How "Big Ideas" Are Actually Hurting International Development

schnell writes: The New Republic is running a fascinating article that analyzes the changing state of foreign development. Tech entrepreneurs and celebrities are increasingly realizing the inefficiencies of the old charitable NGO-based model of foreign aid, and shifting their support to "disruptive" new ideas that have been demonstrated in small experiments to deliver disproportionately beneficial results. But multiple studies now show that "game changing" ideas that prove revolutionary in limited studies fail to prove effective at scale, and are limited by a simple and disappointing fact: no matter how revolutionary your idea is, whether it works or not is wholly dependent on 1.) the local culture and circumstances, and 2.) who is implementing the program.

Comments

Re:Were Hunter-gatherers doing better

[CrimsonAvenger]

than today?

No.

I kinda like the hunter-gatherer lifestyle myself. Agriculture is overrated.

Says a guy typing on a computer that couldn't exist along with a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

For the record, agriculture was the first development that freed up labor from the "hunter/gatherer" mode to allow enough surplus to develop things like, oh, computers (along with the rest of civilization).

And no I'm not being racist, a noteworthy scholar had commented once that a hunter-gatherer from 100,000 BC lived better than the average man in 19th century London.

And another one decribed that lifetyle as "nasty, brutish, and short".

Just curious, have you ever tried a "hunter/gatherer" lifestyle? Gone to a wilderness area, ditched the trappings of civilization (clothes, cellphone, computer, canteen, all that stuff), and tried living on what you could hunt down or gather (and no, I'm not referring to what you can gather at the local Mcdonald's...)...