Category Archives: Poverty and Development

The Elegance of Efficiency. More Mediocrity NOW!

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I'm smashing up some concrete steps so I can repair them by pouring fresh concrete, and noting that the previous fellow (or hardy concrete pouring gal c1911-1950) did not have the benefit of Quickrete premixed bags to which I just add water, mix in wheelbarrow, and pour.  

They probably had limited concrete expertise as I'm finding big chunks of rock, no rebar material (metal to help strengthen the hardened concrete), and even a glass bottle buried in the steps.  Even I wouldn't toss in a bottle…but….

But the point is that that hardy concoction worked well for many, many decades.   It was a mediocre job but it was the RIGHT job.   Probably close to the same project lifespan as if they'd had the world's BEST concrete people working on the project – and even if the BEST concrete people's job would have lasted forever, it's likely somebody might have come in to remodel or otherwise destroy the "perfect" job.

The moral of the story is that in most cases the "perfect" job is NOT THE BEST THING TO DO!  In almost all endeavors it's better to have much higher levels of mediocre production than a modest level of high class production. 

"But would you want a doctor who is removing your spleen to believe in your principle of mediocrity?"  You ask, expecting me to say …. "that is an exception".

 It's not an exception and neither is national defense spending, which is absurdly expensive partly for political reasons but mostly because mediocrity is not valued highly enough in this venue either. 

I say we need MORE mediocrity in almost ALL things, especially those where risk aversion is most expensive such as national defense and offense, health care, and social security – our triple threat national budget breakers.  

Most of the world lives (and dies) with very modest levels of health care.  Here in the luxury world we can live a few years longer thanks to super advanced medical procedures, though most of  us squander those benefits with lifestyle decisions like smoking, overeating, and poor excersize habits.

The case for the massive interventions and high level expensive healthcare options we insist on in the first world is not only questionable from a practical standpoint due to very low ROI for high level interventions – it's questionable from a moral one – at least until the majority of people in the world have *basic* health care.

“With enough money … current technology could compute the billions of neurons in the brain”

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Thanks to Politech for pointing out this remarkable attempt to Blueprint the Human Brain using high speed computing.   I'll be very surprised if we can't duplicate human style thinking within a generation.  In fact I'm optimistic that machines will so far exceed our abilities that many complex problems will have solutions available to us as part of this process.  I'm not nearly as optimistic that we'll accept/implement these solutions.   Many pressing global problems are solvable NOW, but the forces of ignorance, selfishness, and politics prevent the implementation.

People and/or/for/non Profit?

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Time Magazine:

Last month Gates-funded scientists announced that they had created the technology to manufacture artemisinic acid synthetically. Within five years, the cost of a lifesaving supply is expected to drop from $2.40 to 25 cents. Lead researcher Jay Keasling says it would not have been possible without a $43 million Gates grant. "I had companies call me and say, 'This is great, but we can't give you any money. We can't make a profit on this,'" he says.

I tend to be in the crowd that says profit is a great motivator to get companies to do bigger and better things, in turn raising the standards for most people and societies that intersect with those businesses.    At first glance the quote above indicates that in this case profit was getting in the way of optimizing development of new drugs where it will do the most good – in the developing world fighting easy-to-cure diseases or conditions like dehydration that kill millions every year.   But why didn't the Govts of those nations pony up for this effort?    Since the pharmaceutical industry was NOT the beneficiary of this was it reasonable to expect them to bear the entire financial burden?

Since the $43 million from the Gates foundation basically started out as profits distributed from Microsoft to Bill Gates, who in turn funded this life saving effort, we need to be cautious about saying profits are the problem here since they were the solution here as well.   Thus one could argue, and I think I would, that without a capitalistic infrastructure to create this wealth it's unlikely we'd see this development at all.

But most important is this question – how do we find the MOST effective mechanisms to create innovations on this scale?   I think the new breed of corporate foundations are part of the answer because they apply many of the successful principles of business to development projects.  Combine this growing force with tax and other incentives for companies that use their brainpower and expertise innovating for the broad social good.

And as for us everyday folks?  What can we do?  We can stop looking so narrowly at our own little niches, and instead look to the low hanging fruit solutions such as increased support for global health care.  We can broaden our perspective to a global one and recognize that we have to make small sacrifices in an effort to save entire generations who are threatened with disease and starvation but for the lack of simple remedies.   Even the most selfish person should realize that the satisfaction that comes from helping those in need is generally a much more profound experience than almost any other.

Darfur and the media

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George Clooney deserves a lot of credit for bringing the media back on track about developments in what is arguably the world's most newsworthy and troubled place – Darfur, Sudan.    Unlike Rwanda the media has not ignored Darfur, but as with Rwanda the dangers, complexities, and lack of interest in USA have led to under-reporting which in turn sends politicians a signal that they don't have to act.

However it does not reflect well on the media or on us as media consumers that all it took was a bit of Clooney star power to snap this tragic story back to the top of the news where it should be.

Today's development is encouraging.  The Government of Sudan has accepted the peace agreement that could bring an end to horrible violence between Government sponsored militias and rebel forces.    As with many conflicts there are millions of regular people trapped in violence between bad Governments and groups of fighters with questionable agendas.

Darfur Conflict at Wikipedia

News about Darfur

Nuclear Power – More Needed ASAP

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Even Senator Kennedy of Mass was on the radio a few days ago saying how we needed to take a new look at expanding the USA's nuclear power framework. 

Wow – when Kennedy starts talking nuclear power I think it should be the long needed wakeup call for the "head in the sand" crowd that continues to insist the dangers outweigh the benefits.  

They don't.  It's not even close.  Europe's electricity is mostly from nuclear plants, and they – tightly packed into small areas –  have a LOT more to worry about in terms of a meltdown than we well-dispersed Americans.   

Of course there is risk as there is with all power technologies, but it's been exaggerated by irrationality and "fear of the unknown".    China's consumption is rising and exploding.   This demand is unlikely to be met with even the most innovative alternative energy programs.

Ironically I think some of the same folks who are lobbying for greenhouse gas reductions are lobbying against more nuclear power.    They are letting politics and (largely faulty) ideas about the economy of capitalism prejudice good science and analysis of risk and reward.

Liberal Agendas + Republican Politicians = innovation?

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It'll be very interesting to see if Gov Romney (Republican of Massachusetts) has come up with a solution to some of the biggest challenges in US health care. Clinton likes it and I think we'll see that the MA approach, which blends fiscal responsibility and quality care for all, may be just the shot in the arm our ailing health care system desparately needs.

Meanwhile Gov Schwartzenegger (Republican of Caleeeforneea) is coming up with some innovative ideas and a strong environmental agenda (his Humvee fetish excepted?).

And then there is presidential hopeful, in many ways the Republican "front runner", John McCain who is anything but a traditional conservative.

It would sure be nice to see a new breed of politician cut in the mold of progressive, penny pinching reformers. Americans are tired of the old, tired, wasteful, and ineffective ideas of both traditional liberals who are stuck in the anti-business big-government mode and traditional conservatives who are stuck fighting for military imperialism and cultural norms that are no longer relevant to the changing and growing American experience.

guns or butter?

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This clever site offers some insight into the cost of the Iraq War in dollar terms.   Human costs are of course ultimately more important than money, but most people simply refuse to recognize that when you are talking about things like war and hunger the *human costs* often boil down to dollar costs.

You can save  LOT of people in the developing world by allocating a relatively small number of dollars, especially if they are spent on famine or health items. More about that later as politically and emotionally motivated spending is a fascinating examination of human irrationality.

The human death toll in Iraq (or even the total global WAR death TOLL) simply pales in comparison to the global hunger OR health tolls.   It's a factor of many thousands of preventable hunger deaths for every ONE (arguably NON-preventable) Iraq war death. 

Unlike most fiscal conservatives I simply stagger from the failures of the neocons when it comes to intelligent budgeting and ROI.    McCain, very much to his credit, was talking about this years ago and is talking about it now.  

Web 2.0 as the “generous” internet

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Over at O'Reilly's blog there is an excellent discussion about the nature of biz in a Web 2.0 world (why does the term Web 2.0 BOTHER so many people?  Get over it!)

Doc Searls seems to suggest that old style biz is selfish where new style is generous, sharing resources in a virtually unrestricted way.   One poster suggests, I think wrongly, that generosity comes after affluence.   Based on my experiences I'm often surprised that when I share ideas openly and honestly I build trust with people and that trust leads to opportunity *for everybody in the equation*.   Sure there is a *chance* that somebody will nab your idea, implement it better than you can, and do great thing.   But that is:

1) OK because ideas, even great ideas, are not a key component of change.  The key is a fully implemented great idea and is a much taller order. 

2) unlikely, because they are probably working on a new angle or different idea or implementation anyway.  At MashupCamp I was pleased and surprised how few people were even interested in doing some of the things I thought would make "great mashups" in the travel space.  Why?  Because they were busy with THEIR vision of the next big thing.  Cool, and the best part is that the collective intelligence in such a group, or in the internt community at large, leads to a sort of *collective* expanion of horizons and creation *even better* stuff than without the open exchanges.    I'd note that MSN's traditional failure to understand and harness this power may be their biggest impediment to moving ahead successfully in the new Web world.

What one should seek in the new "generous" internet are relationships and mechanisms (e.g. blogs, websites, wikis, wifi, free computers, etc, etc) that foster bigger and better ideas which in turn will foster bigger and better improvements to the global web, still a very immature system.