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How about we stop building apps for refugees and top up their phones instead?
- Feniks 9y agoEmotional story. I feel for refugees. Its too bad how economic migrants are giving them a bad reputation. Remember watching a documentary about two kids being stuck in Greece. Even European streets are not safe for eleven year old boys and girls.
- eropple 9y ago> Its too bad how economic migrants are giving them a bad reputation. Racist propagandists are giving them a "bad reputation". Tacitly reinforcing it helps the racist propagandists. Maybe don't do that.
- Spivak 9y agoNo, people who are afraid for their own economic circumstances and safety are responsible for that reputation. Pretending that the problem is a few vague high status racist talking heads that have the masses brainwashed is just a scapegoat for the reality that by in large we're nimbys and aren't as charitable as we believe we are. I can sit at my desk and post empathetic tweets that loudly proclaim my support for refugees safe in the knowledge that either way the situation won't affect my life in the slightest. I haven't been tested -- and so I'm reluctant to throw stones at the people who have because I'm can't say whether I would pass myself.
- eropple 9y ago> people who are afraid for their own economic circumstances and safety are responsible for that reputation It's not "economic circumstances and safety" that makes people invent hordes of dark-complected rape gangs out of whole cloth (that would be Pegida, a neo-Nazi group who invented the "Cologne rape gangs" and other similar swill). And the people casting racism as "economic insecurity" are themselves racist propagandists, my dude; it is air cover for bad shit. They do not deserve your buy-in or your charity.
- saltyseadog 9y ago>Invent lol
- jakobegger 9y agoThanks for saying this so clearly. Anti-Immigration hate has nothing to do with „economic insecurity“. That‘s just something people say because they desperately want to find a somewhat rational reason for xenophobia. But there isn‘t. For some reason, all the people I know that complain about immigrants are actually pretty well off. I think they don‘t have any real problems in life, so they just come up with some imaginary threat. The people who actually suffer from economic hardship don‘t worry about immigrants – they have enough problems of their own to worry about. Not sure if my observations are representative, though.
- eropple 9y ago> For some reason, all the people I know that complain about immigrants are actually pretty well off. I think they don‘t have any real problems in life, so they just come up with some imaginary threat. I can't speak for everywhere, but Donald Trump's supporters in the United States certainly did trend well-off, majority/white, and male. My theory is that it's not immediate problems gripping them--it's that they see other people catching up, and the idea that it's zero-sum has permeated the game.
- coldtea 9y agoWell, building BS apps for refugees gives you a lot of nice PR for solving non-problems. Actually helping them does not.
- theyregreat 9y agoVirtue-signaling.
- dingo_bat 9y agoWhy not just give them some money and let them decide where to spend? I doubt phone top ups are critical for a refugee.
- EGreg 9y agoWhy not let them issue their own mobile crypto currency to help each other? And not just refugees but villages. Helping the unbanked.
- rjsw 9y agoAnd they could use it to order meal kits to be delivered by drones /s
- astrodust 9y agoThe unbanked use this amazing new innovation called cash.
- PhasmaFelis 9y agoI almost upvoted this, but then I realized, with dawning horror, that you might actually be serious.
- CharlesDodgson 9y agoI definitely agree with this, there seem to be an aversion to giving people money directly. I guess this comes from a sense of knowing better, most people feel they know how to better look after people rather than letting others define and satisfy their own needs. Most refugees would find a decent, personal, use for money. They are refugees, but like the rest of us have needs we can't always fathom.
- Synaesthesia 9y agoYet another argument for free telecommunications for all.
- zo1 9y agoI myself would prefer we give out free food for all, rather than "free telecommunication". We should put food-ration centers all across the country where people can go to get their daily rations. Like public schools.
- fairpx 9y agoHow about giving them good equipment and organise hackathons, so they can build the things they need for themselves, while having fun. There are a good chunk of developers among them with awesome ideas. Nothing beats a product built by someone, for him/her self.
- CharlesDodgson 9y agoI dunno, I imagine more refugees are illiterate than have app development skills. These efforts may be useful further down the line, when you are trying to build community and sense of progress, but when a mother and child are sleeping in a park in the French countryside, the needs are different.
- fairpx 9y agoA lot of people have this strange image about refugees. These people fled from a war zone, not because they don't have any food or are illiterate. In fact, a majority of the refugees are here because they have money which they spend on the journey to flee their country. Among them are doctors, physicians, engineers, etc.
- jaclaz 9y ago>In fact, a majority of the refugees are here because they have money which they spend on the journey to flee their country. Among them are doctors, physicians, engineers, etc. Not only. These doctors, physicians, engineers very likely belong to a subset of literate/educated people that are more adventurous, risk prone, courageous and flexible/adaptable.
- CharlesDodgson 9y agoFair point alright, I guess I was thinking more about the youth population, if you had a 12 year old arriving from Syria with their mother, there is a very real chance that kid has had little or no formal education due to the disruption of the last 6 years.
- indescions_2017 9y agoOr extend to anyone with a mobile an automatic line of credit they can use in emergencies or at will. PayTM in India is expanding on consumer credit and lending services at the "auto-rickshaw" level and for the micro amounts we are talking about here (>$100 per month) it seems more a question of distributing the phones than the wealth. Further if feeless peer to peer transactions via Digital Gold or cryptocurrency become ubiquitous, analagous peer to peer lending would also be universal. The interesting case is in Puerto Rico after Hurrican Irma when all cell towers are wiped out. You have the common scenario of a CNN reporter with a sat phone relaying messages on behalf of stranded locals who just want to let their relatives know they are alive. Deployment of Iridium Next with cheap sat phones with integrated digital payments could work wonders. http://www.cabelas.com/product/DeLorme-InReach-Explorer-Satellite-Communicator-with-Navigation/1926518.uts http://www.cabelas.com/product/DeLorme-InReach-Explorer-Sate...
- purplezooey 9y agoOr how about this, let's build fewer apps in the US and more infrastructure. We spend so much time on software but our connectivity lags well behind developed countries, not to mention not building enough roads and houses.
- marindez 9y agoHow about we stop building apps for refugees and help our local poor who at least have contributed in the past to the local economy instead?
- pavlov 9y agoIf the criterion for helping someone is "has contributed to the economy", doesn't that exclude children, the handicapped, the unemployed in recession areas, and many other groups without work history?
- jakobegger 9y agobecause a good samaritan helps anyone in need, regardless of how they ended up there?
- adnam 9y agoHow much does it cost to be smuggled from Afghanistan to Belgium? Exactly.