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Comment by camperman | Hacker News Reader

Disclaimer: I grew up and live in the third world, I'm a co-author of a book on innovation in the third world and I have two inventions that didn't work under my belt, with a third on the way that might just change the world.

This is a wonderfully provocative piece that has made me think, although I disagree with parts of it. Some random thoughts:

- First check you're not trying to solve a social problem with technology.

- Design can be as much a result of accident or trial and error as careful thought upfront. To paraphrase Edison, good design is 1% following the Four Principles and 99% bloodymindedness.

- Design for the community rather than the individual, be they a single person or the President. 70% of the world's population lives in group culture.

- Products that use components which are valuable as standalone items (such as solar panels) will be stripped of those items quickly if they don't deliver an order of magnitude more value.

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Author here. Great thoughts and addendum! I absolutely agree with your points. Thanks for sharing. I am hoping to only make the website better over time and add more resources. Feel free to get in touch with me through the site.

>I am hoping to only make the website better over time

Have a look at making your site work without JavaScript support or offer a <noscript> warning why you need JavaScript (and why the page has to be blank without it). Also look at adding fall-backs to your font stacks. If you use Ghostery then Typekit is blocked, which will render all fonts in the default browser font.

As for the content: Coca Cola and a 40$ soccer ball as an example of good design and cheap wheelchairs or prosthetic arms as an example of bad design confuses me. I won't form an opinion on this, as the only thing I could be sure of is that such an opinion would be misinformed, but that was the moment you "lost" me.

I do think this debate is welcome. I would probably be on the side of those that say: intent alone does not make a great product, but the intent is still good. I'd rather see 10 more people try and fail to bring mediocre products to the 3rd world, then to see 10 more sites like this and nothing really happening.

If your vision is so counter to the market, that for it to work it has to change the entrepreneurial mindsets of a majority, then that vision is not too compatible. Is that because the vision is not pragmatic and realistic, or are these entrepreneurs really all building shitty products? It seems like it willingly creates a chicken and egg problem where the rest does not even see one.

Yes, just so you know the site gets blocked by corporate browsing filters- I viewed it at home, but now can't see it at work. I think maybe it has to do with the fact that there no page title... or maybe not, I can't see it anymore!

author here. That is odd that it didn't show up at work. It is a Squarespace website so some of those things are out of my control.

"First check you're not trying to solve a social problem with technology"

This is incomplete. It should be "First check you're not trying to solve a social problem with technology and no understanding of the social problem".

To claim that you can't solve social problems with technology is silly. Examples: - People defecate in the same bodies of water that people drink out of. Modern civil engineering technology has solved this in many contexts. - Occasionally, fires wipe out large swaths of cities. Modern construction technology, combined with fire codes, has solved this in many contexts.

> To claim that you can't solve social problems with technology is silly.

Its true, though one can extend it to the silly version that you can't enable solutions to social problems with technology.

> People defecate in the same bodies of water that people drink out of. Modern civil engineering technology has solved this in many contexts.

Actually, I think social solutions to the social problem here are far older than modern civil engineering technology -- the technical problem is that, even with the social factors addressed, there stop being viable alternatives when you have large numbers of people packed in close quarters without sufficient technical means to separate waste streams from supply streams. Modern civil engineering solves that technical problem, allowing the social solutions to be effective in conditions where they otherwise would not be.

OTOH, technical solutions to, e.g., food production and distribution problems (which the world has many of) don't work when the social infrastructure is not in place to support them (which is why people starve in a world with plenty of food.)

Lots of things that are described as single problems have both technical and social aspects, and addressing one doesn't resolve the other. Resolving the complex problem often requires solving both a social problem and a technical problem.

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