Comment by gamechangr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gamechangr | Hacker News Reader

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It’s okay for it Not to add up. It’s a unique experience that is hard to translate for people that have not lived a day in the life.

For example, there is a 30,000 member town that has high end hotels that do not have functional generators. You could Pay $600 a night and not have air conditioning.

The alternative is being proactive about a backup system.

Fiji has successfully done it. Their infrastructure is great. In Fiji, they have a similar 3rd world infrastructure for electricity. When it goes out, they have fully functional backup generators and a strong team of support. While blocks are down and you wouldn’t even know it as a consumer.

As Americans and mostly Aussie expats, the electrical challenge translated to not being able to shop for more than 1-3 days of food, but that was easy to adjust to once it was understood.

But for example, the hospitals when they didn’t know how to treat something— they would just amputate. I’m guess that would be a surprise to most people.

They had ni blood bank. They have one now, but I would get calls to come down to the hospital and “save a life” by giving blood right this minute.

When forklifts at the port would break, they would just take the week off and ship new ones in.

Which made the port constantly run behind. We had our own backup forklifts that we would keep on hand to make sure that our international contracts were honored.

It’s a beautiful place and the people are wonderful, but there is many challenges when planning a life there that many would take for granted

I used to flat with a guy from Vanuatu. As a child he stepped on some coral. It got badly infected and he went to the local clinic. They discovered they had run out of any pain killers so they went and got some big guys to hold him down. They then cut his foot open and cleaned the infection out. While he was being held down and screaming in pain. He eventually passed out.

The same guy went home for the holidays. He was to take a boat to get to his parents island. The boat was 3 days late. No communication so he basically camped waiting for the boat. He told me this was not unusual, you just had to wait. They did not tell you it was delayed or when it would come.

He also told me that on his parents Island they spoke two totally different native languages. I asked how that was possible. How did they trade? He told me, "oh no if you crossed the river they would kill you". I asked how long ago that was and he told me it was during his fathers childhood.

I have no idea why this got downloaded - but can only agree. Life in a major city at the forefront of technological change will rarely prepare someone for the realities of life outside that bubble. Numbers do have a quality of their own, and the combination of being behind the tech curve (which requires generational effort and education in itself to overcome) and not having a lot of people to do this with is a huge challenge for small countries and regions.

> Life in a major city at the forefront of technological change will rarely prepare someone for the realities of life outside that bubble.

Those who live such isolated lives should get out of the city from time to time, maybe just leave their safe neighborhoods. Grew up in NYC and was in cub/boy scouts and we did camping trips. My father preferred a rural and rugged lifestyle so we frequently vacationed in up state NY and Vermont where a lot of the activities were outdoors such as hikes, nature walks, tours, etc.

IDK, having visited Fiji, Samoa, Cook Islands and other similar places - I think you have no clue what you are talking about.

This reminds me of a story about African farmers I once heard. NGOs and various philanthropic organizations have been notorious for having a superficial comprehension of what is actually needed to improve the lives of people in the so-called third world. We have the examples of the Nigerian or Tanzanian textile industries being severely hurt by the flooding of the market with mitumba[0] or the destruction of local shoe industry by Toms or even the impoverishment of Haitian agriculture through the distribution of free rice long after a crisis has passed, for that matter. But then you have cases where a piece of machinery breaks, and no one has the expertise to repair it, so the thing in question (a tractor, a well) is just abandoned and things go back to what they were. Technology lives in an ecosystem of expertise, supply chains, and other cultural features. Indeed, technology is part of culture.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitumba_(clothing)

There is another story I have heard many times about how the Vietnam government paid local people to kill rats. To prove they killed a rat, the locals had to cut its tail off and bring it in to collect payment.

The locals decided it was getting harder and harder to find rats to get paid to capture. They started to cut the tails off and release the rats back into the sewers so that they could procreate.

So the government's attempt to kill all rats ended in rats being bred and eventually an increase in rat population.

Here is one link that tells some of the story:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hanoi_Rat_Massacre

> The French thought that this was a good idea because they had a policy of trying to encourage entrepreneurialism in Vietnam.

It seems that the natives were already a lot more enterprising than the French had thought.

I had heard of the story of the Cobra Effect[1] but the Hanoi Rat Masscacre is a much better documented example of the Perverse Incentive phenomenon. It also strikes me as an example of Goodhart's Law[2] in effect.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive#The_origina...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

NGOs commonly are just employment schemes for wealthy first worlders. They aren't ignorant to the fact the solution they are providing isn't practical, they're just going with whatever pays their fat salary while generating donations. That is, that very little benefit winds up in the designated beneficiaries is by design rather than accident.

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