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First, people do talk about healthcare costs and education costs and housing costs as grand problems. And startups can do something about those. For example:
by ippisl 13y ago
First, people do talk about healthcare costs and education costs and housing costs as grand problems.
And startups can do something about those. For example:
1. Co-Abode.com which connects single moms to share houses , while getting cheaper prices and better support from each other.
2. A recent YC startup , which helps people who are getting a divorce, settle without lawyers in a relatively peacefull and much cheaper process.
3. All those new education startups who make college more affordable.
And there are plenty more , and plenty more that's could be done. One such example:
Making dental crowns is costly. There are some few large companies who built a small cnc machine who automates this, which can reduce the costs of the whole process by a lot. But they are expensive to acquire.
Find a way to make this available for cheap for every dentist in u.s./world.
Now the question is how does get into those opportunities ?
Well, i don't think it's hard. just focus on the right area , and try to join the communities which try to think about those things. I'm pretty sure they are willing to share problem and ideas in order to see solutions being made.
- shadowcats 13y agoSomewhat controversial idea: a startup that focuses on cognitive enhancement (IQ, mood, impulse control, mindfulness, stuff like that). Supplements, meditation, and brain training can probably have a non-negligible impact, but I don't see the "underclass" partaking in those currently. IQ and income: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Income Victorians smarter than us: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10053977/The-Victorians-were-smarter-than-us-study-suggests.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10053977/The... Anyone want to brainstorm more on this? Email me: lolcatrampage@gmail.com
- VLM 13y agoTo quote the article: "a cultural disregard for intelligence, empathy and respect" Not to say its impossible. Its just going to have to be very covert. Part of a game of some sort, but not K-12 ridiculously blatant educational game like space invaders where you have to solve an addition problem to fire the anti-missile missile (I think I actually had to play that one in school...) (Edited to add EVE Online is basically a spreadsheet with a 3-d screensaver, at least as of when I played back in '05 or so... this might be the correct direction...) Another option is it might be easier to sell to superior societies where intelligence is not considered a social disability requiring treatment. For example, Japan is a smaller market than the USA, but still pretty big and profitable. Or lets say it only sells well in Asia and Europe... well that's OK, looking at population figures, (Asia + Europe) >>>> (USA).
- lilsunnybee 13y agoActing even more patronizing towards the poor is not the answer.
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoIt's as often the rich and the middle class in America that disparage intellectualism as the poor.
- cbennett 13y agoI like this idea quite a bit, although I'm not exactly sure it would be a startup in the end because the willingness (ability?) to pay amongst the target market here must be quite low, I imagine. Just free styling here, but the way to go about it would be to bundle a sort of 'package' of tools into a couple of various tiers, from easy (low input of time/funds) to challenging (more pricey/difficult). One wrinkle is that I think there is a spectrum from pretty clearly verified IQ boosters.. such as psychologically verified games like n-back, and proper nutritions (EPA+DHA, etc etc), to ones that are much more speculative or carry some baggage that 'underclass' folks (that sounds sort of bad ha) might be extremely reluctant to participate in.. eg meditative practice, nootropics, etc. (Brain) food for thought.. :P With regards to the Victorian study, I read through that last week and it is not immediately clear to me from the literature that reaction time is really a reliable indicator of g. Conversely, the Flynn affect suggests that IQ has really been going up. And if you've read any of Flynn's stuff you'll find that he has quite a nice explanation here, which is that the more brilliant heuristics/words/thinking tools pioneered amongst scientists, inventors, so on are slowly filtering down into the masses generation by generation. Perhaps what this suggests is that education in a new way- introducing folks to a library of new 'thinking tools' rather than just memorization etc- might have to go hand in hand with the sort of biophysical/training ideas above. I highly recommend this video by Dennett to hear a bit more about this concept- minutes 5-14 specifically: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4Q_mY54hjM0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4...
- shadowcats 13y agoI bet there is a lot of low-hanging fruit. What would happen if we just became consistent with the fish oil and n-back stuff? Thanks for the tip, I'll watch it.
- lilsunnybee 13y agoHow about show your fellow human beings a modicum of respect. They aren't your lab rats. Maybe if your upper-class, power-heavy minority would reevaluate all the patronizing aspects of their philanthropic efforts, poor folks wouldn't have learned helplessness from the futility of their situation, and would actually have the energy to lift themselves up. Drug dealing, crime, and prostitution are sometimes seemingly the only way to actually move up in the world anymore.
- SnootyMonkey 13y agoI'm a little confused... isn't there a whole market (many markets actually) for each of these areas you point out (IQ enhancement, mindfulness, etc.) I don't get the role of a startup here.
- lilsunnybee 13y agoYou're 100% correct. He was really just pondering ways to put self-help books into a more patronizing form, for all the poor dummies out there.
- lilsunnybee 13y agoYour assumption that poor people are dumb and don't know how to help themselves is insulting. I'm a part of the unexotic underclass; I was doing pretty good in my life till serious health problems started in college. Being transgender played a large role too. I've been homeless, broke, been a housemaid and a sex worker, exchanged sex for housing. Before that I was top of my International Baccalaureate program class, and a National Merit scholar. I attended a well ranked state school. I just didn't have any golden parachutes when I had health problems. From being poor though what I've ended up discovering is just how hard it is to come up from being homeless and broke, or not being from money and having serious health problems, or being black and getting a felony record from an asshole cop. There are a lot of decent poor people, that just can't come up in the world anymore. Their jobs work them like dogs, the world treats them like shit, and their spare energy left at the end of the day is zip. There's nothing left to better yourself with because everyone takes and takes from you and gives back nothing but disrespect. Sure there are people that are just lazy too. But even among those people there's only a small number that are purposely taking advantage. The silent majority have either disabilities holding them back, or trauma from their life (PTSD). Or the simple lack of anyone parenting them properly and encouraging them to explore their dreams and interests. Drugs, alcohol, junk food, tv and other vices are a coping mechanism for a shitty life. Make people's lives the least bit better in substantial ways, and those people will start to flower and bloom into more capable and wonderful people. The disrespect, patronizing, and superior attitudes of the privileged upper class are a huge part of the problem.
- rdl 13y agoGiven the low quality diet of many poor people, particularly the urban poor who live in "food deserts", nutritional supplements probably would be helpful. The information on those isn't really packaged for the low income consumer, or even the middle-income consumer who doesn't think about it. Prenatal vitamins are almost certainly the low-hanging fruit, though, although with 10-30 year lag.
- shadowcats 13y agoThere's a book by Dave Asprey (the Bulletproof Exec) about those kinds of interventions. Might be worth checking out. http://www.betterbabybook.com/ http://www.betterbabybook.com/