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The best way to work on hard problems is to live there. For a long time. If you're interested in solving the US prison problem, live in neighborhood where many

The best way to work on hard problems is to live there. For a long time. If you're interested in solving the US prison problem, live in neighborhood where many people are sent to prison. If you're interested in solving rural poverty, live in a poor rural area. Then the real issues will emerge.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
I believe rather broadly that it is the community's duty to uphold the community, and that means every institution - the state, the church, the corporation, the family - has a part to play in creating a better place to live. "All they need is X" is often a misleading ideal. The further you are from your own context and culture, the less you will pick up on cues that seem small but can make all the difference in how people's behavior and environment can be changed for the better. Do people drive or walk/bus to work? Do they eat frozen food or go to the farmer's market? If they hear a bump in their house at night, is their first reaction to get their gun or 911? A wholly strong community benefits everybody. People are friendlier. Government is more trusted. Corporations can hire talent by touting their home as a pleasant alternative to the coastal city rat races. And if it works in one place, chances are people elsewhere will seek to emulate your model, instead of having it thrust upon them.
- thex10 11y ago
  This assumes the community has a good deal of agency.
logicallee 11y ago
by that token uber's founders should have gone and worked as taxi drivers so they would understand that world, and airbnb's founders should have opened a hotel. both of the mentioned companies are totally disrupting entire industries and the world, solving people's problems in transportation and in hospitality in ways the world never saw at scale before. I would venture to say that your advice would result in these solutions not coming into existence: with respect, I think your suggestion is not only not necessary, but doesn't work and may prevent certain solutions from coming into existence.
- stinkytaco 11y ago
  I think we ought to be very careful putting Uber and Airbnb in the same boat as, say, gun control and malaria. They are websites that make an existing market more efficient by directly connecting two parties, but they are basically EBay: a platform for two parties to exchange services all parties opted into and agree they need. They are not developing policy solutions and they are certainly not trying to connect multiple parties who do not even agree that problems exist or may even be actively hostile to solutions because they stand to gain from said problems.
  - logicallee 11y ago
    I bet on the whole if you compare malaria, a single disease wherein the interests of every human on earth are aligned with no competition toward any limited resource (0 people want any cases of malaria, 7 billion people are better off if the disease falls off the face of the planet by tomorrow) with something like housing where lots of people are competing for a limited resource, then housing is a lot more difficult to solve in a sustainable way than malaria is. There is some chance of eradicating malaria worldwide in the next 20 years, and then just forgetting about it, the way we have for smallpox (eradicated by vaccination - literally smallpox has been eradicated from the face of the planet through vaccination to such an extent that vaccines no longer even need to be given to anyone.) There is no chance of "eradicating" and completely solving the issue of housing for every human worldwide in the next 20 years. (It's a ridiculous thought on its face). Because it's a limited resource people are competing for, with lots and lots of overlapping interests going back thousands of years and indeed perhaps responsible for much/most of history itself. malaria is not even within an order of magnitude of difficulty. I mean we're talking about the difference between $100 billion and $100 trillion. (to completely solve the problem for everyone forever.) so yeah, I would plot them in the same boat (as you put it).
    - tedsanders 11y ago
      But interests aren't aligned. Most people would rather have $3,000 in their pocket than have that $3,000 directed toward buying insecticide treated bednets.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago

I believe rather broadly that it is the community's duty to uphold the community, and that means every institution - the state, the church, the corporation, the family - has a part to play in creating a better place to live. "All they need is X" is often a misleading ideal. The further you are from your own context and culture, the less you will pick up on cues that seem small but can make all the difference in how people's behavior and environment can be changed for the better. Do people drive or walk/bus to work? Do they eat frozen food or go to the farmer's market? If they hear a bump in their house at night, is their first reaction to get their gun or 911? A wholly strong community benefits everybody. People are friendlier. Government is more trusted. Corporations can hire talent by touting their home as a pleasant alternative to the coastal city rat races. And if it works in one place, chances are people elsewhere will seek to emulate your model, instead of having it thrust upon them.

thex10 11y ago
This assumes the community has a good deal of agency.

logicallee 11y ago

by that token uber's founders should have gone and worked as taxi drivers so they would understand that world, and airbnb's founders should have opened a hotel. both of the mentioned companies are totally disrupting entire industries and the world, solving people's problems in transportation and in hospitality in ways the world never saw at scale before. I would venture to say that your advice would result in these solutions not coming into existence: with respect, I think your suggestion is not only not necessary, but doesn't work and may prevent certain solutions from coming into existence.

stinkytaco 11y ago
I think we ought to be very careful putting Uber and Airbnb in the same boat as, say, gun control and malaria. They are websites that make an existing market more efficient by directly connecting two parties, but they are basically EBay: a platform for two parties to exchange services all parties opted into and agree they need. They are not developing policy solutions and they are certainly not trying to connect multiple parties who do not even agree that problems exist or may even be actively hostile to solutions because they stand to gain from said problems.
- logicallee 11y ago
  I bet on the whole if you compare malaria, a single disease wherein the interests of every human on earth are aligned with no competition toward any limited resource (0 people want any cases of malaria, 7 billion people are better off if the disease falls off the face of the planet by tomorrow) with something like housing where lots of people are competing for a limited resource, then housing is a lot more difficult to solve in a sustainable way than malaria is. There is some chance of eradicating malaria worldwide in the next 20 years, and then just forgetting about it, the way we have for smallpox (eradicated by vaccination - literally smallpox has been eradicated from the face of the planet through vaccination to such an extent that vaccines no longer even need to be given to anyone.) There is no chance of "eradicating" and completely solving the issue of housing for every human worldwide in the next 20 years. (It's a ridiculous thought on its face). Because it's a limited resource people are competing for, with lots and lots of overlapping interests going back thousands of years and indeed perhaps responsible for much/most of history itself. malaria is not even within an order of magnitude of difficulty. I mean we're talking about the difference between $100 billion and $100 trillion. (to completely solve the problem for everyone forever.) so yeah, I would plot them in the same boat (as you put it).
  - tedsanders 11y ago
    But interests aren't aligned. Most people would rather have $3,000 in their pocket than have that $3,000 directed toward buying insecticide treated bednets.