I think the point is that the "energy" isn't what was required to make the product, it was the energy expended to acquire the it. Collecting shells means time spent not collecting food. Wearing the shells signifies a kind of wealth where you have an abundance of time and thus an abundance of resources. Spending hard earned money on shitty earphones is a similar kind of wealth.
Following identification of the beneficiary households through a participatory process in the village, the six activities are:
1. Productive asset transfer: a one-time transfer of a productive asset
2. Consumption support: a regular transfer of food or cash for a few months to about a year (11)
3. Technical skills training on managing the particular productive assets
4. High-frequency home visits
5. Savings: access to a savings account and in some instances a deposit collection service and/or mandatory savings
6. Some health education, basic health services, and/or life-skills training
So let's translate what's happening. Starting with one, we have a tool or array of tools that can help someone be productive. Let's call it a paint brush and paint. At two we have something that provides essentials until the tool-person-couple is making enough money to support themselves - social security/low income supplementation. Three, they're taught how to use the asset effectively - basic job training. Four, make sure they're doing alright - a social worker shows up at their house. Five, a means of saving for a rainy day (which has meaning in the tradesperson world), when things go bad (not enough work for a limited period) or to increase capability or comfort down the track. Finally at six, teaching someone how to take care of themselves which means they can also take care of others.
It'd be interesting to see what would happen if we coupled #1 and #6 in countries high on the HDI with existing social welfare programs. Perhaps a computer with MS Office or cheap, fuel efficient car for #1 and cooking/cleaning/child care training for #6. Throwing money at the problem alone without making sure they have a productive capability is where things are going wrong. This could be something that scales nicely for any country.
Seeing what works and tweaking direction is part of any kind of effective program. Where things are going wrong is when third parties in the peanut gallery decide it's not fair for someone else to get anything and make up wild scare stories about "welfare queens" living high on the hog on foodstamps. It has never been a problem that these programs just have too much money and are throwing it away for no reason.
It's great to see acknowledgement that poverty is a complex problem that requires a complex (though not complicated - an important distinction) solution.
So often commenters will thoughtlessly say things like "Just give [poor people] a bunch of money!" or "Just send them to work camps!" or "Just make sure they don't waste their money on drugs!".
Just this or that, as if this simplistic idea is enough and the rest will sort itself out. Most people have some good ideas for solving poverty, but no one idea is sufficient on its own for such a diverse problem.
> So often commenters will thoughtlessly say things like "Just give [poor people] a bunch of money!"
The amount of money we spend on effective social welfare programs (e.g. food stamps) added to the money spent on ineffective social welfare programs (e.g. farm subsidies) is pretty enormous. If this money, including the administration costs, were instead distributed as "helicopter money" (e.g. alaska Permanent Fund), the economic benefits and social benefits might be signifincant improved.
The original article examines a "white-glove" approach to ending poverty, this requires significant resources to train and compensate the people working for the program. I would like to the testing of the null hypothosis, an amount of cash equal to the program cost given directly to a control group.
In the article, they say that the Ghana experiment includes a comparison to a pure cash transfer (although I'm not sure of the amount of the transfer), and "the results are forthcoming."
> These positive results leave us with a number of important questions. First, is it better to deliver physical assets and support, rather than pure cash transfers? There is evidence—from an RCT evaluation of the GiveDirectly program in Kenya, which transferred on average PPP US$720 to poor households, either monthly or in one lump sum—that pure cash transfers also have positive impacts on consumption, food security, asset holdings in the short run (including productive assets), and on psychological well-being (49). Similarly, de Mel et al. (50) find that a cash (or in-kind) transfer to existing self-employed individuals in Sri Lanka has a persistent positive effect on self-employment profits 4.5 to 5.5 years later. Because it is cheaper and easier to just deliver cash rather than physical assets and training, and the initial consumption increases from Kenya seem to be higher than what we observe after 2 and 3 years, it would be useful to have a direct comparison of the effects of these programs. The Ghana experimental design does include a comparison of the Graduation program to merely an asset transfer, and the results are forthcoming.
> ...
> Second, how important was the training and coaching as a component in the full intervention? This is a particularly important component to test, because its costs are on average twice that of the direct transfer costs, and because operating at scale requires quality hiring, training, and staff supervision. As discussed above, we do not have experimental variation with which to test this question. Evidence from elsewhere suggests that the household visits, which are a large expenditure, may not be a cost-effective component. In Blattman et al. (33), for example, variation between zero and five household visits did not generate, after 9 months, large differences in income outcomes (but did lead to higher investment). Furthermore, a meta-analysis of self-employment training programs has found mixed but rarely transformative impacts from training (51).
"teach a man to fish, and he'll be hungry for a while until he gets the hang of it. But do both, and you wind up with the best outcomes across the board."
A recent article on HN made me realise that the U.S. might be on the right track for fixing this. The article was called Game Theory's Cure For Corruption Makes Us All Cops [0]. The solution is in your pocket.
Imagine a city where police commit blatant traffic violations and never ticket one another. The authorities could decrease power inequalities by developing an online system in which all citizens are able to anonymously report dangerous drivers. Anyone who received too many independent reports would be investigated – police included. This sounds almost laughably simple, and yet the model indicates that it ought to do the trick. It is, after all, essentially the same system used by many online communities.
>It is, after all, essentially the same system used by many online communities.
Of course what actually happens if you report a moderator (or even just a friend of a moderator) is that the report will get thrown out on a technicality, and then you'll get banned over a minor infraction you may or may not have committed half a year ago.
PS: Big shout-out to all my buddies who are Not Here To Build An Encyclopedia.
The article mentions but does not address the point of altruism. Nobody wants to be a stool pigeon singing to the police on someone they know, even if it's anonymous. The result is that the set of enforced laws is a strict subset of the set of laws that the majority of people would find reasonable. That's why we create police forces in the first place- to be our better selves. The war on black America needs to end, but simply democratizing enforcement isn't the way to do it.
$249 is a lot of money - you're talking the cost of a subsidized high-end phone for something that has less functionality. My intuition tells me smart-watches wont sell in big BIG numbers unless:
- It's a phone, therefore it can be subsidized by the carriers
- It almost does everything a smartphone can, including having a lot of screen real-estate, but only costs ~$250 unsubsidized. Perhaps like a flexible iPod touch that wraps around your wrist
If someone can come up with a $200+ wrist-mounted device that sells in the millions but doesn't meet the same level of functionality as a smartphone then I'll gladly eat my Fitbit.
> It's a phone, therefore it can be subsidized by the carriers
Subsidies are non-existent in many european countries, and seem to be (at least somewhat) on the way out in the US. I don't think this is a requirement.
> It almost does everything a smartphone can, including having a lot of screen real-estate
... or, it does things a smartphone might but is not convenient at - e.g., an LED light is potentially much more useful on a wrist than on a phone. an NFC device is way more useful on your hand. The second factor (think two factor auth) on your wrist is also way better than reaching out for your mobile.
Charge a not-inconsequential fee for in-air calls so that people only use it if it's absolutely necessary. Perhaps make the charge go up exponentially with time so that calls remain brief.
Agreed, it would have been better to have the chief scientist discuss the core technologies, design and potential applications than watch an Elon Musk/Tony Stark ripoff drive his Tesla-S home to his sweet pad and knob around with a CAD model of a rocket via a seemingly non-intuitive interface.
If the device was only a few hundred dollars to purchase then the marketing video might have had some merit. But at 3k, you're selling to people who want to know how it really performs, and what technical trickery Mann might have introduced to make it an exciting human-machine interface.
let's not forget the biggest lobby group of all: the American citizenry
Does the citizenry have the same level of access to negotiating parts of the TPP as the lobby groups who paid admission? IIRC, the citizenry have been completely cut out of the process. They didn't even know the contents of the TPP. What r0h1n possibly implied is that the US Govt backs interests that are paid for.
Are you serious? You do realise that the only reason you've gotten to read this article was because someone leaked the negotiating draft, right?
While lobbying groups have had direct access to the negotiations, it took someone violating confidentiality for journalists to even be able to tell you what's being discussed.
If senator's phone lines were crammed-full of citizens demanding knowledge of the negotiations, then the citizens would get that knowledge. But they don't. No one cares or even knows about this.
When the executive negotiates without Congress's participation, citizens don't get a say in the process. We don't get to review the agreement, or pressure our representatives into changing or rejecting it. However, special industry groups do, including the RIAA, as advisors to USTR.
I'd say I'm a hipster, but I still like Google. I think you would have been down-voted for shitcanning hipsters (the implication is that rage-quitting Google's services it's fashionable and they're sheep) rather than you being correct that it's due to hipster mentality. In a way, shitcanning hipsters is fashionable, so we're all treading the same ground. Let's all have a beer together and chill out, just mind the beards.
No, that's just Tony Abbott. Expect more hilarity in the years (days?) to come. If you can't wait, just Google some of his past statements. If you like prejudice, two-dimensional thinking and more meaningless rhetoric than you can shake a stick at, then you're going to love Tony Abbott.
Let's see where he can take a country that ranked #2 on the Human Development Index and the highest of 34 countries on the OECD Better Life index. Should be interesting, considering he was voted in by the "Aussie battlers" who were enjoying a better quality of life than they've ever experienced in Australian history (notice Australia doesn't move on the HDI even when you account for inequality? The US sure does, from #3 to #16). Should be great when, under the Trans-Pacific Partnership he sells out to the US to trade a few horses [1] and our healthcare/pharmaceutical industry emulates the American system. Good times ahead.
[1] "there's always horse-trading in these negotiations, but in the end … everyone is better off" - Tony Abbot, November 14, 2013
If I think pessimistically, between the TPP, NBN and carbon "tax", this government could do 50+ years worth of damage to Australia's economy, not to mention damage to reputation.
Worth noting that the spying incident occurred in April 2009, which was under the leadership of Kevin Rudd... who would have been Prime Minister if Abbott hadn't won. Voting the other way may not have reduced the impact of this incident at all.
I think all we can do is stop looking to government to solve everything for us. Work on your own sphere of influence, what you can improve yourself. All sides of politics are failing Australia right now, maybe it's better to just bypass government wherever you can, do things yourself or work with the people who can do things directly.
There's any number of controversial bills that could trigger a Double Dissolution. The near doubling of the debt ceiling is one, though I expect Hockey to capitulate and take the 400 billion option.
Clive Palmer's senate team are the ones to watch as they will be key in blocking the passage of any supply bills.
Good question - looking at the OECD Better Life Index [1] for the Netherlands:
In general, 86% of people in the Netherlands say they have more positive experiences in an average day (feelings of rest, pride in accomplishment, enjoyment, etc) than negative ones (pain, worry, sadness, boredom, etc), more than the OECD average of 80%.
Perhaps it's a case of better access to health services, so more people in the Netherlands are able to be diagnosed and treated with depression whereas countries with poor health services and high levels of depression are ultimately under-reported?
I don't know; the contrast with Belgium, which despite cultural differences has health services with similar quality, and I imagine has similar awareness, is surprising. However, I have read anecdotal stories that mental health service here in the Netherlands is rather bad compared to other countries. Pressure to perform here may be on the high side, but I can't imagine it's much higher than in the US or Germany.
I think the point is that the "energy" isn't what was required to make the product, it was the energy expended to acquire the it. Collecting shells means time spent not collecting food. Wearing the shells signifies a kind of wealth where you have an abundance of time and thus an abundance of resources. Spending hard earned money on shitty earphones is a similar kind of wealth.