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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

#231

Post by yummyfajitas »

urbanjunkie wrote: post #106
yummyfajitas wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there no possible benefit for me that you might have learned something, or that perhaps you might now be able to tell me something I didn't know before? You are moving the goalposts. I asserted there is no "massive positive externality", not that there is no possible external externality. I do concede that maybe people who spend time in the library are more interesting conversationalists. I just don't consider thi…

You stated that "The sole benefit you describe, namely the ability to borrow books, is a private benefit. I borrow a book, read it and enjoy it. What benefit does this create for anyone besides me?" Do we have different definitions of "sole" and "private" - those words feel fairly absolute to me. Sure it may not be a massive positive and direct benefit to you, but I find it hard to understand how you think there's no…

You are correct, I should have been more careful with my language. Mea culpa.

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

#232

Post by waiwai933 »

unimpressive wrote: post #213
tomjen3 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not going to try and rationalize away good answers. Of all the things you could say to someone, I'd say this has the highest chance of success. And if I was behind you, I'd totally go for that. Part of the problem of what I said above was focusing too much on the totally-green scenario. I think we take a lot of our computer-know-how for granted. As it stands, were still in the age where I tell people over webchat…

The general public is not going to know what a "text stream" is, what a "host" computer is, or what you mean by getting into a computer "manually". And I'd be willing to bet that "interprets" in this context is also going to be difficult. Explaining these things to people who don't care about computers isn't as easy as you make out.

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

#233

Post by mechanical_fish »

graeme wrote: post #191
tptacek wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This simply isn't true. The library keeps stats on how many books are being loaned out, and when they drop, they lose an argument for funding the service. Meanwhile, the people who genuinely need the library don't need it to take books out; lending out books is a service that disproportionately helps people with the leisure time to develop a taste for reading books for pleasure.

As the son of a librarian, I can confirm this is true. One library within my father's system cut all books below a certain circulation. They did not bother checking whether the books could be considered "important" by some other metric. So much scientific and classical work was gotten rid of.

As the son of another librarian I can also confirm this is true, and point out that just today I overheard a children's librarian lamenting that her library just discarded all their Lloyd Alexander. "They just didn't circulate," she said with evident sorrow.

So don't just use the library, use the specific bits of it that you want to keep. You are doing nobody any favors by letting it sit idle.

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

#234

Post by [deleted] »

graeme wrote: post #191
tptacek wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This simply isn't true. The library keeps stats on how many books are being loaned out, and when they drop, they lose an argument for funding the service. Meanwhile, the people who genuinely need the library don't need it to take books out; lending out books is a service that disproportionately helps people with the leisure time to develop a taste for reading books for pleasure.

As the son of a librarian, I can confirm this is true. One library within my father's system cut all books below a certain circulation. They did not bother checking whether the books could be considered "important" by some other metric. So much scientific and classical work was gotten rid of.

[deleted]

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

#235

Post by yummyfajitas »

neckpunch wrote: post #127
yummyfajitas wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libraries are a private good, not a public good. Since so many people seem to be getting confused on this point, I'll just post these articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_good The fact that their customers are broke (but not so broke they can't afford cable TV) doesn't change this.

First, let it be said that reading through your comments in this thread has driven me to drinking. I'm heading out to the local watering hole, but, before I do, I want to make a couple of points. First, a library is most assuredly a public good in that it provides services that it can only provide which are not directed at profit-making. It serves many civic purposes and provides many services to the community. This…

...public goods of communal learning, discourse, shared meeting spaces, free internet access...

Just because you stick the word "public good" and "free" in front of something you want other people to pay for doesn't make those services non-rivalrous and non-excludible.

As for NSF grants (note: webpage is way outdated, haven't been at NYU for years), the theory behind their public benefit is that published scientific research helps everyone - you are free to build a medical or other device based on the basic research I published.

I'm not going to defend this empirically since I'm unconvinced it's true. The large chunks of grants pilfered by universities, the paywalled publications, and the patented inventions exploited by universities seriously undermine the public benefits.

As for your ad-hominem attacks, I'll ignore those. I recommend reading this, since you seem new here: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#236

Post by yummyfajitas »

Retric wrote: post #130
yummyfajitas wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "massive positive externalities" are created by a library? The sole benefit you describe, namely the ability to borrow books, is a private benefit. I borrow a book, read it and enjoy it. What benefit does this create for anyone besides me? Since I am the sole beneficiary, the library can charge me for it, and prevent me from consuming it if I don't pay. Why should you be forced to pay for me to receive these ben…

I benefit from library's near me that I have never been to. They among other things reduce crime in my area which then reduces the need for shops in my area to protect themselves at night, which allows for both lower prices and longer hours. Could other things provide the same benefit, of course video games also reduce crime. But, the choice is not to eliminate these library's and watching identical private ones pop…

First, where I live (India), libraries are provided by the private sector. So clearly market forces can provided libraries.

Second, how much crime is prevented by libraries? Is this the cheapest way to prevent crime? Or would it be cheaper to devote the money to a few more beat cops?

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

#237

Post by kalleboo »

mcantelon wrote: post #110
greggman wrote: post #65

If you want a community learning center with computers then why are you asking for a library? http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/library Words matter. People skim, people read headlines. If I read "libraries are in trouble" or "more support for libraries" needed I think "no, anyone with a free smart phone can access the entire internet". They can get a netbook for under $300 or probably a used one for under $5…

Yeah, "economic integration centers" or something might help frame their utilitarian value. People who can't integrate with the system end up integrating with the criminal world, so it's worth the social investment to provide computer access, etc.

One town in the UK rebranded their Libraries to "Idea Stores" http://www.ideastore.co.uk/

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

#238

Post by yummyfajitas »

lemmsjid wrote: post #111
yummyfajitas wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

See, here you go again. You use vague statistics to make absolute statements that are starkly contradicted by the statistics you started with. I just read the pdf you sent. As expected, it doesn't support your absolute conclusion (that the poor don't work). In my own social circle, I know the following: 1. Poor people who work for a living. 2. Poor people who can't work because they have a felony record. 3. Poor peop…

As expected, it doesn't support your absolute conclusion (that the poor don't work).

You clearly didn't read even the first paragraph, which shows that just under 80% of the poor don't work (by choice). You can even read further and discover that a big chunk of the working 20% work only part time (also by choice).

In America, we obsess over separating the virtuous from non-virtuous poor...

No, we don't. We throw money and services wantonly at anyone who wants them.

If we really wanted to target the virtuous poor, we'd cut all welfare programs and replace them with a guaranteed low paying job. It's perfectly targeted, since by showing and working a poor person proves their virtue.

If you want to argue that we should give money to people who refuse to work so they can buy alcohol, crack cocaine and satellite TV, be my guest. I just refuse to describe such people as "struggling" or "barely surviving".

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

#239

Post by unimpressive »

waiwai933 wrote: post #232
unimpressive wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to try and rationalize away good answers. Of all the things you could say to someone, I'd say this has the highest chance of success. And if I was behind you, I'd totally go for that. Part of the problem of what I said above was focusing too much on the totally-green scenario. I think we take a lot of our computer-know-how for granted. As it stands, were still in the age where I tell people over webchat…

The general public is not going to know what a "text stream" is, what a "host" computer is, or what you mean by getting into a computer "manually". And I'd be willing to bet that "interprets" in this context is also going to be difficult. Explaining these things to people who don't care about computers isn't as easy as you make out.

I know that.

In fact, I expect that the first four minutes would be spent defining most of the words in that paragraph.

And thats assuming you have someone who "clicks" on it the first time around. If they don't, it's going to take a while. Part of the problem is that as you put it, most people don't care. And it's just too costly (in all senses of the word) to really educate people about "computer stuff". This is why we've been advocating user education for years and it hasn't worked.

So we say that we can't teach users not to shoot themselves in the foot. Cool. What are our other options? We can try to make it impossible for users to shoot themselves in the foot. But what we've found is that users ignore warnings. If you make the security restrictions too strict, users can't figure out how to evade them and deem the machine broken. If you make them too easy to circumvent, users go ahead and shoot themselves anyway. If you use a trusted computing architecture, user freedom is lost in such a way that it'd be better for people to be shooting themselves.

If you can't stop people from losing a limb, and you can't tell them how not to do so, what is the world to do?

EDIT: The only thing I can think of is to make computer education cheaper. And I don't mean in the monetary sense, I mean the mental sense. We need to find some way to get more people to care about computers, or make the concepts easier to teach, or make the materials easier to access, or make humans smarter, or something.

This is a problem I spend mental computer time on daily trying to solve. No answers present themselves. I would actually love for someone to show me the silver bullet, or even a box of lead ones. (LINK: http://bhorowitz.com/2011/10/26/lead-bullets/)

EDIT_2: And just for clarification, I'm focusing on all aspects of computing here, not just security or usability or what have you.

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

#240

Post by DanBC »

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…

> Next time you think of buying a book, seriously check out your local library system.

I agree, but there are something like 250,000[1] books published each year.

At just $5[2] per book that's $1,250,000 just to buy each year's worth of books, never mind the staff to do the buying and unpacking and cataloguing and stocking and lending etc etc.

[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_published_per_country_per...) (but go careful because who knows where the wikipedia numbers come from)

[2] A ridiculously low figure. Here's some UK data; not sure where it comes from. (http://www.holtjackson.co.uk/cgi-perl/web_avg_book_price.pl)

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