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Stop building dumb stuff

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Re: Stop building dumb stuff

#31

Post by omra »

malkarouri wrote: post #28
pooriaazimi wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Does Afghanistan qualify as a has gotten out of poverty country?

I'd say no; the mean poverty fraction is 30.91%, with median 28.25% and standard deviation 19.05%. [0] Afghanistan has a poverty rate of 36% (as of 2008). [1] So it's definitely above the average.

[0] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=poverty+fraction

[1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Afghanistan+poverty+rat...

Re: Stop building dumb stuff

#32

Post by kushalc »

seagreen wrote: post #25

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 you…

(Am original author)

YES, I totally agree! :) —

At Vittana (the org I founded), we joke there are only three ways to _really_ change the world.

* religions: whether you believe in God or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, you gotta agree that religion has affected world history

* governments: law & order, basic needs, wars -- name it, it's probably there

* markets: biotech, microchip, Internet, space -- need I say more?

In fact, I'd argue that if you look at the past 50 years, even in the United States but certainly elsewhere (e.g. the Asian Tigers), and all of the incredible things we've seen -- the biotech, microchip, Internet, space revolutions -- you could trace it all back to education.

And in particular (at least in the United States), I'd wager you could probably trace it all back to the GI Bill: that, for the first time, an entire generation could finish college if they wanted. You see similar investments in education elsewhere.

When that happens (assuming non-dysfunctional governments like in Egypt, etc.), you see a generation of people both creating and filling in opportunity for themselves through industry. That's what excites us.

At Vittana, we focus on providing education micro-loans to fight youth poverty. It's very much about a hand up, not a hand out: not a donation and not aid, but a business partnership among equals.

Take Ana Lizbeth, for instance, one of my favorite students: she wanted to be a programmer but needed $713 to graduate -- because of a Vittana Loan, that became possible.

http://blog.vittana.org/ana-lizbeth-a-mothers-dream-and-dete...

We're not starting the cult or island nation of Vittana anytime soon -- I'm certainly not ;) -- so that leaves us with free markets. Our hope is that by going first, we can show others that education micro-loans are _possible_ to do and spark others to do it too.

Big fixes don't really work, but sometimes crazy, risky small ideas turn into big movements. That's our hope at least. :)

And thank you for the welcome! I've actually been with HN almost since the beginning (2,046 days — just happened to see earlier) but haven't been active/been busy building Vittana. I just logged in today when I saw a whole bunch of referrers coming in from HN.

Re: Stop building dumb stuff

#33

Post by rerere »

Nathan Myrhvold is a grossly obese man who owns a large patent portfolio, managed through thousands of shell companies under the umbrella of "Intellectual Ventures." He first made his bones as was CTO of Microsoft. However, unlike a lot of the original founders, he wasn't satisfied with what he got, so he moved into the patent trolling business. These days, he makes his money by extorting technology companies, usually behind closed doors.

To make himself feel better about what he does, he tries to minimize the importance of what those technology companies are doing-- they're just building "stupid stuff," after all. He also sponsors research into vaccines and technologies to help the third world. Like Bill G himself, he views this as his way of doing penance for the bad things he's done to get where he is.

The truth is, though, it doesn't work like that. Most of the problems in the third world are the result of bad government. Unless we want to bring back colonialism, trying to "fix" the third world with aid is just putting a band-aid on a broken leg. In the long term, there are only two final destinies for humanity-- extinction, and the singularity. People like Mr. Myrhvold make the first outcome more likely.

Re: Stop building dumb stuff

#34

Post by danso »

see, here's a problem: in the time it takes to find a malaria vaccine, thousands of lives could be saved by things as simple as a mosquito net. In the time it takes to perfect cold fusion, the greatest energy savings will come from industrialized nations turning their A/C down a couple of degrees.

Humanity is served by both the incremental steps and the big dreamers. Let's not create a false dichotomy and end up discarding the lives of millions just because it's hip to be the next Nobel prize winner

Re: Stop building dumb stuff

#35

Post by danso »

kushalc wrote: post #12
milesokeefe wrote: post #5

What exactly is the point of this? That non humanitarian efforts are useless?

No, my point was to make meaning -- not trivial stuff. There's lots of non-humanitarian efforts that create lots of meaning: * Facebook, helps me stay connected to my friends * Etsy & Kickstarter, empowers artists around the world * Reddit & HackerNews, lets me find stuff about topics I like There's also lots of humanitarian stuff that's just pretty pointless. But folks can build some pretty amazing things and I want…

Didn't Facebook originate from wanting to make it easier to scope out the good looking co-eds?

Tte point is, a lot of meaning comes out of what started as a seemingly trivial pursuit. If Mark Zuckerberg were to have followed your advice, there wouldn't be a Facebook.

Re: Stop building dumb stuff

#36

Post by irollboozers »

bravura wrote: post #11

Seriously? An article about "make meaning, not money". Which lionizes Nathan Myhrvold, the world's largest patent troll. Seriously?

Myhrvold just happened to be there. It also happens that he does spend a lot of time on tackling 'global good' problems. For example, they spent a great deal of money and time developing cheaper and more efficient refrigerators for transferring drugs, because surprisingly drugs go bad and poor underserved areas tend not to have refrigerators. They spent a lot of RND, and went against several WHO regulations which forced unnecessary extra costs, just to get to their goal.

Regardless, I think you're attacking a man mentioned in the article for something little related to the message of this article.

Re: Stop building dumb stuff

#37

Post by irollboozers »

aaronbasssett wrote: post #16

Because the guys building Facebook for dogs, or working on faster games have the transferable skills required to work on a Malaria vaccine.

If you can make another meme generator, then you can probably make a good dent in the world.

That's a shamefully bad cop-out to say you couldn't do any of these things:

http://freerice.com/ http://www.donorschoose.org/ http://www.shiftlabs.org/ http://www.sparked.com/

Re: Stop building dumb stuff

#38

Post by notJim »

seagreen wrote: post #25

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 you…

I think this is basically right, but I'd point out that aid can include things like education and giving money to build infrastructure, which assist greatly with (2).

Re: Stop building dumb stuff

#39

Post by irollboozers »

danso wrote: post #34

see, here's a problem: in the time it takes to find a malaria vaccine, thousands of lives could be saved by things as simple as a mosquito net. In the time it takes to perfect cold fusion, the greatest energy savings will come from industrialized nations turning their A/C down a couple of degrees. Humanity is served by both the incremental steps and the big dreamers. Let's not create a false dichotomy and end up disc…

All the comments in this thread, this is the only one that is actually a good starting point for discussion and doesn't latch onto the "LOL MYRHVOLD GO AWAY".

The problem with the tech industry, as the article highlights, is that the focus is on building stuff for the sake of building it. A nyan cat generator? A social network for your dog's dog? Sure, throw 100+ hours into it, and maybe you'll get acquired by the 'social network for nyan cat generators'. The issue is that the tech industry more and more just serves itself, not because of the culture of funding but what I would think of is just familiarity. 100+ hours can go further elsewhere, but it's not necessarily the personal goal of that little coder.

Incremental steps only come when the larger incentives are in place. If you could flip a social enterprise (and not Facebook social, I mean for-a-better-world social), then people would be willing to spend 100 hours building apps for good.

The big dreamers are the ones who do it regardless of the fame, money, or glory.

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