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>The best thing about my time at Significance Labs was meeting incredible people like Jason and Angel. The most fun I had last summer was sitting in a room chat
by soneca 12y ago
>The best thing about my time at Significance Labs was meeting incredible people like Jason and Angel. The most fun I had last summer was sitting in a room chatting to housecleaners.
This ending shows how hard it is to escape the "feeling/looking good rather than doing good" trap.
This motivation about meeting and relating to people and realities outside of your usual social network are legitimate, but dangerous. If you don't evolve pass through this phase, you will end up getting used to this alien world, and it will become routine. And you will see the problematic and boring issues about chatting with housecleaners and also the flaws of Jason and Angel.
This, in itself, is enlightning. You stop considering yourself disconnected from your users or the people you are trying to help. The time has come when you might actually create some impact. But you must find your motivating above this fugacious desire to be contrarian among your peers.
If your motivation ends when you feel you already have enough stories to share with your friends and that the "i am good people" stamp is already attached to your personality in your own and other's view; then you quit. And make no impact.
Muhammad Yunus took decades to create impact.
I don't want to doubt the author's motivation, or predict that she won't cause any impact. Just that defining meeting interesting people (who are just boring people you don't know enough, like the rest of us) as the best thing on a "what i learned" post is definitely a red flag.
- tootie 12y agoI won't say you're wrong, but this an awfully cynical top comment.
- soneca 12y agoThat sure wasn't my intention. The thing is that there is an illusion about starting an organization with the goal of creating a positive social impact (non-profit or for-profit). It is a similar illusion as those that exist when creating a startup. What I tried here is just to give some shock of reality, let people be aware of the traps that are these illusions. As there are lots of advice that people should read when starting a startup, I tried to create one that people should read when starting a social impact project. Actually, I think it is the exactly same advice: doing it for the right reasons is as important for the final outcome as doing the right things. My intention was to give my opinion about a particular reason that is common, legitimate as a first step, but for sure is not the right reason to start a project aiming at relevant social impact. EDIT: to balance my comments with a positive review, these quotes are absolutely genius: >"It also became clear that inequality isn’t purely about income. It’s about information and status and opportunity." >"Living on a low income translates into other forms of scarcity: of power, information, respect, opportunity, time, health, security, and even of sleep. Our job was to build a piece of technology which could increase our users’ stock of at least one of those resources." It is a great insight - brilliantly transformed in knowledge by Amartya Sen if you want to learn more about it. One can tell that she (and likely the people at this Significane Labs) knows what she is doing. She is doing all the right things - maybe that is why I just nitpicked the point about doing it for the right reasons.
- nine_k 12y agoI don't see a problem with that. Note that the comment is both correct and polite. It just replaces some warm and fuzzy emotions with sober reasoning. The truth is sometimes bitter.
- Tyr42 12y agoI feel like they are at least aware of the problem: Do you want to do good, or do you want to feel good? It’s much easier to feel good by giving away meals to starving kids in Sudan, but you are not going to solve any systemic problem in the world by doing that. This is business, and business is messy and you have to make hard decisions.
- paulornothing 12y agoI think a great deal of people are only concerned with doing something that feels good not something that can have a lasting change or impact (because that is usually not immediate). This is why I have a problem with all the Toys for Tots and Angel Tree Programs, they serve no other purpose other than appeasing people who give because they are sad that there are kids out there not getting Christmas presents. Well ok, let's give them gifts. Well we made them happy, however their family is still struggling to make ends meet. Why not nix the whole program and invest in programs that help those families so that they can improve their lives. I do have to agree, doing good requires making unpopular decisions (unpopular to those who want to just feel good).