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I live in a capital inside the amazon in Brazil. Before that I lived in the NYC and in the brazilian capital. This is an extremely violent and poor place. Ther

I live in a capital inside the amazon in Brazil. Before that I lived in the NYC and in the brazilian capital. This is an extremely violent and poor place. There is so much to talk about all of this and it certainly requires more than just a comment. I will just answer your questions: "What has been your experience?" Pretty good. The amount of problems to solve is immense, it is a great place to start a company. Violence, climate and lack of infrastructure is tolerable. The real problem with places like this is that the lack of basic education which leads to some social problems you wouldn't expect: lack of manners, widespread corruption, this makes me sad and I plan to leave as soon as I have my first child. I contributed a lot to change this here. "What can other Hacker News participants learn from daily life in the Third World?" There is a lot of money to be made here. The problem is most problems cannot be solved with cute web applications. "What Third World problems are important for hackers to attempt to solve?" The biggest problems right now involve education and health. Example: 60-80% health problems follow the same pattern: you see a doctor, he asks for blood/urine tests, you get the results, go back to the doctor for a prescription. Build something that the poor can explain their symptoms and do those tests without going physically to a doctor and become a semi-god here. That would involve a website (or phone call) and portable blood testers. (Specially for things like malaria, E. coli, colera, dengue fever, typhoid fever, etc)

tsuyoshi 14y ago
I lived in Cambodia for a couple years, and I strongly agree that most problems are related to education and health. Having grown up in the United States, where malaria, cholera, and typhoid were essentially eradicated before I was even born (and I picked up every one of those at least once during my stay in Cambodia), I really tend to think that searching for a technological solution is missing the point. Solutions to these health problems already exist: sanitation (i.e. pick up all the garbage on the streets so that flies and rats don't spread, install plumbing and build sewage treatment to stop contaminating drinking water with feces) and mosquito eradication (build drainage systems to deal with monsoons, pick up all the garbage so the drainage systems don't stop up, install plumbing so people stop keeping big open cisterns of rainwater). The reason I got diarrhea all the time was the same reason I had to pay so many bribes: the government was basically incompetent. Malaria, cholera, and typhoid were all widespread in the first world some time ago, and computers were not necessary to eliminate them. I really don't see how hacking per se will solve these problems. You can use computers as tools to advance political change, but this has its limits in a place like Cambodia, where 80% of people are illiterate subsistence rice farmers, and can't even afford a cell phone.
- notahacker 14y ago
  And the people with some education and most of the money spend it all on imported luxury goods. I didn't realize Lexus made 4x4s until I got to Phnom Penh, where nobody would deign to own a mere Toyota (and maybe consider paying taxes with the difference...).

tsuyoshi 14y ago

I lived in Cambodia for a couple years, and I strongly agree that most problems are related to education and health. Having grown up in the United States, where malaria, cholera, and typhoid were essentially eradicated before I was even born (and I picked up every one of those at least once during my stay in Cambodia), I really tend to think that searching for a technological solution is missing the point. Solutions to these health problems already exist: sanitation (i.e. pick up all the garbage on the streets so that flies and rats don't spread, install plumbing and build sewage treatment to stop contaminating drinking water with feces) and mosquito eradication (build drainage systems to deal with monsoons, pick up all the garbage so the drainage systems don't stop up, install plumbing so people stop keeping big open cisterns of rainwater). The reason I got diarrhea all the time was the same reason I had to pay so many bribes: the government was basically incompetent. Malaria, cholera, and typhoid were all widespread in the first world some time ago, and computers were not necessary to eliminate them. I really don't see how hacking per se will solve these problems. You can use computers as tools to advance political change, but this has its limits in a place like Cambodia, where 80% of people are illiterate subsistence rice farmers, and can't even afford a cell phone.

notahacker 14y ago
And the people with some education and most of the money spend it all on imported luxury goods. I didn't realize Lexus made 4x4s until I got to Phnom Penh, where nobody would deign to own a mere Toyota (and maybe consider paying taxes with the difference...).