4 ms·

I'm pretty sure the original post is asking what's in that alleged mountain.

nyargh 9y ago
Go ask the people doing the work - not the folks looking to enrich themselves by "disrupting" (read: injecting software into) every industry imaginable. I mean this is Y-Combinator after all, not exactly a hub of philanthropy.
Mz 9y ago
Long experience suggests they probably are not.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Why? I have exactly the same question on my mind as OP, and I'm definitely not thinking about yet another bullshit mobile app that'll save the world.
  - nyargh 9y ago
    NGOs are not simply biding their time waiting for the next Tech Messiah to come along and save the world. Their tech problems are terribly boring and mundane. We deal with this all the time. Well meaning techie comes along with a bunch of ideas, none of which are particularly compelling and all require a ton of work (on both sides). When we don't immediately do backflips, they disappear. Rinse, repeat.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      It's good that you mention this and it's an important datapoint for OP's question. That said, I don't think OP gave any indication anywhere to dismiss them as fly-by-night techie seeking social status. There are people (myself included) honestly asking how they could maximize their positive impact on this world, especially using the skills they already have.
      - nyargh 9y ago
        Yes yes, #notalltechies - but as stated above, best thing you can do is to take your wildly disproportionate capacity for earning, do the due diligence and find a group worth sponsoring. edit: Let me explain why donations like these are particularly valuable for orgs that survive on donations. Every bit of grant money comes with a huge amount of donor service attached to it, from the initial grant writing, to metric collection, to reporting and presentation - then the hassle of having to do it all again next year and hoping you still have the donor's attention. Of course all of these things take away from your core mission, and sooner or later you are wasting huge amounts of time doing fundraising and donor service. If you find under resourced people doing effective work for a cause you believe in, a no strings attached gift at the right time can be a huge relief.
        TeMPOraL 9y ago
        As someone currently running a nonprofit (a Hackerspace), I can sign under what you wrote. Grant money is utterly annoying to secure and requires spending huge amounts of time that would be better spent on actually doing the things the organization exists for.
  - Mz 9y ago
    Because long experience tells me that it is inherently hard to see and measure the disasters you prevented. This makes it incredibly hard to feel like you are accomplishing anything and harder still to convince other people you are actually adding value. Y2K was supposed to be a global meltdown. There were people who prepped for that like a coming apocalypse. It was prevented and many people remember it as "Ha! Can you believe those fools ever believed we were in real danger?!" No one gets up today and goes "Oh, thank god they fixed that and I am not living in the Y2K post apocalypse! My ATM still works and life goes on!" I was molested for 2.5 years as a child in part because my mother stopped being a homemaker and began doing paid work outside the house. The direct cause and effect connection is extremely clear to me not only due to first hand experience but because of extensive reading on the topic. This is part of why I was a full time homemaker until my sons were 19 and 16. No one ever molested them. There was damn little opportunity for anyone to get them alone. I made sure of it. I get straight up told I just got lucky and do not actually know shit all about preventing bad things from happening. When I try to share such information to help other people I basically get told "Shit happens. You can't stop it. Quit blaming the victims."
    - nyargh 9y ago
      Sorry to hear about your experience, but you make a very salient point and I also agree that you made an enlightened (if hard earned) decision regarding the best thing you could do for your children. In my experience there are thousands of people doing the hard work day in and day out, quietly holding the line. It's a constant effort and constant tension, but for those who won't settle for anything less than revolution - that sort of work, no matter how vital, just isn't compelling enough. I personally find the prevalence of this kind of attitude very disturbing, although I suppose it is just human nature in the end - perhaps with a bit of celebrity/hero worship thrown in.
      - Mz 9y ago
        I try to assume they just don't see it because it is hard to see. I also have a serious medical condition and have gotten off all drugs. I am routinely told I am crazy, making that up, it is a tall tale, my success is because my condition is mild, it is wild coincidence...etc etc...and I cannot possibly actually know anything useful. People who don't think I am straight up crazy and have acted on my suggestions have said things to me like "I fed my child like you suggested and they are in the ER less, but they aren't taking fewer drugs." What they mean is the child still needs the same maintenance drugs. They completely miss the fact that fewer ER visits means fewer antibiotics and other drugs, thus fewer ER visits means their child is taking fewer drugs. Even people who have it clear in their mind that A prevented B have difficulty measuring the things that have not happened. They still mentally minimize the value of the accomplishment. It takes real and significant effort to try to quantify in a meaningful way that "We prevented X amount of catastrophe with our work." It is much easier to see lives saved by an ambulance than lives saved by the local gym or the local organic grocer.

Go ask the people doing the work - not the folks looking to enrich themselves by "disrupting" (read: injecting software into) every industry imaginable. I mean this is Y-Combinator after all, not exactly a hub of philanthropy.

Mz 9y ago

Long experience suggests they probably are not.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
Why? I have exactly the same question on my mind as OP, and I'm definitely not thinking about yet another bullshit mobile app that'll save the world.
- nyargh 9y ago
  NGOs are not simply biding their time waiting for the next Tech Messiah to come along and save the world. Their tech problems are terribly boring and mundane. We deal with this all the time. Well meaning techie comes along with a bunch of ideas, none of which are particularly compelling and all require a ton of work (on both sides). When we don't immediately do backflips, they disappear. Rinse, repeat.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    It's good that you mention this and it's an important datapoint for OP's question. That said, I don't think OP gave any indication anywhere to dismiss them as fly-by-night techie seeking social status. There are people (myself included) honestly asking how they could maximize their positive impact on this world, especially using the skills they already have.
    - nyargh 9y ago
      Yes yes, #notalltechies - but as stated above, best thing you can do is to take your wildly disproportionate capacity for earning, do the due diligence and find a group worth sponsoring. edit: Let me explain why donations like these are particularly valuable for orgs that survive on donations. Every bit of grant money comes with a huge amount of donor service attached to it, from the initial grant writing, to metric collection, to reporting and presentation - then the hassle of having to do it all again next year and hoping you still have the donor's attention. Of course all of these things take away from your core mission, and sooner or later you are wasting huge amounts of time doing fundraising and donor service. If you find under resourced people doing effective work for a cause you believe in, a no strings attached gift at the right time can be a huge relief.
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        As someone currently running a nonprofit (a Hackerspace), I can sign under what you wrote. Grant money is utterly annoying to secure and requires spending huge amounts of time that would be better spent on actually doing the things the organization exists for.
- Mz 9y ago
  Because long experience tells me that it is inherently hard to see and measure the disasters you prevented. This makes it incredibly hard to feel like you are accomplishing anything and harder still to convince other people you are actually adding value. Y2K was supposed to be a global meltdown. There were people who prepped for that like a coming apocalypse. It was prevented and many people remember it as "Ha! Can you believe those fools ever believed we were in real danger?!" No one gets up today and goes "Oh, thank god they fixed that and I am not living in the Y2K post apocalypse! My ATM still works and life goes on!" I was molested for 2.5 years as a child in part because my mother stopped being a homemaker and began doing paid work outside the house. The direct cause and effect connection is extremely clear to me not only due to first hand experience but because of extensive reading on the topic. This is part of why I was a full time homemaker until my sons were 19 and 16. No one ever molested them. There was damn little opportunity for anyone to get them alone. I made sure of it. I get straight up told I just got lucky and do not actually know shit all about preventing bad things from happening. When I try to share such information to help other people I basically get told "Shit happens. You can't stop it. Quit blaming the victims."
  - nyargh 9y ago
    Sorry to hear about your experience, but you make a very salient point and I also agree that you made an enlightened (if hard earned) decision regarding the best thing you could do for your children. In my experience there are thousands of people doing the hard work day in and day out, quietly holding the line. It's a constant effort and constant tension, but for those who won't settle for anything less than revolution - that sort of work, no matter how vital, just isn't compelling enough. I personally find the prevalence of this kind of attitude very disturbing, although I suppose it is just human nature in the end - perhaps with a bit of celebrity/hero worship thrown in.
    - Mz 9y ago
      I try to assume they just don't see it because it is hard to see. I also have a serious medical condition and have gotten off all drugs. I am routinely told I am crazy, making that up, it is a tall tale, my success is because my condition is mild, it is wild coincidence...etc etc...and I cannot possibly actually know anything useful. People who don't think I am straight up crazy and have acted on my suggestions have said things to me like "I fed my child like you suggested and they are in the ER less, but they aren't taking fewer drugs." What they mean is the child still needs the same maintenance drugs. They completely miss the fact that fewer ER visits means fewer antibiotics and other drugs, thus fewer ER visits means their child is taking fewer drugs. Even people who have it clear in their mind that A prevented B have difficulty measuring the things that have not happened. They still mentally minimize the value of the accomplishment. It takes real and significant effort to try to quantify in a meaningful way that "We prevented X amount of catastrophe with our work." It is much easier to see lives saved by an ambulance than lives saved by the local gym or the local organic grocer.