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Comment by lloydde | Hacker News Reader

"USAFacts was inspired by a conversation Steve Ballmer had with his wife. She wanted him to get more involved in philanthropic work. He thought it made sense to first find out what government does with the money it raises."

Had anyone made the comic strip version?

Wife: it breaks my heart to hear about the many suffering Americans. We can't take our money with us when we die, let's help our fellow Americans?

Steve: that's what the government is for.

Wife: I thought you might say that so I ran the numbers.

Steve: hmm, I'm not agreeing with your interpretation. I think we're going to have to do additional modeling.

USAfacts was born.

Months later...

Wife: are we ready to really help the poor?

Steve: this data is fascinating!

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I get the joke, but in all seriousness we probably need both types of people in the world. Some who take immediate action and others who prepare the way for more informed action.

I've seen some well-intentioned foundations spin around in circles, burning through a lot of donor money as they adopt and discard naive models about the nature of teen pregnancy, over-fishing, recidivism, educational success and failure, etc., etc.

Yes. We do need both types of people in the world.

I have a ton of respect for Steve Ballmer. My intent is good fun.

The humor for me hinges on "[Mr Ballmer] thought it made sense to first ... government" implying he sees it as a necessary sequence for him to dig into the data and he wasn't satisfied with the data he had access to. It also humors me that it reads like he doesn't consider the initiative itself being philanthropic. Yes, I do enjoy that it also allows for words to be put in Mr Ballmer's mouth for some darker humor: Mr Ballmer believes it's the role of the government. And Mr Ballmer couldn't find any of the numerous paths paved with objective analysis that he could use to get more involved in philanthropic work.

Of course, none of these interpretations match reality. I do like the intro coming across, at least partially, as normal geek thinking. I like that the About hasn't yet been PR distilled.

It's entirely likely that USAFacts does more for the underprivileged than Steve Ballmer Philanthropist ever could

Joking aside, it's eminently normal, if you're setting out to help people, to ask first where your help might do the most good. And when attempting to answer that question, if you find that nobody has bothered to collect the data, it's normal to proceed to collect the data. The effort itself is philanthropy, and it forms a foundation for future philanthropy.

It's all in the marketing.

Frame it as "data-driven decision making" and we'll get 100s of think pieces from various tech luminaries and wannabe luminaries.

Wife: These kids in rural Alabama could really use some food

Steve: Did you know school teachers are one of the largest groups of federal employees?

There are stories of doctors prescribing food to malnourished children and Medicaid refusing to pay, saying "Food is not medicine."

That makes sense to me since there are other programs which exist specifically to provide food assistance.

Although that point of view appears to miss the point. It appears the inability to pay for food with the health budget would hide / obfuscate the data that might have otherwise shown a direct correlation between malnutrition and poor health.

Sure you could read a study to get the same information, but unless your own data screams to you what the problem is it's not always easy to convince folks you should be doing anything about it.

I don't blame the bureaucrat who denied this claim. While food is clearly required for your health, and there is a strong connection between healthy diet and general and specific health issues, including death, pharmacies don't dispense food. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that insurance would approve supplements, not food, for malnutrition since that is something traditionally associated with health care.

What would you say if the family was providing unhealthy food, and the doctor prescribed a year of vegetables from Medicaid? I agree, that would be a great program, but federal agencies can only do what they're specifically allowed to by law. I would imagine there is much data gathered on what conditions Medicare patients are suffering from, and i presume if malnutrition is common, that would be addressed in agency reports and in congress.

I'm not sure what data you're envisioning 'screaming' to responsible parties or what method they would be encountering this data by.

Depending on the age of the child, those programs may only provide food for a certain amount of time, over the lifetime of the adult applying for the benefits.

Or, if the adult has any property that increases their net worth over a certain amount, then they can't get the benefit at all.

That's true. But the appropriate programs should be created, budgeted, or extended to provide food appropriately, not to somehow mix basic daily nutrition with doctors, insurance and pharmacies.

If they found a medical relationship is more effective, great. But the answer is to budget and create appropriate rules for that first.

I find PerotCharts more useful (with commentary), than this particular site. Too bad it has not been updated in a while.

http://perotcharts.website/

Yes, its that Perot: Ross Perot.

For those prone to confirmation bias, commentary and interpretation of data can be counterproductive. The fact that Ballmer is purposefully not setting an agenda makes this more powerful. Otherwise people tend to accumulate their own set of convenient facts.

> The fact that Ballmer is purposefully not setting an agenda makes this more powerful.

Yes, I agree.

> Otherwise people tend to accumulate their own set of convenient facts.

I think people will do this anyway...are we not human?

>> Otherwise people tend to accumulate their own set of convenient facts.

>I think people will do this anyway...are we not human?

Be careful with this sentiment. It is defeatist cynicism masquerading as self-deprecation. As such it undermines the truly well-meaning among us, conflating their intellectual humility with another's willful ignorance.

> I think people will do this anyway

Of course they will - just look at another set of comments on this page. Two people coming to diametrically opposed conclusions based on the same data w/r/t top marginal tax rates and US government revenue.

> I think people will do this anyway...are we not human?

Yes, but that's not relevant. The point is that there's nothing to be gained by encouraging that behavior.

I also like this joke in a way except it implies Steve didn't also increase his funding and participation in his wife's philanthropic work, which he has said in multiple interviews where he's shared this anecdote that he has.

But not said on http://usafacts.org/about

That's not far off from the origin story described in yesterday's NYT article.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/business/dealbook/steve-b...

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