
Why we need data on what the poorest think - jmadsen
http://aeon.co/magazine/society/why-we-need-data-on-what-the-poorest-think/
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mgalka
Reminds me of the playpump disaster, everyone assuming they know whats best
for the poor. [http://unitedexplanations.org/english/2012/03/22/the-
story-o...](http://unitedexplanations.org/english/2012/03/22/the-story-of-
playpumps-merry-go-rounds-water-and-failures-in-development-aid/)

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ZeroGravitas
Am I suffering from 20:20 hindsight, or was playpump an obviously bad idea
from the very start?

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cynicalkane
From the perspective of a certain kind of person, helping the poor has a
strong appeal in that it's a way to feel like a good person. To put in a big
effort that is appealing--children playing, women saved from work, water for
free--is a victory, even if it was obviously doomed to failure from the start,
because you have demonstrated to others, and to yourself, that you are a Good
Person who cares about these things. Once you realize charity is more about
this instinct than producing maximal good, the irrational charitable actions
of others begin to seem more rational.

Not every person is this way but it's easy to see how these bad ideas can take
root once they have a critical mass of appeal and influence in an in-group.
Many do-gooders--many people in general--have really never got the tools to
think about physical or economic considerations, and can't distinguish between
a correct naysayer and an incorrect one. So, under the influence of a highly
appealing idea, even things that should seem obvious (like the laws of
physical mechanics, or local socioeconomic considerations) are hard to
distinguish as correct or incorrect. Critically, they are an obstacle to being
a Good Person, and therefore probably wrong.

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jawbone3
I like how you invent a need to pose as a good person that is rationally
maximised to explain irrational behaviour, rather than accept that not all
human behaviour is rational.

Of course you can always reframe irrationality into a hidden-variable theory,
I just don't think it's very helpful.

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oneJob
Because, we can't trust poor people to make good decisions. Otherwise, we'd
empower them rather than clean up after them. Given that we have enough money
to not be living hand to mouth, we make better decisions.

That was sarcasm.

Best piece I've come across on this topic, with applications even past
development aid into social aid and other issues, is:
[https://www.ted.com/talks/ernesto_sirolli_want_to_help_someo...](https://www.ted.com/talks/ernesto_sirolli_want_to_help_someone_shut_up_and_listen?language=en)

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JesperRavn
Do medical providers focus primarily on how people feel they should be
treated, or clinical outcomes? Does the FDA ask people whether the would like
to live longer before crafting its dietary advice? Do macroeconomists ask how
important jobs are to people before trying to prevent unemployment?

A focus on measurable improvements (which the article itself states claims is
a problem) is not strong evidence of supercilious, out of touch bureaucracy.
It is simply a way of doing things that often makes a lot of sense.

Also anyone familiar with the World Bank/IMF will know that there are quotas
for jobs based on nationality, which favor donor countries, and also
developing countries. So it's not like these organizations are devoid of input
from developing nations, although the workers from these countries may not
have been among the poorest.

Finally the one concrete example of why surveys could be useful was a bit odd.
It went: _Consider the recent vogue for ‘empowerment’ programmes. On the face
of it, they make sense only if people don’t already feel like the captains of
their own destinies._ The only empowerment programs I could find online were
for _women 's_ empowerment. I think that very few people would agree with the
logic that if 80% of people feel in control of their destinies, then we don't
need women's empowerment programs. No amount of waving magic intersectionality
wands is going to make this reasoning make sense.

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ilaksh
Here's the problem: elitism which includes rampant racism and classism.

When the vast majority of most countries is relatively poor compared to some
group at the top or some group of countries at the top, this is a fundamental
structural problem.

Deep down, racism and Social Darwinism are extremely popular. These false
beliefs are used to rationalize structural inequality and prevent any
fundamental systems changes from being made.

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HiYaBarbie
Have we got enough data on whether Aid works, though?

Untold billions of dollars have been poured into the general direction of poor
people in Africa, but they're still very much poor over there.

Do our welfare systems lift people out of poverty? For how many decades have
we been handing out money to 'the needy'? Has the percentage of poor people in
our welfare states decreased as a result?

But let's send a few trillion more to Africa! This time it will be different!

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onion2k
_Untold billions of dollars have been poured into the general direction of
poor people in Africa, but they 're still very much poor over there._

Much of the aid given to African nations over the past 30 years has been to
keep them alive rather than resolve any problems in the long term. You can't
raise people out of chronic poverty if they're dead.

And, as it is, that aid has had a _massive_ impact. In the 1980s Ethopia was
ravished by droughts, famine, and a terrible civil war. Aid kept the people
from dying, and 25 years on the country is now a democratic republic with one
of the largest economies in East Africa that's still growing at around 7%. The
country is far from 'perfect' but it's in a _hell_ of a lot better shape today
than it ever has been.

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mgalka
There has actually been a lot of money wasted because people rushed in without
making sure they were helping. Some people argue we have actually made things
worse by imposing our solutions.
[http://nytimes.com/2014/04/20/books/review/the-tyranny-of-
ex...](http://nytimes.com/2014/04/20/books/review/the-tyranny-of-experts-by-
william-easterly.html?referrer=)

