If you wait for the chronically overeducated to study the problem and come up with a plan, all you will get is the continued suffering of those in need currently and a top down implementation so full of unforeseen consequences as to be worse then useless... people aren't rats and low income neighborhoods aren't laboratories where we can sacrifice generations of "mice" looking for answers.
For those of you who don't understand what Bob's group is doing just be thankful for its existence and send in a donation. For anyone confused enough to say they are "disappointed" in Bob... well, I got nothing to cut through that thick-headedness...
Carry on Bob... unlike most in today's world, you are making a difference and not just running your mouth...
Very astute comment, but I would caveat slightly. Data collection from the top can be very useful, provided it's not construed to polish a turd or hide embarrassment under a carpet, but the second step should be to encourage a ground-up entrepreneurial approach problem-solving.
The West spent $2.4 trillion on foreign aid, much of it wasted. A prime example comes from the use of mosquito nets- where the top down approach resulted in people either throwing them away, using them for fishing or even as materials for wedding dresses. What did work was making them a prestige retail item for wealthier people, and giving nurses in clinics a small commission for successfully promoting them to their patients. The market in action.
As your example points out, there is an infinite chasm between lofty universal theory and the combinatorially explosive complexity of human society and individual choices.
I am indeed indebted to the social scientists and thinkers in their ivory towers... and perhaps deal too harshly with their presumably good intentions... but we all know what the "road to hell" is paved with.
These issues are complex and as in all things hubris is the enemy...
"Amen Bob... Don't let the bastards get you down"
If you wait for the chronically overeducated to study the problem and come up with a plan, all you will get is the continued suffering of those in need currently and a top down implementation so full of unforeseen consequences as to be worse then useless... people aren't rats and low income neighborhoods aren't laboratories where we can sacrifice generations of "mice" looking for answers.
For those of you who don't understand what Bob's group is doing just be thankful for its existence and send in a donation. For anyone confused enough to say they are "disappointed" in Bob... well, I got nothing to cut through that thick-headedness...
Carry on Bob... unlike most in today's world, you are making a difference and not just running your mouth...
You have my respect...
Very astute comment, but I would caveat slightly. Data collection from the top can be very useful, provided it's not construed to polish a turd or hide embarrassment under a carpet, but the second step should be to encourage a ground-up entrepreneurial approach problem-solving.
The West spent $2.4 trillion on foreign aid, much of it wasted. A prime example comes from the use of mosquito nets- where the top down approach resulted in people either throwing them away, using them for fishing or even as materials for wedding dresses. What did work was making them a prestige retail item for wealthier people, and giving nurses in clinics a small commission for successfully promoting them to their patients. The market in action.
As your example points out, there is an infinite chasm between lofty universal theory and the combinatorially explosive complexity of human society and individual choices.
I am indeed indebted to the social scientists and thinkers in their ivory towers... and perhaps deal too harshly with their presumably good intentions... but we all know what the "road to hell" is paved with.
These issues are complex and as in all things hubris is the enemy...