people building entire companies and fortunes around what are the silliest things. We have even more people copying the first successes and failing. In amongst that, there are the smaller numbers of people building companies that will laterally help those who's lives need improving.

If we lived in a society where our resources could be marshaled enmasse towards one goal or another, it wouldn't be the world we have now.

Telling entrepreneurs that one class of businesses is more socially correct than others isn't how the world works. People will find opportunities in many ways, and those will benefit the people in need. The poor will find edges in the market to improve their own lives. What might seem worthless to you might be valuable to someone else.

So if you have an idea for Bitly 4.0, do it. If you want to build cheap rockets to space, do it. If you want to build a social networking app that uses cheap cell phones to let goat herders in sub-Saharan Africa poke each other over hundreds of miles, do it. You never know how or when your product will be used, or who it will help.

You know, I was really trying hard to avoid the debate on patents since it wasn't very related to what I was trying to say. That apparently backfired. :)

I'm pretty familiar with the issues, both on the closed (often corporate) and open (often research, open source) sides -- it just wasn't a place I wanted to go.

I also don't really have an agenda, either with Nathan or anyone else -- you can find me online, I'm pretty much an open book.

The only thing I really do care about here? Building stuff, for- or non-profit, that adds value to humanity.

If you want to help the developing world it's worth the time to take a look at what has actually worked to get countries out of poverty and what hasn't. As far as I can tell there are only two proven ways for countries to get out of poverty:

(1) Kill a bunch of other people and take their stuff.

(2) Industry.

Notice that aid isn't on the list. So it seems that if you actually care about a country you should spend your time helping them get better at (1) or (2). May I humbly suggest (2)? Notice that (2) is going to involve building (or investing, if you're a foreigner) in a lot of dumb stuff. China builds lots of plastic widgets for Americans. China's also bringing tens of millions of people out of poverty.

The problem with the big fix strategy (malaria vaccines, non-profits, etc -- basically non-dumb stuff) is that it always leaves the people in poverty dependent on others. I'm sure you, Kushal, have the highest of motives. Unfortunately not everyone does, which makes leaving the poor dependent on others a very bad strategy for them.

Anyway, welcome to HN!

P.S. Can anyone think of a country that has gotten out of poverty based on aid? All the modern examples I can think of (Korea, Taiwan, China, Singapore, Latvia, Lithuania, etc.) haven't.

Afghanistan, maybe? U.S. and Societ completely ruined the country in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s (in the 90s Soviet were gone and U.S. involvement was passive and indirect though, bu they "blessed" The Taliban as an ally nevertheless), and in the past decade U.S. and Europe have helped kinda rebuild the country by technical and financial aid.

I quite and completely agree with your comment; because that's exactly what I think (I've spent a great deal thinking about that).

Fighting malaria is the example, but no mention of a political campaign against DDT? According to this comfortable American, the two available options are mosquito nets and a subsidized vaccine?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ddt-use-to-... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124303288779048569.html

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