

Show HN - We just built a site that saves lives - chaseadam17
http://watsi.org/
Watsi is the first global crowdfunding platform for medical care. We'd love your feedback on the site. We just launched it today!
======
brittohalloran
The one thing you need to focus on above all else is transparency and
preventing scams. Video of the actual person who needs the treatment would go
a long way, as would video updates along the way. I'm thinking an Android app
that the locals could use to document the process.

If you solve that properly, this will really take off and do a lot of good.

Also, you're going to eventually need to take a very small cut of the
donations to pay living expenses for your volunteers. 100% to the patient
sounds great, but for _my_ donation, I'd prefer to know that there is someone
dedicated full-time to the cause and overseeing the process, and receiving a
_reasonable_ salary for it. Of course, be 100% transparent about those
salaries as well.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
I don't think we need video of the process. If the people want to do it fine,
but making them put on a show of themselves I think is a bit much. As a
person, not only are you sick and need help from others but you need to be a
documentary just to prove to people you aren't a scam, little much -- it's one
thing to have a photo and story so it makes it real but as long as there is
some trusted third party verification, I think that's enough. There are
actually charities that have been doing this sort of thing longer than most of
us have been alive that have figured this out, good idea to learn from them.

~~~
chaseadam17
I really like that you brought up third-party verification. We think that's
the most efficient and responsible way to scale our due-diligence process.
Currently, in addition to being verified by us, all of our partners have been
verified by multiple third parties (Partners in Health, Givewell, CNN, ABC,
HBO, etc.) and they are all 501(c)(3) organizations which means that they are
also overseen by the US Gov.

I agree that learning from other charities is the best way to evolve. Kiva has
a pretty awesome due diligence process that we would like to pick and choose
elements from as we grow: <http://www.kiva.org/about/risk/kiva-role>

~~~
egiva
Like Kiva, it would be good to also list the "sponsor" (read: 501(c)(3) name)
on the patient's profile/donation page. If that sponsor name also included a
link to a basic sponsor profile page showing further sponsor information, that
would be a step in the transparency direction for me. I'm hesitant to donate
until I see which charity is sponsoring the person who needs treatment.

EDIT: I dug through the pages and found a link to a Google Spreadsheet doc
with basic information regarding the sponsor for each patient. This is one
area I would definitely improve into a sponsor link on each patient's
donations page. But all-in-all, great stuff!!

~~~
chaseadam17
Thanks! The Google Doc could definitely use some improvement, but for now it
seems to do the job.

Did you get a chance to click on the Medical Partner link on the patient
profiles? It opens a lightbox with some info on the partner.

But we'd love to have more robust pages with tons of awesome info (map,
financials, photos, data, etc.) for each Medical Partner. We just need to
raise the money to pay for the quality dev time we need!

------
mehulkar
I'm typically against organizations that need to live off donations. I think
it's an impractical and unsustainable model. Your cause is very close to my
heart and I would love to support it, but I'm a creature of convenience. I
could make one donation now, but would fail to continue making donations. The
two solutions I have seen that are successful at solving this problem are:

1) Automation. E.g. in the movie Office Space they take shavings off
transactions (amounting to a few cents or less at a time) and pool them
together. Another example: Auto-rounding up my grocery receipt, etc.

2) Recycling funds. I don't see how this would work in a donation based system
where cash-flow is one directional, but it works really well for something
like Kiva where funds are returned and the option to recycle is extremely
easy.

If any non-profit is to be sustainable, they must put in a HUGE amount of
effort to obtain large enough recurring funds or make it really easy to
provide funds. Since you are targeting individuals, it's going to be difficult
to do the former. The latter will take a little more thought.

All this said, I wish you the best of luck.

~~~
nollidge
They could offer a subscription model, and then make it a monthly "game" of
deciding where your money's going to go. Lots of people are willing to become
sustaining members of charities.

Or, I'm a member of a meta-charity called Foundation Beyond Belief, in which
my contribution is distributed to various nonreligious charities based on
priorities I set (e.g. 25% of funds to environmental causes, 50% human rights,
25% poverty, or whatever). So for Watsi, maybe I could predefine, say, types
of medical treatment, country/region, etc. and then the system heuristically
determines where to disburse.

And now that I think about it, Kiva optionally does something similar, so that
loan repayments don't just sit stagnant in people's accounts because they
haven't gotten around to manually distributing them.

~~~
nowarninglabel
We (Kiva) are also adding monthly donation subscriptions as well, or at least
I'm trying to this week for my innovation iteration project.

~~~
dmix
Is Kiva still growing? Haven't heard much about them recently.

~~~
giblfiz
Yep, still growing. In fact they have a pretty cool "free trial" program
running right now, where you can assign the funds of a single large lender.
(It's a little bit like matching, but you don't even need to put up anything
to be matched)

Check it out: <http://www.kiva.org/invitedby/giblfiz>

------
alexanderh
This is "Death panels" in a fancy suit. Bid on life saving medical treatment
from a thumbnail? By someones looks? and a possibly fabricated story?

So now we the internet get to decide who lives and dies? Who has a healthy
fulfilling life and who lives with disease and disability? Idk about this
idea. Its well intentioned, but oh so wrong all at the same time.

This type of charity should be first come first serve to be fair. Not some
bidding war over who's the most sickly (but still cute) looking child, or who
has the most compelling story. A human is a human.

The good intentions are there, but something about the way this website
presents itself is twisted. Why should any of these people receive
preferential funding over any other of them? Why should I get to choose? I'm
not an expert on their medical conditions, or who needs more help than others.
If this gets people to give money to a good cause, thats fine. But Idk. Still
seems odd.

Sorry if this is the kind of "negativity" hacker news is trying to avoid these
days, but this is genuinely what I feel.

~~~
chaseadam17
We are bummed out that the site makes you feel this way, but we genuinely
appreciate you voicing your opinion. We're here to listen to the public, and
if people disagree with what we are doing, we will shut down immediately. That
said, I'd like to point out a few things.

1) This is not a bidding war. We won't remove a profile until it is fully
funded. This is why we only post a few profiles at a time (and not hundreds) -
to ensure they are all funded in a reasonable amount of time. If the patient
needs treatment before the profile is funded, we will front the cost of care.

2) Humanity has always decided who lives and who dies, and it sucks. It makes
me angry, but it's a reality. The only difference is now, because of how
connected the world is becoming, this reality is a little harder for those of
us that are the most fortunate, to ignore.

3) We aren't first come first serve. That wouldn't make sense, because our
Doctors identify patients, they don't identify us (that would lead to fraud).
Instead, we are lowest-cost, highest-impact first. Every profile is reviewed
by at least two independent doctors (usually more) to determine which cases
are the best ones to fund (and I assure you that "cuteness" is not a criteria
these Doctors use to make a decision). See our FAQ for more info on treatment
guidelines.

We feel terrible that our site presents itself in a way that you think is
twisted, and we would love to make whatever changes we can to improve it. Feel
free to reach out to me directly at chase (at) watsi (dot) org with any other
thoughts. We've spent a lot of time thinking about this (and even consulted
with a medical ethicist), but we always have a lot more to learn.

But perhaps the most important thing - the internet funded 11 medical
treatments today for people that wouldn't have had access to them otherwise.
You guys literally changed (and saved) 11 lives. I don't know how that can be
a bad thing.

~~~
rkwz
Alexanderh's main concern is he doesn't want to choose who gets treatment:

 _> This type of charity should be first come first serve to be fair. Not some
bidding war over who's the most sickly (but still cute) looking child, or who
has the most compelling story. A human is a human. The good intentions are
there, but something about the way this website presents itself is twisted.
Why should any of these people receive preferential funding over any other of
them? Why should I get to choose? I'm not an expert on their medical
conditions, or who needs more help than others. If this gets people to give
money to a good cause, thats fine. But Idk. Still seems odd._

Can't you also provide a way to pay to a common pool? People who are
uncomfortable with choosing can contribute to this pool. You can take money
from that pool and forward that to patients who _urgently_ want money for
treatment? And people who contributed can see where their money got used (if
they want).

~~~
chaseadam17
Definitely! That's a great suggestion rkwz. There is a new crowdfunding site
called Wishbone that actually has a "profile" that serves as a general fund.
Would something like that be a good solution? <http://wishbone.org/students>

~~~
rkwz
Yes, that's exactly what I had in mind!

------
Mizza
Just got an email - "Thanks to you, Sushil's medical treatment has been
funded!"

Now that's CRM! I can't think of a single possible better way of making a
customer happy. I'm telling everybody I know about this.

The payment process was seamless, the design is lovely and the cause, well, of
course.

You guys are amazing.

~~~
chaseadam17
Haha. Thank you~!

------
salman89
Awesome site, congrats on making the world a better place.

I would suggest that you integrate directly with reputable organizations - it
will place an abstraction between you and potential backlash for scamming.
Also allows you to provide aid where you don't have direct reach already.

Another idea would be to integrate with hospitals/care givers directly, so you
know the money is being spent properly. Hospitals/care givers will be less
likely to scam you, as they can benefit in the long term and do have something
to lose if caught scamming.

~~~
salman89
Also, the feedback cycle you have in place is also very exciting. I don't want
to downplay what you are doing by likening it to gamification, but positive
feedback is key for repeat donations.

From a consumer standpoint, my main qualms when it comes to donations are (1)
Control over where my money is spent, and (2) Knowing that my money spent is
being put to good use. You guys have the opportunity to knock both those
problems out.

~~~
chaseadam17
Agreed! The update loop is going to be really big for us. We are also
considering some other features that would add to the gamification of the site
(karma points for donating/sharing, becoming an ambassador for a particular
profile, etc.) but those are still all in the brainstorming phase.

Like I said above, transparency is the single most important thing to us, and
we spent more than a year establishing our partnerships. If you have any
specific questions about transparency and accountability, I am more than happy
to field them here. We also have a ton of info on our FAQ:
<http://watsi.org/faq>

------
bgraves
One of the most powerful "About" pages I've seen:

 _> >The instant she opened the folder everything came together. There was a
full-sized photograph paper clipped to the inside left cover and a document
stapled to the right. The photograph showed a young boy with an incision
across the width of his iodine-stained chest. The document to the right
outlined the patient’s medical condition. The young boy was her son._

~~~
ricardobeat
Not as powerful if you have seen that same scene performed by a scammer before
:(

Thinking of it, it would be just as amazing (and ironic) if the woman's story
was a scam too. Something about fate/karma or nature balancing itself.

------
buster
May i suggest a "I just funded <person>'s medical treatment with XYZ$ on
<http://watsi.org> Facebook-share option?

Or "<Person> just got new medical treatment from watsi.org", with a name and
picture of that person..

Something like that to encourage people more to do the same as their friends
do :)

~~~
chaseadam17
We have a share option, we just don't have the pre-populated copy. We will
work on that!

~~~
buster
Yes, i was just thinking.. what instantly got me was the personal
link/story/background/picture to the people you fund on the website. That
get's lost with the normal sharing, doesn't it? :)

------
pepve
I'm a bit uncomfortable with this. Who picks the people that get our help? Is
it better to pick a few and fix their lives, or should we aim to slightly
improve the lives of many?

~~~
dinkumthinkum
Well, I can sort of understand what you're saying. But, it's like letting the
perfect be the enemy of the good, which actually is a common theme in many of
the criticisms. There are people with real problems that need help now or they
could perish; I don't see how providing ways to help them could ever be a bad
thing. The other alternative is to fund nebulous water projects that might get
off the ground in 1-5 years or something like that -- no that there's anything
wrong with that but I don't think it is a mutually exclusive thing.

------
adriand
This is excellent. The funding process is fast and seamless. It took me
literally less than 30 seconds to fund a treatment. Kudos for an amazing idea
and excellent execution.

~~~
chaseadam17
Adrian, you rock. Thank you so much! If you are ever in San Francisco PM me
and I'd love to buy you a beer (or a tea or a juice or whatever)!

~~~
adriand
I really appreciate the offer, but just to be clear, I didn't fund the whole
treatment! (I'm a beer drinker, but I live near Toronto and won't be near San
Francisco any time soon - but if plans change, will do.)

I know you've had a ton of ideas thrown at you in this thread, but I've been
thinking about your site since donating and I think what would be really
amazing, if you can accomplish it somehow, is a way to encourage people to
donate regularly.

There are probably many ways you could do this, but here's one: allow people
to donate a sum of money, up front, that is not assigned to a particular
person who needs treatment. Periodically prompt this person to fund treatments
using some portion of this sum. Alternatively, support subscription billing
where each time the money is withdrawn, the person is notified and asked to
assign the money that was withdrawn to a particular person who needs it.

I really feel that a recurring process of some kind could both vastly increase
the amount of money you raise, and also benefit donors by giving them a
periodic uplift in their mood and level of happiness. It could become, if this
word is not too misplaced, addictive.

~~~
chaseadam17
Those are awesome ideas! We had never thought of loading up on Watsi Credit
(with a large, one-time donation) and I think that's a super cool option to
offer donors. No doubt we are going to see a major decrease in traffic after
this HN post, and working on ways to retain donors is going to be our next big
challenge. Thanks again for the feedback and support, we all really appreciate
it! (And if you do come to SF, the beer offer still stands :)

------
iandanforth
On the 'location' section I'd love to have a link that says 'Learn more about
health care in this country.' Or something like that.

I have a fairly good handle on how these situations could occur in the US but
in Canada they would be unthinkable! Why, in this specific country, is this
person not being taken care of?

As many other have said, best of luck. This is a truly Good endeavor.

~~~
chaseadam17
Great point. We'd love to have a lightbox that describes the country with a
map, some info, and all that fun stuff. A quick note: there are approximately
200 countries in the world, and only 40 have a formal healthcare system.
Pretty crazy...

------
aurelijus
Awesome guys, really nice and fast funding process (though if payment fails
you are stuck with plain red message in blank page, you could improve on that
one). The advice I can give you - steal best parts from Kiva, they have great
and successful site. One of the things I missed was "tip" donation along with
the treatment donation.

~~~
chaseadam17
We love Kiva, and we hope to implement a "tip" option very soon. We just need
to head out into the real world and raise some cash from grants,
philanthropists, whatever, so we can pay to build all the features we want!

------
jc00ke
In case anyone couldn't get to the site for a bit, our hosting provider Heroku
was seeing some issues with apex/naked domains:
<https://status.heroku.com/incidents/421> Hopefully it's resolved now. I
cranked up another dyno just in case.

Thanks for all the love!

~~~
chaseadam17
You ROCK Jesse!

------
fmavituna
Great idea, seems like well executed as well.

It might worth trying to get in touch with give well
(<http://www.givewell.org/>) to get a review, so transparency aspect of it
will be much better documented.

~~~
chaseadam17
Yes! We plan to. They recently rated our Medical Partner, Nyaya Health, as
being in the top 1% of all non-profits for accountability and transparency.
<http://blog.nyayahealth.org/2011/12/10/nyayahealth1/>

------
brador
Great idea!

Questions: how do you select who gets on the site? What protections are in
place to prevent scammers listing fake illnesses? What proof is required
before funding is handed over? Is funding handed to patient or doctor or
someone else??

~~~
chaseadam17
All great questions brador.

1) We work very closely with our Medical Partners to identify the lowest-cost,
highest-impact profiles possible. Their Doctors identify the patients based on
our criteria, and then we verify and accept the profiles as we receive them.
2) We only deal with our Medical Partners. Funds are sent directly to the
partner to pay for the cost of treatment, and NEVER sent to the patient. The
patients don't even know we exist until the Doctor tells them that they have
been selected as a candidate for Watsi funding. 3) We require a full written
profile from our Medical Partner's doctor, a photo, and a signed release
waiver. After the treatment is provided our Medical Partners send us proof of
the cost of treatment for our records. 4) We never deal with patients, only
with our Medical Partners. As you can tell, a lot of trust is placed on our
partners, and that is why we only partner with the best. You can read about
the partners on our site, but currently they are:

a) Dr. Rick Hodes (CNN Hero Finalist) <http://rickhodes.org/> b) Nyaya Health
/ Partners in Health (Givewell rated them as top 1% of all non-profits)
<http://www.nyayahealth.org/> c) Wuqu' Kawoq (featured on ABC)
<http://www.wuqukawoq.org/>

Beyond just partnering with the best, we have personal relationships with each
one of our MP's. Feel free to learn more in our FAQ: <http://watsi.org/faq>
and on our transparency document:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah3wJ9CRQzyHdDZ...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah3wJ9CRQzyHdDZSaEF1X1JsRm1yZ251d0RQZ0VmRGc&output=html)

~~~
justindocanto
This breakdown needs to advertised more on the site. i browsed around a little
and didn't know this is how it works. youre going to have a challenge of
people trusting you... and this breakdown really helps get past that.

------
marquis
I love this, I use Kiva and the rewards are wonderful as is their way of
keeping my money in circulation. But I'm not a U.S. citizen so I only donate a
small amount because it's not tax-deductable in my country. You know what I
would love? Some one to build a global non-profit money distribution center,
so I can donate a lot more in my country and the money can go where I choose.
Right now I keep my donations limited in price unless it's a local charity to
my tax country and I'd like to see that change.

------
__alexs
> 100% of your donation directly funds treatment!

ITYM 98.6% - 96.6% - £0.20 GBP of your donation directly funds treatment!

Or is there some awesome charitable PayPal fee structure that you are using?

~~~
rkwz
I think PayPal does take a cut. Look at their transparency doc:
[https://docs.google.com/a/cordys.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah...](https://docs.google.com/a/cordys.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah3wJ9CRQzyHdDZSaEF1X1JsRm1yZ251d0RQZ0VmRGc&output=html)

~~~
chaseadam17
Yes. PayPal takes 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. This usually amounts to about
5% because of the low average donation amount. We hope to lower this. If
anyone knows someone at PayPal, hook it up!

------
limeade
I think that it may be the case by law that the donor cannot select the
individual recipient of a donation if the organization wants to retain tax
exemption.

------
FrackieTV
Beautiful. This site works on the same principle as ChildFund (Christian
Children's Fund), but actually delivers the money where it implies it does.
When faced with actual real people that are in need, it is difficult not to
donate, especially that the donation process is so smooth and seamless.

Not only made me reach for my wallet, it made me register on HH and comment,
and that's much harder.

Bravo! Keep on making this world a better place for all.

~~~
chaseadam17
Thank you so much!

------
whit537
I'd love to find a way for Gittip (<http://gittip.com/about>) to help you fund
Watsi.org. The "public benefit corporation" sounds like what I was aiming at
with open companies:

[http://blog.gittip.com/post/26350459746/the-first-open-
compa...](http://blog.gittip.com/post/26350459746/the-first-open-company)

------
asdfprou
Great work! Landing looks clean and within 15 seconds I know exactly what the
core message and values are. I appreciate the work you guys have done to make
it as transparent as possible as I know that is a major point of contention
when it comes to crowdfunding.

Small nit: Is it just me or is the "email" button on the profile page actually
popping up the share modal on hover?

~~~
finalcut
not just you - it definitely pops up the share modal.

~~~
chaseadam17
Yes, it is. We need to change this. We just added those social features last
night, and we still have some work to do.

------
ryanmolden
Definitely get the 501c3 info up as well. Some employers will match employee
charitable donations. Mine does and I love to use it to "stick it to the man".
I would be interested in giving and registering you as a charity eligible for
donation matching. Donations can be money, time, software, etc... It can be a
great way to "leverage up" your giving.

------
mtrimpe
I once developed a similar application for a large charity which included the
ability to place a widget to donate to the 'current charity' on your site/blog
and had an associated leader board of who collected the most donations.

That project was never launched due to the cost of integrating with their ERP,
but the idea might be worth considering for Watsi as well.

------
amalakar
This is brilliant idea and one that is perfectly executed. I would love to
contribute whichever way I can and the way it brings down the barrier to
contribute is remarkable. I would love to contribute in a personalized way
than to donate to an organization where I don't have any clue what happened to
the money. Wish you all the success!

~~~
chaseadam17
Thank you!

------
bmajz
I imagine a lot of people will be reading the FAQ page, so you might want to
correct this typo:

In order to be eligible for Watsi funding, patients must be inflicted with an
illness that meets the treatment criteria and subsequently be unable to afford
the required medical treatment as a result of poverty.

You surely mean "afflicted" rather than "inflicted"

~~~
chaseadam17
Good catch. We are going to change that ASAP. Thank you!

------
gregalbritton
A very successful launch with an incredible objective (one profile already
funded today). This is exciting stuff!

------
missing_cipher
Does adding a "monthly subscription" type option make sense? It does add
another level of complexity(user accounts and whatnot), but I think people
would like the convenience of automatically donating.

Maybe having the option to split their donation as they see fit(1/3, half and
half, 100% to just one, etc).

Good luck with the site. :)

~~~
chaseadam17
We can't wait to enable recurring donations. It's at the top of our list!

------
revorad
Wow, thanks for making this!

I just shared this on Facebook but the FB auto summary thing didn't pull up an
image as it usually does for links. You should look into fixing that because
having a powerful image (as you do on the homepage) will definitely increase
visibility and click-through rates.

------
sergiotapia
This made me really misty eyed. It's a really good idea that will change
peoples lives. I'm going to share this to everyone I know.

Please share this on Reddit as well and make it viral.

Nothing brings me down like seeing children with medical conditions and
parents that can't afford treatment. It's so sad.

~~~
chaseadam17
I suck at Reddit and I apparently shared in the wrong subreddit and got
downvoted. We would love help from any Reddit experts out there. Feel free to
post!

------
vmialik
Glad to see you guys take part in GSVC. Really miss this competition, and the
social enterprise community at UC Berkeley. Being a non-profit I bet it was
pretty tough to survive with competitors who focus on for profit or non/for
profit hybrids that scale.

------
bezaorj
brilliant idea, specially with the update on the outcome of the treatment.
hope this succeeds

~~~
chaseadam17
Thank you bezaorj! We've all donated our time to build this, and its been a
year in the making. We're excited to see how it goes!

~~~
bezaorj
I think this has a lot of potential, you just need a good catalyst to
accelerate this beginning process would be a retweet by a person with lots of
followers... an indie musician that I know got retweeted by howard stern (5+
million followers) and his song (that was really good) went viral. The idea of
the website is really good as well, people just need to discover your website.
I would look for any musician, actor that has 500k+ followers and try to get a
retweet from him and then move to bigger fishes...

~~~
chaseadam17
Totally! We need to get a few big names to help jump start our growth. We're
going to start reaching out to people today. We'd love to fund all these
treatments our first day live!

------
vegasje
It would be even better if you integrated some way to fund sustainable
projects related to the health and wellbeing of these people.

Saving someone's life is an amazing thing. Helping a community develop
programs to saves lives into the future is on another level.

~~~
chaseadam17
Excellent point. I am so glad you brought this up. One thing we want to do is
partner with microfinance organizations and enroll all of our patients in
financial literacy courses, as well as have them open up savings accounts, so
they can better prepare for medical emergencies.

------
autophil
One suggestion: please get a copywriter to write your headlines and subject
headings. The current "we just built a site that saves lives" is epically bad.
You are leaving money on the table when you make ambiguous, poorly written
copy.

~~~
autophil
That said, it's a beautiful website and a beautiful idea. Sincerely.

------
buster
Wow, that's awesome.

I felt bad having to decide between them and funded all 3 that still need
funding :)

p.s.: unfortunately i still have a "bad feeling" because the internet is full
of scams, i guess that will be your hardest fight, convincing people you are
not a scam

~~~
chaseadam17
Hey Buster - Gaining trust is our single greatest challenge, as well as our
top priority. We really appreciate your support, and I'd love to hop on the
phone with you and answer any/all questions you have. Feel free to email me at
Chase (at) watsi (dot) org and I will send you my number. Or, if you are in
San Francisco, I'd be happy to meet in person!

Thanks for your support!

------
TWAndrews
This is really cool. I would love an option for a repeating monthly donation.
Maybe send me an email with candidates either based on random draw, treatments
which just need a bit more to get over the top, or something similar.

------
zbruhnke
This is awesome, So glad people are out there doing good deeds like this. I
immediately thought to myself, wow this is really cool.

If you guys do nothing else in your careers you'll still be able to say you've
made a difference. That is truly awesome.

Congrats!

~~~
chaseadam17
Thank you!

------
TomGullen
Absolutely amazing, love the idea, love the way you implemented it.

I'll definitely be signing up and making some donations.

My main concern though is as this scales (which I'm sure it will because it's
awesome) you will run into the scammers.

~~~
chaseadam17
Scale will be tough, but our goal is to partner with a few large organizations
(Doctors Without Borders for example) that can provide a lot of patients. That
will help alleviate a lot of risk as opposed to working with 1,000 smaller
clinics.

------
dan-g
Any way you could add a brief synopsis of your organization to your "site
unavailable" page? I (and I'm sure others) would be much more likely to keep
the tab open/check back soon if that were the case.

~~~
chaseadam17
We got rid of that page ;)

------
tsahyt
All in all this is a really great idea! Keep going and keep improving!

~~~
chaseadam17
Gracias!

------
beggi
Hi, I just tried to donate and logged in through Paypal but I get "Something
went wrong": <http://cl.ly/image/0Z0H0n3i1f0q>

~~~
chaseadam17
Thanks for supporting us, and I apologize about that. We are going to look
into it ASAP.

------
needcaffeine
This is brilliant! What a great cause. I have a few questions for you on the
technical side:

\- What did you code this in?

\- How many developers did you have?

\- How long did it take you?

\- What kinds of problems did you encounter on the way?

Congrats on the launch.

~~~
chaseadam17
Thanks for the kind words.

\- Ruby/Rails/HTML5 \- 1 dev + some freelance assistance on the front-end \-
Took a while since we are all working part-time as volunteers. About a year
total. Probably a few months of solid dev time. Setting up operations took a
lot of time. \- Hardest part is working as volunteers. Everything takes 5x
longer when people aren't being paid.

Thank you!

------
jblock
I'm in love with the idea, but the frequency that payments get bounced via
Kickstarter bothers me when the funds are applied directly do medical
procedures like this.

------
runako
Awesome site! One point of feedback: the PayPal workflow is so bad it almost
made me stop my donation. It would be much easier with a standard CC payment
option.

Good luck!

~~~
chaseadam17
We hope to switch away from PayPal asap. Trust us, that's the first update
we're going to make. Braintree is looking pretty good right about now.

~~~
brittohalloran
Look at Stripe also -- very easy API to work with. I hear good things.

~~~
runako
Having had a little experience with both, I'd concur that Stripe is probably
going to be easier to integrate. (Although my Braintree experience is more
limited and dates back 2 years or so.)

------
mborries
Amazing non-profit and website! Truly for a great cause.

~~~
chaseadam17
Thank you!

------
jcoder
Great work. I would suggest tweaking the <title> text when there are zero or
one fundings going on to encourage me to donate still.

------
aidos
And...looks like everything's fully funded now.

Between this and the Tesla museum crowdfunding has given me optimism about the
world we live in these days.

~~~
chaseadam17
This has been a little crazy. Way more traffic than we anticipated!

We are working on loading our reserve profiles now!

~~~
radio4fan
RSS feed of profiles should be high on your priority list. Easy to implement,
and bound to be very effective.

------
imjared
Looks good. Minor minor minor nit-pick: Twitter logo needs to be updated :)

<https://twitter.com/logo>

~~~
chaseadam17
Ah! You are totally right. We will get on that. Thank you!

------
alexshye
Nice! Totally awesome that you might literally save lives. I agree with the
others that the transparency thing is the most important.

------
avinash88
You guys are fantastic! Thank you for finding a way to save those that are
sometimes overlooked!

~~~
chaseadam17
Thank you!

------
bmajz
All treatments are fully funded. Wow, that's an awesome job folks (both Watsi
and Hacker News)

------
dragthor
<http://hopemob.org/> clone?

------
adnanofsteel
This is absolutely great. Spread the love on twitter.

------
manuscreationis
Bravo

You are doing a great thing, and I applaud you

~~~
chaseadam17
Thanks, we really appreciate the love!

------
swalkergibson
Does it get any better than this?

~~~
chaseadam17
:)

------
nickfrost
So awesome! :)

~~~
chaseadam17
Thanks Nick!

------
thuffy
Does it bother you that you are subsidizing defective genetics and thus making
humanity less fit and thus increasing the average level of suffering? You
might think you are being nice by decreasing the suffering of an individual,
but you are also dooming consciousness to suffer being born into a defective
host that otherwise would not have happened if not for your subsidization of
defective genetics.

I am curious as to what the higher than average enlightened readership of HN
thinks on this?

Of course it is very taboo to say what I did as the medical industrial complex
is on the side of causing this problem as they are then guaranteed not just
one more customer, but a new lineage of customers.

~~~
mjohn
I have never commented before, but I had to reply to this. I assume you are
being serious, but hope you just have a twisted sense of humor, or perhaps you
have just read too much Schopenhauer recently.

I believe that just because someone is born with a disadvantage or have health
issues does not mean they are defective. Everyone has as much a right to life
as anyone else.

In support of your beliefs, I would be interested to know your responses to
the following questions:

At what point does a person's suffering cause a sufficient decline in the
global "average level of suffering" to imply they should not be allowed to
reproduce or continue living? Should all sick people be left to die?

Should we serve the depressed arsenic instead of offering counselling and
medication?

Should we just execute people of higher than average IQ, since ignorance is
bliss?

We all have defects, should we all die to spare the planet?

How do you calculate average suffering? What is the unit of measure?

Does the momentary joy of seeing the birth of a child outweigh years of
chronic pain?

~~~
thuffy
No, I am not joking at all. This is a serious mater. Unless you want humanity
to eventually degenerate to beyond even the point where everyone is dependent
on multiple surgeries simply to live past just being born, then this is
something that needs to be though about, discussed, and rectified - no mater
how difficult a subject.

Some of your questions appear to me to be purposely absurd in order to make
the topic seem absurd. To answer your first question though, which is a
reasonable one: It may not be a simple answer of some point is too defective,
but the answer there must obviously be something other than the current idea
that no level of defectiveness is too defective to be aided to breed more
unfortunate burdened souls. My personal feeling is that the line has to be
somewhere around being too defective to live without medical intervention
beyond childhood or perhaps better is the point before one is otherwise able
to have children and raise and support them to the age where they are self
supportive.

Your pointing out that the issue is a complex one with no easy answer does not
justify the continued destructive course that humanity is treading down.

Regardless of how hard an issue it is to solve, it must be recognized that the
current setup of unlimited medical intervention to keep people alive and
breeding, no mater how defective, in fact results in a degenerating gene pool,
a downward spiral of suffering. This is the true reason why medicare costs
keep increasing to the point now where it is the majority expenditure of any
western nation (even in America, it is greater there than how much is spent on
the military). Again you can see why the medical industrial complex is set on
continuing this trend. If not for the limits of economics, this would
eventually consume all resources of the world just to keep itself alive with
medicine.

In some countries this has led to the talk of not providing medical
intervention for some groups of people who need it to survive. Unfortunately
the talk is always around not giving it to the old people in order to save
money. While they may seem less important to save, it is actually the wrong
group to withhold intervention from, as saving old people is not destructive
to the gene pool. They need to start talking about withholding it from the
opposite end of the age spectrum.

~~~
chris_wot
The issue is only complex because you believe that some people have inferior
DNA than other people, and you posit that there exists some people who are
"defective", and who should not pass on their genes through reproduction.

Your reasoning is absurd, and has been demonstrated as such by the questions
asked of you. Such questioning is part of a valid form of argument known as
_reductio ad absurdum_. It has the unfortunate (some would argue fortunate!)
side effect of making the one putting forwarded the invalid argument look
ridiculous.

Of course, sometimes reducing to the absurd occurs in reality. It wasn't that
long ago that sterilisation of those deemed "defective" was being done in
first world countries such as the U.S. Your ideas are a branch of eugenics,
which has been widely discredited for some time now.

So before you tell the readership of HN that the idea should be taken
seriously, I regret to inform you that not only have people done so, but the
majority categorically reject it for extremely good reasons.

~~~
thuffy
If a program's code (DNA) has bugs that cause the system to fail when running
without expensive workarounds (medical intervention), would that not be called
bugs in the code? Also called defects? Thus it is defective code that cannot
run without expensive workarounds.

Your understanding of what is eugenics is flawed. What I am talking about is
not eugenics. Eugenics is artificial selection for attempted good. What is
happening is artificial selection that results in degeneration, which is bad.
That is called dysgenics. I am against that, and thus you can only call my
argument anti-dysgenic.

Anyways, it is your comment that is absurd, as demonstrated by the majority of
it being an insult. Try to remain civil - it better facilitates enlightenment
of all parties to the discussion.

~~~
chris_wot
You are seeing insults where there are none.

I don't believe that comparing humanity with computer code is particularly
wise. However, to use your analogy - if there is a bug in the code you fix it,
and you correct any problems that the bug causes. That would be the ideal of
modern science, but we aren't there yet.

To be able to implement your ideas of genetic purity (which is basically your
argument!) we would need to either a. Stop those with genetic "defects" from
breeding, or b. withdraw treatment from them and hope they die before they
have offspring, or c. end the life of those people to take away strain from
the medical system and prevent them from reproducing. Regardless, to know this
there would need to be mandatory mass screening of the population to make
these determinations. Go work out the moral objections and monetary costs that
would result from THAT, if you will!

Furthermore, your original argument is that those with congenital defects
cause excessive strain on health systems. Yet where do you get your figures
from? I would be very interested.

Yet there is more that you haven't considered. Using your own argument - which
I find to be so terribly wrong - you haven't considered that not assisting
those with a genetic defect may remove positive genetic attributes from the
gene pool. Now you have the problem of judging whether one aspect of their
genetics should cause them to propagate their genes. But if you do let that
propagate, then you are exhibiting anti-dysgenics, which you abhore.

What makes your argument particularly specious is that you never consider the
intrinsic worth of the person receiving the treatment. On top of this, you
think that it is moral to refuse treatment for those suffering from illnesses
because they are defective. And yet they are not defective, they have a
particular defect that is causing them medical problems.

In short, I consider your ideas cruel, inequitable, poorly reasoned and ill-
considered. That's not an insult: it's a reasoned opinion.

~~~
thuffy
It is actually quite wise to consider DNA like any other programming language.
It is a much more complicated language, being a spatial programming language,
but it is a programming language none the less. Such a perspective provides
great insight.

Anyways, you are correct that we are not there yet with actually fixing the
bugs in code. We are not even remotely close to that point unfortunately.

The ideas of not subsidizing excessive defectiveness are a far cry from
anything to do with genetic purity. It seems that you are in clear bias with a
motive to shut down any discussion on the topic by poisoning the well of these
truths by injecting labels such as 'genetic purity' and 'eugenics'. Any
enlightened reader can see that your only arguments are appeals to emotion and
guilt by association. A fallacious association as I have proved.

My original argument is simply that subsidizing excessive defectiveness is
increasing the amount of suffering in the world, not helping to reduce it as
one might intuitively believe. You are correct however that it also causes an
excessive burden. An ever increasing burden. Medicare costs are spiraling out
of control in all nations with socialized medicine, that includes America
(Medicare and Medicaid, de facto free emergency care, and so on). In fact, the
American federal budget allocates more to socialized medicine than to the
military. A military known for its expansive cost. It will only become worse
with the new full blown explicit socialized medicare system recently affirmed
by the supreme court. This dysgenic path humanity is taking is the primary
reason for the ever increasing medicare costs of countries with socialist
medicare. This is off-topic from my original point, however, I share it with
you as you asked and said you were very interested.

Your next paragraph is flawed in saying that somehow being anti-dysgenic is
being dysgenic. I am advocating the lack of action. You are saying that
requires selection? There is no selection I am calling for. I am advocating to
let nature do the selection. I am calling for less artificial intervention.
Not more.

Your next point is also defective in saying that someone who has a defect is
not defective. I refer you to my programming analogy from my previous comment.
A system with such grave defects that it cannot operate without expensive
workarounds is certainly worthy of being called defective.

To your conclusion: you may feel such emotions regarding the harsh realities
of the problem at hand, but emotions are not logic, and do not a reasoned
opinion make.

~~~
chris_wot
Oh dear. A rebuttal looks to be in order:

 _It is actually quite wise to consider DNA like any other programming
language. It is a much more complicated language, being a spatial programming
language, but it is a programming language none the less. Such a perspective
provides great insight._

I said, actually, "I don't believe that comparing humanity with computer code
is particularly wise". However, you haven't proven anything in your sentence -
you have made an assertion, but you haven't explained why this is a great
insight.

 _Anyways, you are correct that we are not there yet with actually fixing the
bugs in code. We are not even remotely close to that point unfortunately._

Indeed - to compare DNA to computer code, with computer code we can make
changes to fix the problem. With DNA, we cannot do that as of yet.

 _The ideas of not subsidizing excessive defectiveness are a far cry from
anything to do with genetic purity. It seems that you are in clear bias with a
motive to shut down any discussion on the topic by poisoning the well of these
truths by injecting labels such as 'genetic purity' and 'eugenics'. Any
enlightened reader can see that your only arguments are appeals to emotion and
guilt by association. A fallacious association as I have proved._

The ideas of not subsidizing "excessive defectiveness" are not a far cry at
all. By discriminating against those who have congenital defects when it comes
to providing health care, you are essentially labelling them as not fit to be
supported by society. Furthermore, you have not explained what is exactly
meant by "excessive defectiveness".

For someone who doesn't like the term "genetic purity", you have a way of
bandying about terms such as "excessive defectiveness" with abandon. This
makes your protestations that I use appeals to emotion all the more
interesting, given that you are currently doing this via ad hominem attacks
(e.g. accusing me of poisoning the well of discourse and that my arguments are
guilt by association, etc.).

 _My original argument is simply that subsidizing excessive defectiveness is
increasing the amount of suffering in the world, not helping to reduce it as
one might intuitively believe. You are correct however that it also causes an
excessive burden. An ever increasing burden. Medicare costs are spiraling out
of control in all nations with socialized medicine, that includes America
(Medicare and Medicaid, de facto free emergency care, and so on). In fact, the
American federal budget allocates more to socialized medicine than to the
military. A military known for its expansive cost. It will only become worse
with the new full blown explicit socialized medicare system recently affirmed
by the supreme court. This dysgenic path humanity is taking is the primary
reason for the ever increasing medicare costs of countries with socialist
medicare. This is off-topic from my original point, however, I share it with
you as you asked and said you were very interested._

Thank you for the attempt at information, but I haven't seen a single figure
other than an assertion that medicine costs more than military spending in the
U.S. Also, to put it finely, the United States does not equate to the entire
world. You are, in fact, wrong when you say that medical costs are spiralling
out of control in _all_ nations with socialized medicine (what a wonderfully
emotive term, by the way!). I live in Australia, which has a fantastic health
system funded by the Federal and State Governments, with a parallel private
health care system. Free health care for most medical conditions is given to
all. Medical costs over here do indeed increase over time, but they have not
been "spiralling out of control". In fact, costs have been increasing not
because of congenital defects, but rather because of lifestyle issues such as
overeating and lack of exercise.

Quoting only the American Federal budget when making an assertion that "all
nations with socialized medicine" is not only showing a very distorted world
view, but one that is very easy to disprove - which I did above!

I love the term "socialist medicare", incidentally. Well played - nothing
quite like using a vague and emotive term that certain others find concerning.

 _Your next paragraph is flawed in saying that somehow being anti-dysgenic is
being dysgenic. I am advocating the lack of action. You are saying that
requires selection? There is no selection I am calling for. I am advocating to
let nature do the selection. I am calling for less artificial intervention.
Not more._

In that case, I apologize as I misunderstood your original assertion which is
even more absurd than that which I thought you were saying! Next time you are
sick, or if your eyesight starts failing due to a family traight, or if you
have a congenital heart condition I strongly advise you to follow through your
convictions and don't attempt to go to hospital. In fact, this must be a
substantial cost saving as you don't have to fork out money for health
insurance. I suppose those are the upsides to doing nothing.

 _Your next point is also defective in saying that someone who has a defect is
not defective. I refer you to my programming analogy from my previous comment.
A system with such grave defects that it cannot operate without expensive
workarounds is certainly worthy of being called defective._

This point is defective in saying that someone with genetic strengths is not
strong. I am, of course, being facetious. I would love to be a fly on the wall
if you were to discuss your opinions with Steven Hawking. Though I'm not sure
he would give you the time of day...

 _To your conclusion: you may feel such emotions regarding the harsh realities
of the problem at hand, but emotions are not logic, and do not a reasoned
opinion make._

"excessive defectiveness", "you are in clear bias with a motive to shut down
any discussion on the topic by poisoning the well of these truths", "an
enlightened reader", "socialized medicine", "Medicare costs are spiraling out
of control".

You are so sure of your argument that you have ignored all the opposing views
and questions (I notice that you have not answered many of them) and do not
even recognize your own emotive language!

~~~
thuffy
You are welcome for the information regarding the United States. There is
plenty more if you look yourself, but it does seem that you are not yet
interested in considering other sides of the argument. Of course I never said
America is the whole world, I don't even live there. It was simply the example
I gave.

America is a great example, as many people believe that their deficit problems
are solely the cost of their wars. To open minded people it is usually an eye
opener to see that they spend more on medicine. Australia has the same problem
as every other western nation: <http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-
detail/?id=10737420435>. It is hard to argue that Australia's decades of
health care spending growing at almost twice the rate of GDP growth to be
anything other than spiraling out of control. You ultimately admit the trend I
speak of, but then without evidence try to blame it on incidentals such as
unhealthy eating and exercise.

It certainly is a far cry. Think about what you are claiming: That my ideas
are of genetic purity. That is an extreme that is a far cry from simply not
wanting excessive defectiveness - being the opposite extreme. By claiming my
belief that one extreme is bad is somehow advocating for the other extreme is
looking at it in black and white, completely ignoring the fact that there is a
gradient of options and I am talking about some middle ground being better
than either of the extremes.

As for appeals to emotion and the like, I see: You use them your whole
argument up until now, but after I point out your tactic of relying on them,
you try to claim it is instead I who have been relying on them, simply for
calling a spade a spade. Socialized medicare is simply socialized medicare.
There is perhaps no simpler term for it. Medical welfare? The government
forcing you to divert your resources from your own offspring to subsidize
others defective genetics at the barrel of a gun? What term would you prefer I
use? If you really feel that ashamed of the fact your country has socialized
medicare, that still does not make my assertion of you having it an intended
insult or any kind of appeal to any emotion of such disgust.

I certainly have not used ad hominem attacks simply by pointing out your
continued obvious attempts to inject labels such as 'genetic purity' and
'eugenics' into the discussion. Again, simply calling a spade a spade. You are
doing better now, but it is undeniable that the meat of your earlier responses
was to simply dismiss my argument because to you it sounds like 'eugenics' or
'ideas of genetic purity'.

I wish my stance were saving me money as you assume it does. But unfortunately
my government takes my money at gun point to fund subsidized medicare. There
are some defects that if I came down with I do truly feel in my heart that I
would resist the natural urge of self preservation and accept my fate for the
good of humanity. For example, cancer. So yes, I truly wish I could opt out of
the injustice of socialized medicare. I also inherited the traits of being
smart enough and having enough fortitude to save my money and thus I could
afford to fix myself after almost anything like broken limbs and other
accidents that are not my fault. However, if I tried to opt out of the
dysgenic system, men with guns would come and take my wealth by force, and
throw me in jail. Meanwhile, my government just announced they wouldn't fund
the best (not even expensive) treatment for prostate cancer, whilst they
continue to fund sex changes. Ah, the freedom of choice that socialism gives
you.

Your using the Stephen Hawking argument is nothing more than an anecdote. It
is the common argument: what if the person you save invented the cure for
cancer. I always laughed at that one hearing it over my life. It essentially
argues that the expense of spending unlimited resources to keep every possible
soul alive is worth the off chance that one of the people you save will be
worth it. Too bad it dooms future generations to more dependence and suffering
than that one person is ever going to make up for.

That is the essential fact here. The current course of humanity is to do what
we feel is good to do in this area, but it is entirely short sighted. In the
medium and long term we are increasing the amount of inherent suffering,
increasing the inherent dependence of man on medical intervention and thus the
state and industry. We are becoming sicker, and less free. That cute little
kid you saved by donating money to their medical procedure might make you feel
good about yourself since you have lessened their immediate suffering,
however, their lesser suffering does not offset the essentially unlimited
suffering of the lineage of defectives that you have just created with your
selfish desire to feel better about yourself. I do not intend that as an
insult, as it is simply a vulnerability in human nature that the average
person has which has been exploited to justify the dysgenic medical system by
the medical industrial complex and those who have in their interest increasing
the dependence of the people on the state. It is a human nature, and a system,
that must be examined - instead of dismissed with emotive labels such as
'ideas of genetic purity'.

