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Ooh! I'm happy to supply a feel-good story that is (as far as I can tell), unreservedly good: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200915-the-himalayan-inventio

by Glench 6y ago

Ooh! I'm happy to supply a feel-good story that is (as far as I can tell), unreservedly good: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200915-the-himalayan-invention-powered-by-pine-needles https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200915-the-himalayan-in... "The Himalayan invention powered by pine needles" TLDR: man and wife move to poor rural region of Indian, see wild fire problem caused by pine needles, invent a machine that turns pine needles into electricity and cooking fuel, employ villagers to pick up pine needles, deploy it to dozens of villages with help of the government and village entrepreneurs. A success story that lifts people out of poverty with well-paying work, renewable electricity, and cooking fuel while cleaning up the environment in a scalable, decentralized, locally-suited way. Incredibly inspiring.

BoorishBears 6y ago
Two things I haven't seen anyone mention that seem important: 1. For the villages that have now "made it" economically, there are countless others that haven't, that still live in one-room houses. What about them? 2. I think it's worthwhile pointing out that the product that he created, while popular and financially successful, is still used in the same settings charcoal is. And while carbonized briquettes produce less emissions that charcoal, there are still a non-negligible amount of particulates generated. By introducing a new source of this type of fuel he could be creating a local maxima that's still far from ideal. Additionally what are the effects of the type of repetitive labor these people are up to? That said, it's wonderful to see someone lifted out of poverty. I hope millions more have the same chance. (Do you get why some people are pushing back on your comment above? You can come up with this kind of stuff for anything. You can't eat an apple today without possibly furthering child labor, our world is too complex to try and turn every feel good story into a dig for downsides, because they will always exist. It is in no way "important" to do suss them out. And it's fine to discuss them, but you don't need to make it a reaction to the feel good story, you're allowed to just discuss these topics independently of the story)
- phone8675309 6y ago
  Is this the "the world is hard, best to not try and let our corporate masters think for us" post that's in every thread on HN? A story can have good parts and bad parts. It does not make you a bad person to like the good parts. It does not make you a bad person to pick out the bad parts. It does make you a bad person to take a dump on someone's comment to "own" them.
  - BoorishBears 6y ago
    Oh please, the point is someone posted a story! You don't need to say "it's important to look at all the people who didn't make it" It's not! It is literally the furthest thing from important in the comment section for that story! Certainly not in such an open ended way! It's the laziest form of concern-baiting. - And don't project your own little weird need to "own" people like your comment is trying too hard to do onto me, I'm pointing out something that should be obvious: it's easy to go "what about the other guys" but not every story needs to be about "the other guys"
- ardy42 6y ago
  > (Do you get why some people are pushing back on your comment above? You can come up with this kind of stuff for anything. You can't eat an apple today without possibly furthering child labor, our world is too complex to try and turn every feel good story into a dig for downsides, because they will always exist. It is in no way "important" to do suss them out. And it's fine to discuss them, but you don't need to make it a reaction to the feel good story, you're allowed to just discuss these topics independently of the story) There's actually a problem with "rags to riches" stories, specifically: they're used, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not, to justify and reinforce unjust systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rags_to_riches#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rags_to_riches#Criticism). Looked at objectively, they're often essentially a dramatic version of someone buying a lottery ticket and winning the jackpot.
  - BoorishBears 6y ago
    If you look at half the top comments, they're actually productively talking about how this story exposes flaws in our economic systems (like how outsourcing has affected the odds someone would care enough about an employer to do this) I'm not saying you can't look at the negatives of stories, far from it, but trying to bring a story to an extremely open-ended negative point is so easy, but adds nothing of value. You could have the conversation separately of the story and lose absolutely nothing, the story is just being used as a springboard then tossed.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
      You're getting very close to the much deeper question: what are these ("rags-to-riches") stories for? And even more generally, what are stories for? Suppose you drop any and all negative criticism of the story. What's left? What's that for? What should anyone make of this story? What lessons can they learn? What true lessons can they learn? What invented lessons can they learn (because sometimes we tell stories to convey invented lessons, rather than ones rooted in truth)? What is it that you want someone to get from a story like this, and do you believe that your desired lesson is useful and/or true?

by Glench 6y ago

BoorishBears 6y ago

Two things I haven't seen anyone mention that seem important: 1. For the villages that have now "made it" economically, there are countless others that haven't, that still live in one-room houses. What about them? 2. I think it's worthwhile pointing out that the product that he created, while popular and financially successful, is still used in the same settings charcoal is. And while carbonized briquettes produce less emissions that charcoal, there are still a non-negligible amount of particulates generated. By introducing a new source of this type of fuel he could be creating a local maxima that's still far from ideal. Additionally what are the effects of the type of repetitive labor these people are up to? That said, it's wonderful to see someone lifted out of poverty. I hope millions more have the same chance. (Do you get why some people are pushing back on your comment above? You can come up with this kind of stuff for anything. You can't eat an apple today without possibly furthering child labor, our world is too complex to try and turn every feel good story into a dig for downsides, because they will always exist. It is in no way "important" to do suss them out. And it's fine to discuss them, but you don't need to make it a reaction to the feel good story, you're allowed to just discuss these topics independently of the story)

phone8675309 6y ago
Is this the "the world is hard, best to not try and let our corporate masters think for us" post that's in every thread on HN? A story can have good parts and bad parts. It does not make you a bad person to like the good parts. It does not make you a bad person to pick out the bad parts. It does make you a bad person to take a dump on someone's comment to "own" them.
- BoorishBears 6y ago
  Oh please, the point is someone posted a story! You don't need to say "it's important to look at all the people who didn't make it" It's not! It is literally the furthest thing from important in the comment section for that story! Certainly not in such an open ended way! It's the laziest form of concern-baiting. - And don't project your own little weird need to "own" people like your comment is trying too hard to do onto me, I'm pointing out something that should be obvious: it's easy to go "what about the other guys" but not every story needs to be about "the other guys"
ardy42 6y ago
> (Do you get why some people are pushing back on your comment above? You can come up with this kind of stuff for anything. You can't eat an apple today without possibly furthering child labor, our world is too complex to try and turn every feel good story into a dig for downsides, because they will always exist. It is in no way "important" to do suss them out. And it's fine to discuss them, but you don't need to make it a reaction to the feel good story, you're allowed to just discuss these topics independently of the story) There's actually a problem with "rags to riches" stories, specifically: they're used, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not, to justify and reinforce unjust systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rags_to_riches#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rags_to_riches#Criticism). Looked at objectively, they're often essentially a dramatic version of someone buying a lottery ticket and winning the jackpot.
- BoorishBears 6y ago
  If you look at half the top comments, they're actually productively talking about how this story exposes flaws in our economic systems (like how outsourcing has affected the odds someone would care enough about an employer to do this) I'm not saying you can't look at the negatives of stories, far from it, but trying to bring a story to an extremely open-ended negative point is so easy, but adds nothing of value. You could have the conversation separately of the story and lose absolutely nothing, the story is just being used as a springboard then tossed.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
    You're getting very close to the much deeper question: what are these ("rags-to-riches") stories for? And even more generally, what are stories for? Suppose you drop any and all negative criticism of the story. What's left? What's that for? What should anyone make of this story? What lessons can they learn? What true lessons can they learn? What invented lessons can they learn (because sometimes we tell stories to convey invented lessons, rather than ones rooted in truth)? What is it that you want someone to get from a story like this, and do you believe that your desired lesson is useful and/or true?