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What's with all the hype around Watsi? A non profit oriented approach to poverty is doomed to forever be nothing more than a vanity exercise. The scale of resou
by lquist 14y ago
What's with all the hype around Watsi? A non profit oriented approach to poverty is doomed to forever be nothing more than a vanity exercise. The scale of resources needed to attack the problems of poverty can only come from two places: governments or capital markets. Historically, governments have shown themselves to not be terribly able in this regard.
- jusben1369 14y agoThat is such an odd rant and more importantly so far from the mark. We seem to be only at the tip of the iceberg in terms of what can be done with crowdfunding.
- whatsup 14y agowhy is it odd
- sopooneo 14y agoI wonder if the right charities could get just enough people on their feet that they could start to reform their governments from the inside. Then the big change could come from governments, when they were finally "of the people".
- pg 14y agoThey're not trying to fix poverty itself. They're trying to fix the medical problems of people who are poor.
- lquist 14y agoThe same criticism applies: attempts to solve the problems (e.g., medical) of poverty in non-scalable ways are futile at best.
- rdl 14y agoThere are a lot of people who are economically marginal but potentially rising with the tide, who suffer a medical ailment or other specific setback, and then end up essentially doomed (along with their kids, etc.). I mean, look at the...50% (? I forget the real number) of bankruptcies caused by medical bills in the US, where even poor people are essentially rich. Solving someone's one-time problem for $500-1000 and letting him and his family get back to growing along with the rest of their economy seems anything but futile.
- hotpockets 14y agoBy your logic, a person should never try to save another person's life, because so many people die that you can't even make a dent.