
The Reductive Seduction of Other People’s Problems - kelukelugames
https://medium.com/the-development-set/the-reductive-seduction-of-other-people-s-problems-3c07b307732d#.33887c3dj
======
mrmcd
Reminds me of when I came across an article about this charity last year:
[https://cleantheworld.org/](https://cleantheworld.org/)

I'm sure they are good people with good intentions, but everything about it
just annoyed me to no end. Aside from the unintentionally condescending aspect
of literally giving the world's poor our half used personal cleaning products,
how could this possibly be efficient from either a monetary cost or energy use
point of view? Instead of just buying a huge shipping container of new soap
from a factory engineering by a huge soap company to be efficient as possible,
they are spending thousands of man-hours collecting half used soap bars and
re-manufacturing them in their own facility.

Then once they have the soap, there doesn't even appear to be an on the ground
logistical operation for distributing it to people efficiently. Instead
volunteers go on trips where they apparently just show up and hand out soap to
random villages and towns, resulting in tons of unfortunate website and
fundraising photo ops of smiling white volunteers handing bars of soap to poor
black and brown kids. Also, sometimes they wear super hero capes:
[https://cleantheworld.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/11/medium-...](https://cleantheworld.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/11/medium-033_dsc_0092-jpg)

So like the article said, this all seems simple, straightforward, and helpful
on paper. But issues like clean water, sewage treatment, personal hygiene and
public health are complex engineer and policy problems even in rich countries,
and doubly so in ones with very limited resources. Just air dropping a bunch
of recycled soap probably doesn't achieve much beyond making you feel good.

~~~
goodJobWalrus
> Instead of just buying a huge shipping container of new soap from a factory
> engineering by a huge soap company to be efficient as possible, they are
> spending thousands of man-hours collecting half used soap bars and re-
> manufacturing them in their own facility.

Or just giving money, so that people can buy what they need. But this thing
you linked seems especially bad, among the many awful "charities".

~~~
stinkytaco
>Or just giving money, so that people can buy what they need.

And potentially sink that money into large, corrupt systems (such as some 3rd
world governments) that at best use it inefficiently and at worst make the
problem worse...

Which is, I suppose, the point. There is no single solution, a combination of
outside groups and internal tools are needed to resolve systemic problems. The
can't be fixed exclusively from the outside.

~~~
goodJobWalrus
No, it is well known from the research that money _is_ the best solution, much
better than any form of in-kind gifts. I don't have time to educate you now,
but the research is widely available and easily googlable. I suggest you start
with GiveWell and JPAL. Also Dylan Matthews from Vox writes about before
mentioned orgs findings a lot.

~~~
stinkytaco
Well, the statement "give money so people can buy what they need" is very
different than what you are supporting in this comment. Giving money to
charities that have experience "on the ground" and at least some solutions is
a good thing. What you appeared to be advocating for (at least how I read it)
is dropping into a country and giving people money to buy cleaning supplies.
This is very different. Dumping money onto people is rarely a good solution.
Even targeted microlending has been met with some skepticism [1].

[1]: [http://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/measuring-
impact-...](http://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/measuring-impact-
microfinance-hyderabad-india)

~~~
goodJobWalrus
> What you appeared to be advocating for (at least how I read it) is dropping
> into a country and giving people money to buy cleaning supplies.

C'mon, you really thought I was 'advocating' for each of us to buy a plane
ticket and fly into some country, and hand people money to buy cleaning
supplies.

Microlending is not giving people cash. It's giving people loans. That
microlending has limited/negligible effect has also been well known for some
time (as you know as well since you linked one of the studies, but the same
organization has a new meta-study over multiple countries also worth looking
into). The same organization has much better study results with giving people
cash. Every study of cash grants (conditional or unconditional from
Oportunidades onwards) I have ever seen is net positive, and most very
positive.

------
cmrdporcupine
I also wonder how much of this type of thing is rooted in the protestant
evangelical cultural origins of much of our society, with its explicit
missionary focus, and paradigm that the material problems of others can be
solved with a message of intellectual/spiritual salvation.

I grew up in a small rural evangelical church in rural Canada. A parade of
missionaries were always coming through to talk about their good works in
exotic places around the world, and seeking donations and support in various
ways.

~~~
musha68k
In my mind what you say applies to catholicism just the same.

In "the west" it's been a well complementing way of lying to ourselves about
our colonial schemes for a long time.

There is still enough "systemic complexity" in terms of how Native Americans /
First Nations ("tar sands", etc.) get treated in North America _today_ :

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_doctrine)

------
Laaw
This article is pessimistic at best, and downright wrong at worst.

Why can't a 22 yr. old college graduate from Uganda be the one to finally
break the logjam in the US about gun control? Maybe different perspectives
will find solutions to problems we haven't come up with. The Ugandan man/woman
might get hired by one of those "nonprofit groups" and actually solve this
problem once and for all. Who knows?

Why can't a 22 yr. old college graduate from the US be the one to finally
figure out how to get cheap water to remote villages in Uganda? Why must it be
someone from Uganda? A then-40 something "college dropout" (we all know how
irrelevant that is) from the US (Bill Gates) went to Africa and started
working on the malaria problem. Do you think he did it all by himself? A bunch
of 22 yr. old college grads helped him, along with a lot of others.

Is this satire? It might be satire, because of how reductionist this article
actually is, by claiming the problem is "simply" intractable.

~~~
stinkytaco
Though I don't think it's well argued, I agree with the general principle:
problems are generally much more complex than they seem from the outside. It's
interesting that you mention gun control, because if I talk to my European
relatives their answer is "make them illegal" as if Americans are too stupid
to work this out on their own. The fact that you even say "solution" to
something not everyone agrees is even a problem is an example of how difficult
policy is to make in the US. I deal in my day job with a large homeless
population and I can tell you the vast majority of policy discussions I have
rotate around "what is the problem?" before we even begin to discuss
solutions. And that's not bringing in the people themselves, who may not see
the situation as a problem at all.

So I agree that the article is a bit provincial, but I also agree that a very
in depth understanding on issues and their complexity is often required, and
very difficult to achieve from the outside.

Incidentally, this is why, at least in my experience, federal programs are so
inefficient compared to state programs which are, in turn inefficient compared
to local ones. This isn't to say that they don't all have their place,
especially when it comes to enforcing consistent standards in a large
geographical region, but it's definitely the people closest to an issue that
have the biggest impact.

~~~
Laaw
I find this thought process (the one in the article) to not be very accepting
of "failure". So what if the Ugandan kid comes over and thinks he can change
the way the US thinks of guns? It's not like he's going to have an impact
unless he's right, so bring him and everyone else on!

I agree that problems are _way_ more complex, in general, then they tend to
first appear, but that naivety is sometimes good, because it's insulating
against the thinking that created the problem.

Maybe the Ugandan kid will learn a great deal about the US and its gun
situation, but still maintain that "outsider looking in" viewpoint, and that's
unique, in a good way.

~~~
stinkytaco
Sure, in the case of gun control he can likely do no harm, so more power to
him.

But this is not always the case. The list of problems caused by well meaning
outsiders trying to solve a problem is too long to list. Pouring money into
corrupt dictatorships who then use those funds to enrich themselves is a time
honored solution (see: IMF). Or even better, there's a bad guy in this
country? Let's give them some freedom, that should work out (see: Vietnam)! Or
maybe we ought to limit ourselves to humanitarian aid? If that's the case we
can set up camps that will then house and abet one side of a conflict (see:
Rwandan genocide).

There is a place for outside groups to try and effect change, but that needs
to be carefully balanced against understanding of complex problems. Lots of
money and resources is not always a good thing and can even cause harm when
not used in the right way.

~~~
Laaw
Sure, but that's true as with anything else in the world. I don't think "Don't
bother" is a message that this article should be conveying to the folks who
might be inclined to try.

If this article were more about what you're saying, and less negative, I might
not have made my comments.

------
rubidium
The best way to work on hard problems is to live there. For a long time. If
you're interested in solving the US prison problem, live in neighborhood where
many people are sent to prison. If you're interested in solving rural poverty,
live in a poor rural area.

Then the real issues will emerge.

~~~
logicallee
by that token uber's founders should have gone and worked as taxi drivers so
they would understand that world, and airbnb's founders should have opened a
hotel.

both of the mentioned companies are totally disrupting entire industries and
the world, solving people's problems in transportation and in hospitality in
ways the world never saw at scale before.

I would venture to say that your advice would result in these solutions not
coming into existence: with respect, I think your suggestion is not only not
necessary, but doesn't work and may prevent certain solutions from coming into
existence.

~~~
forgottenpass
_by that token uber 's founders should have gone and worked as taxi drivers so
they would understand that world_

The didn't change anything about taxis, they restricted the meter and
administrative side of a taxi company into an app. From the town that
restructures business processes into software.

~~~
logicallee
Your point doesn't change mine, the parent said you have to know about the
world you're disrupting, for example the taxi world (my example). But you
don't have to know anything about the taxi world to make a taxi app (as you
put it) and a ten billion dollar company around it. You don't need to "live
in" the industry or sector you're disrupting.

------
ceras
I'm disappointed that this article excluded big groups making measurable
improvements to "other people"'s lives, like The Gates Foundation and
charities recommended by GiveWell (which include GiveDirectly, Against Malaria
Foundation, and more).

In fact, the author went one step further and calls out the harm caused by
specific charitable missteps. This is unfair since missteps in charity can
occur all the same at home: you need to follow economic and social research to
avoid them, but once you do you'll be well set to be at worst neutral.

I get where the article is coming from--there are plenty of complex issues at
home that we're far more in-tune to understand and solve--but the content is
biased against supporting groups that we know how to help in huge ways, and
that Americans actually neglect in favor of close-to-home charities anyway
(donations don't tend to leave US borders).

~~~
TeMPOraL
I agree they could've mentioned them. The Gates Foundation, and GiveWell +
their recommended charities are basically an exception to the rule.

I agree with the gist of the article though - you can do very good by donating
to AMF or GiveDirectly, but if you want to _go_ to help somewhere, consider a
place where you'll have it easier to do something, as opposed to just looking
good on Instagram. Doubly so if you want to be a social entrepreneur. Unless
you take _extra_ care with your idea and work to get to know the population, a
much better way to help would be to start a _normal_ business, and funnel
excess profits to GiveWell's current favourites.

------
zipfle
A bit ot, but I've found that you can tell a good engineer by whether, when
you tell them about the design of something, their first response is a
question or a suggestion or criticism. With good engineers it's almost always
a question.

~~~
TeMPOraL
A question - like, "How the fuck is that supposed to work? Did you even do the
math?".

Bringing the topic back to the article - a lot of technological non-solutions
like those mentioned in the article are something that didn't make sense even
on paper. My question is, how on Earth are such things getting funded? Even in
humanitarian aid, is there no one with even a little background in
engineering, science and sociology to tell them that "no, this shit won't
work"?

Or is it just like the startup industry, where the actual utility of a product
is one of the least important things, because what matters (and gets funded)
is for it to a) be sexy - so it grows fast, and b) have a high lock-in factor,
so that customers don't escape, at least not without spreading the love some
more. If so, could we please get _someone else_ to fund aid?

Also, maybe it's time for a service that would evaluate various aid-related
products and business models and verify which ones make sense, and which
don't. Like GiveWell, but instead of focusing on best charities, it would
focus on calling out bullshit when they see it.

------
OrwellianChild
For those who find this interesting and want to spend a bit more time on
figuring out the most impactful ways to help in the developing world, I highly
recommend you check out Doing Good Better [1] by Will MacAskill.

He is part of the Effective Altruism movement and the book does a great job of
breaking down the relative impact of different charities, whether to “earn to
give” or participate directly through volunteerism, etc.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Doing-Good-Better-Effective-
Difference...](http://www.amazon.com/Doing-Good-Better-Effective-
Difference/dp/1592409105/)

------
benmarks
Wow. This resonates at several levels for me (middle aged, middle class white
male in the US). I wonder how much this is influenced by the comforts of
living in a relatively affluent and secure environment.

------
xixi77
Honestly, regardless of whether s/he stays home or goes somewhere, no one --
neither in Uganda nor in Indiana -- is going to consider a 22yo new employee
as a source of expertise. She might stick to it and in the process learn
something about what works, what doesn't, and what are the real issues, at
which point she will be in a position to make better decisions; or she might
go back home, having provided some much-needed, relatively cheap help to a
charity, in exchange for experience and an opportunity to see more of the
world. I don't see anyone losing here. And this experience is really a
prerequisite for the commitment and analysis that he suggests the perspective
worker does -- which again applies at home just as well.

Now, the question of more vs less efficient charities and non-profits is a
valid one; most of them are not headed by fresh college graduates though, so I
don't see how the article helps there.

I also suspect that overstating success while fundraising is not an experience
unique to charity workers abroad :)

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stillsut
But it's not "Other People's Problems". No idealistic 22 year old is trying to
solve the deflationary environment in Japan.

The problems that are [potentially] open to solution are where post-scarcity
economies don't exist. The problem is literally scarcity of resources; by
getting more stuff you raise the standard of living. To complicate this basic
proposition into a hand wringing essay on Medium is to itself go all non-
profit hipster, just one meta level up from the humanitarian tinderiste.

Here's a simple test to see if your able to focus on resource scarcity
problems: Do you think gun reform in the US is a good analogy to your
charity's mission?

------
digler999
Pretty insulting to call people's compassion a delusion. Fine. I'll never give
a cent, nor even two blinks, to any African charity. I'll save my money and
spend it on ME in my fat american consumerist culture, lest I become
"delusional".

~~~
maxxxxx
I think the article's point is to actually try to really understand the
problem and not just jump in with a quick solution.

