Philanthropy for Hackers
wsj.com
wsj.com
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_16792615
So that view seems to be spreading, which I think is a good thing in the long run.
Of course as I've argued in the past, I think that the best thing everyone could do with excess money is to donate to some form of SENS-like rejuvenation research to accelerate progress towards an end to degenerative aging. 100,000 lives are lost every day in really very horrible ways, the slow crumbling to a painful death, until we stop it from happening. It's just another medical condition, and the only think stopping the research community from producing therapies is money and the will to use it.
If we ever got to a point where some people had greatly extended their lives and/or eliminated death for themselves whilst others still faced premature death from a basic lack of the necessities of life, well then, we'd be an even more narcissistic race than I originally thought.
We all shouldn't simply sit by idling until all the basic problems are fixed. Solving the "basic necessities" problem might be more economic related or come down to creating technology to create cheap, clean energy, for example.
http://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp
We spend billions on bottled water:
http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2008/09/bott...
Shouldn't we drink tap water and use the money saved to get water to people in need?
Bill Gates had this to say: "It seems pretty egocentric while we still have malaria and TB for rich people to fund things so they can live longer. It would be nice to live longer though I admit"
Not the authoritative word on the issue but interesting considering he has the opportunity to do either yet is focussing on malaria, TB etc
http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities
By doing really difficult and expensive medical research over decades, we will discover many things that help many of the 7 billion people, increasing to 9 billion, on the planet. Knowledge isn't something that stays locked up forever, and which only rich people have access to it.
Age related research will benefit over 10 billion people in this century. Most of us will get old.
Treatments to repair the root cause cell and tissue damage that leads to degeneration will be mass-produced infusions when realized, since everyone ages due to the same underlying reasons. They will not be very expensive, their price trajectory looking like that for drugs today, assuming the regulatory environment remains consistent over the decades ahead. Ultimately they will be as cheap as older medications are today. But to get to that point you have to start by creating the treatments.
With the growth of the Internet and the open-source movement, we, the tech industry, understand why open protocols and technology are crucial to providing access and opportunity to more people. I am a big believer in for-profit companies too, but there are certain things in tech that should be executed with a more philanthropic bent. When asked why Stellar.org is nonprofit, decentralized and open-source, we reply, "Can you imagine if the Internet had been owned by a for-profit company?
The thesis of Parker's post in the WSJ really struck a chord with me. There is a unique role that technologists can to play in philanthropy. We understand infrastructure and we should be funding the big tech bets that the world needs. Our industry is full of the unreasonable optimists - let's take that optimism and invest in an unbelievable future:)
We could see insane gTLDs like .book and .diamond owned by large multi-national corporations.
Oh wait...
Prior to seeing it firsthand while managing IT for a non-profit, I imagined that the bottleneck issues were advanced technical challenges; things like capital smoothing and what I think of as elastic capital allocation: capital allocation directed by marginal cost (per unit-social-benefit) among a portfolio of operating non-profits. That stuff is exciting - and when it comes to fruition it will change the world in a huge way.
However, as you get into it you realize that even for high-performing and well-funded organizations, the challenges and roadblocks are much more pedestrian. They’re things like standardized metrics [1] and data collection when your program’s target members don’t have internet access.
Perhaps the toughest challenge is the most straightforward: the non-profit employees trying to tackle these problems are non-technical, with limited access to technical resources. They’re forced to become subject matter experts on impact metrics and analytics, data science and their database-of-choice all at once. It’s quite a challenge.
My passion for both the sector and the technical challenges led me to found sluce.io [2], which makes software that addresses this exact challenge for operating and supporting organizations as well as Impact Investors. I’m happy to discuss these challenges with anyone who’s interested.
Your point about standardized metrics and data collection is very key. Even the organizations that realize a benefit to being data-driven just don't have the staff background in what that means or how to do it. From programs to funddev, staffs are trying to work with the limited data they are collecting, and making poor extrapolations based on that.
Even working to implement good databases and good procedures can't make up for both executive level buy in and staff level training and understanding.
It seems that we want the new generation to think that a hackers is a young guy with a hood.
Can we just stop this misconception and show a picture of a "hack" as a "normal" person (i.e. any one working in a computer: young, old, woman, man, any race).
To entice thought, and heighten your curiosity, we will now briefly describe the Free Human Societies plan for the economy, and our governments. In the free human society, government’s primary roll will be to make a plan for the future of humanity, and then fund it. Elected officials will create budgets which provide equally and fairly for the entire world’s population. Government will not be limited to what they can spend, because there will be enough currency available to fund any project.
It is time to introduce another new term. The Free Human Government (FHG) is the Government of The Free Human Society. It will be formed to replace all existing governments. Exactly how we will do this peacefully is detailed in this publication. The Elected Officials of The Free Human Government (FHG) would swear to protect and defend the Universal Constitution of Humanity, which guarantees equal Freedom for all, and peace forever. This means that every elected official in The Free Human Government (FHG) will be responsible for equally serving the best interest of every living human beings. Elected Officials in the Free Human Government will be the highest paid people, and will be held in the highest of regard of all people in the Free Human Society. These independent patriots of an Equalistic Society must put aside their personal ideals in order to protect humanity forever.
Also, org. is always looking for teacher volunteers. Please feel free to pass this along to anyone whom you think might be interested in helping. Cheers!
Disclosure: I was born in Honduras and am a sponsor/donor
However, I would caution against an automatic rush towards techno-centric approaches. I've seen it happen so often that people get overly excited by the technology itself rather than really understanding what the end goal of it's use is. (I think one of the most common conversations I hear these days in the non-profit sector is "How do we build an app?" and "Let's run a weekend hack-a-thon and build a very complex piece of software" - without any concept of what problem they are trying to solve and what the real value added would be). I hate to say it but in reality, most non-profits are really, really bad at building and implementing technology - their structures, people, mission, goals, experience etc does not allow that aim. Often you find people paying way too much money to build tools that essentially end up with little or no use - because even if they work, the processes to implement them (training, updates etc) are not instituted. It's the digital equivalent of the aid agency who build a water well but doesn't train anyone to fix it or leave spare parts. But it's a shiny tool that can be shown off to the donors/media/public, so that unfortunately sometimes seems to be the main output. Also, most IT people in non-profits are overworked just doing basic network admin etc - and are not the right people or in the right position to do development. In fact, these days I often find myself asking - "How can we do this without technology?"
I think Sean Parker is pretty correct in his interpretation but the non-profit sector is surprisingly very driven by "trends." So one year everyone wants to talk about X because thats what donors want to talk about, so suddenly every NGO cares about X. Next year it is Y. Also, one thing that I've noticed is that Silicon Valley funders are generally quite risk adverse in their philanthropy funding - many are happy to donate to (very worthy I would add!!!) causes like the environment or earthquake aid but most are not willing to tackle some of the more controversial stuff like human rights issues in Russia, China etc - which contrasts with the great work of people like George Soros in that area.
Indeed I wish the non-profit sector had more of the startup culture - it's extremely hard for us and other small non-profits to get funded as the sector is dominated by traditional NGOs and very conservative funders. (Can you imagine an Angel funder in Silicon Valley saying they only fund "innovative" ideas by companies that have five years of existing accounts!). There needs to be more of a competitive concept of startup/failure/merger etc in the non-profit sector but unfortunately this very very rarely happens, so you end up with a cycle of "zombie" NGOs doing very little (with high overheads) but sucking up donor money - and then new NGOs with good ideas being locked out of being able to scale. Even the processes for applying for funding can be incredibly complex and essentially in most cases require an expert in the sector to be able to go through with the applications.
I've hoped for a long time that the brain power and resources of the tech sector can be applied more effectively in our non-profit space but I still think too often people with tech skill-sets are not used properly by non-profits. Why give a software programmer a hammer to build a house when he can build you software? At Security First we've managed to try to bridge that gap by utilising volunteers for Android/UI/UX/Copywriters/Testers/Security folks etc in a way which taps into their main skill-sets. It's a much more effective and rewarding thing for everybody that way.
One way of getting around that for us has been to incorporate some of the best things we have come across into what we do. Essentially taking on those teams or their software. As we finally have the "five years" of accounts. (Described elsewhere in this thread.)
We are also teaming up with some of the larger NGOs and also governments where they essentially end up collaborating with us on the innovation side which has a hard time inside the organisations.
As you say it is sad how hard it is to get access to funds which are actually there, and it is sad to see what get funds instead, in the name of innovation.
Initially we focused mostly on knowledge sharing and transparency on how funds were spent, where the sector was deeply into paper report publishing as an acceptable output of major investments. We call these “cover your ass reports”, as they are primarily an instrument for the project owner to give to the donor/investor to show that they didn’t squander the money and used in an audit. Often the reports show no such thing, but the metrics used and the way people use data is often so poor that the only thing you can show is the money was spent.
As an extent of this we saw that we could make a big difference in providing better data collection and presentation systems. We took over a prototype field data collection system from a US NGO working in water and sanitation. They wanted to open source the software, which we helped them do, and we took over the continued development and running of it as a service. Our first work was primarily with western NGOs working in countries in Africa and South Asia, but soon our systems started becoming part of the infrastructure management of these countries. Projects to implement this is often a collaboration between a UN organisation, like UNICEF or UNDP, the country government and a number of local and regional NGOs. We have the whole rural drinking water supply systems for several countries mapped using this now, and a dozen or so in the works.
This is where the open source aspect what we do becomes really important we think. We are being asked to implement infrastructure and resource tracking systems for things like a country’s bridges, fishing stock, drinking water supply and schools to name a few. We believe that these IT systems will become nearly as important infrastructure as the things they are tracking. We have started to see that this is understood by some of the countries we work with, as they are asking for the data to be housed in their jurisdiction. We think also that it is important that these are open source systems, as when these systems are successful they are going to remain for decades in production. And many of these countries have no governmental IT infrastructure to talk about at all at this point and we think that by having governmental infrastructure running on open source software you have better control of it. You can choose where it should be run, by whom and you have the possibility to have control over it.
In the article he talks about getting political. Actually building software systems for governments to use, based on open source principles, trying to build the best thing we can offer them, is in my experience a way more politically powerful tool than anything else political I think we could have ever engaged in. With a dozen countries investing heavily with us in our systems and dozens more knocking on the door I think it is safe to say that open source software can be both deeply politically engaging in a positive way, satisfying to work with and have a real world impact which is impressive.
New Terms and Definitions: We can DOIT!!!
o The Universal Constitution of Humanity: An amendment to existing national constitutions which guarantees Exact Freedom for All, and Peace Forever. o The Free human Society: All humans declare at this time and forevermore, our exact freedom and complete independence from each other’s influence. We further more accept personal responsibility for our own behavior and agree to protect each other. o Free Human Network: The Electronic Social Network, of the Free Human Society. o “Freedom Fee”: A one U.S. Dollar per month contribution to fund the Free Human Society, A persons “Freedom Fee” allows them the title Certified Free Human Citizen. o Free Human Citizen: Any person accepting the concepts of “Equalism” is a Free Human Citizen. You may register the Free Human Society, a person may remain anonymous and still be a Free Human Citizen. Free Human Citizens are considered to be exactly equal in significance, completely free and independent of others. o Certified Free Human Citizen: A Free Human Citizen which contributes a one U.S. Dollar per month “Freedom Fee”. These Free Humans may continue to remain anonymous, but will receive monthly deposits of 5000 E-Dollars into their virtual bank accounts. o Dedicated Free Humans: Free Human which choose to openly support the Free human Society. These Free Humans also agree to live in an honest manner, and while adhering to the standards of the Free human Society. A person must agree to a personal back ground check, and become a Dedicated Free Human Prior to becoming an employee, or government leader of the Free Human Society. o Free Human Government: All governments representing the Free Human society. The Free Human Government consist entirely of Dedicated Free Humans. . o Equalism: The Social system promoted by the Free Human Society which has no taxes or government fees, and solves all problems from the view that all people have a right to equal freedom, and peace. o Equalist: An activist in the Free Human Society. o Equalistic Approach: Correct method for solving problems in the Free Human Society. o Independent Nations of the Universal Alliance, (INA): All independent Nations Ratifying the Universal Constitution of Humanity. o Universal Alliance of Free Nations, (U.A.): A Committee of Ambassadors appointed by the leaders of The Free Human Government. o E-Dollar: The official currency of The Independent Nations of the Universal Alliance. o E-Dollar Economy: The Economy of the Free Human Society which saved the world from itself. o Universal Bank of Humanity: The official bank of the Free Human Society. o Product of Earth: Everything grown, mined, or produced from the earth for the Free Human Society o January 16, 2014; Universal Day of Reconciliation: The day in history the entire debt of the Free Human Society was paid off from. o Universal Day of Sorrow and forgiveness: January 16th of each year is the day which all the budgets for the Free Human Government are funded for the ensuing year. This day will be a time of reflection for the past mistakes of our ancestors, and a day we forgive each other for the actions of our ancestors. This will be a world holiday of great celebration because we have overcoming the problems of modern society. o Actual Diagram of Government: A flow chart diagram published on the Free Human Network depicting all known government positions, and the names of the people who legally hold each position. All known pertinent information concerning the duties of each position, and the person holding the position will also be available on this diagram. o Virtual Diagram of the Free human Government: A virtual flow chart diagram which mirrors the Actual Diagram of Government, but depicts the names of only Dedicated Citizens of the Free Human Society. This diagram will disclose all pertinent information concerning each Dedicated Free Human Leader, as well as their Annual E-Dollar Budget for funding the peaceful future of humanity. o Government Funded Agencies (GFA): Reformed Employee owned private business which performs all of the administrative duties of the Free Human Society o Government Funded Contractors: Private contracting companies which must adhere to strict regulation while performing all the actual hands on work funded by the Free Human Government
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROBLEM SOLVED:
1. Something Needs To be done, and How! 2. Governments of the Free Human Society 3. Economy of the Free Human Society 4. Religion and the Free Human Society 5. Equal Freedom in the Free Human Society 6. Voting, and Elections in the Free Human Society 7. Agencies for Human Advocacy and Judicial Review. 8. Guarantee of Success In the Free Human Society 9. Work In the Free human Society 10. E-dollar freedom 11. Into the future
Every time a Human Being is killed by violence, a terrible atrocity has occurred. Every murder is a failure by society. A human’s absolute freedom and personal independence has been stolen from them. The human victim has lost their inherent right to freedom, and to have a peaceful life. Their opportunity has been stolen, and their full potential will never be known. At times you will be asked to consider ideas that aren’t appealing. You are being asked to do this to help us come to some common conclusions. This will be one of those times.
Read this, and then close your eyes. Think about precious memories of the people you love the most. Think about the first time you saw your newborn child, or the memories of your wedding day. Think about your mother, and father. Feel the love in your heart for all of them. Now close your eyes and think about them being brutally murdered! I know you don’t want to; and you wouldn’t be asked if it wasn’t important. Close your eyes and watch the ones you love the most being viciously taken away. See the blood, and hear the screaming. If you didn’t cry; you didn’t do it well enough. Close your eyes, and do it again. Ok, enough of that. I’m very sorry, but we must all understand, every time murder happens; those painful feelings you just imagined, become very real to someone. Nearly everyone has someone that loves them. Every time murder occurs; pain and suffering follows. We must make a decision as a society that no human violence is acceptable. None of us can be completely free If we allow violence. If you live under the fear of being a victim of violence you can never be truly free.
Are we saying we are going to end all violence? Of course not; what we are going to do is solve the problems causing most of the world’s violence. Afterward, violent occurrences would become isolated incidents, not organized terror. Are we in agreement so far? Not really, keep reading things are going to get better. Why is it, if a government official or a famous person dies it important news, but if a bum dies in the street no one seem to even notice. Someone well known suddenly dies, the whole world takes notice. If the well-known person was held in high regard, their sudden death will be called a tragedy. If they happen to be a person that is considered to be powerful, or incredibly wealthy; the entire world may mourn for them.XXXXXXXXXXXXZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ What we must understand is, the Dead Bum lying in the street that no one cares enough to notice of, is the greater tragedy. The powerful leader, or the, famous person must have achieved much in life or they wouldn’t have become rich, and powerful. The bum on the other hand, was a wasted life. No one will ever know what this person’s full potential was. Society has failed once again. These are new ideas for society, and I realize it is hard to mentally digest them all at once. I hope I have at least gotten your attention. I told you things were about to get better. Can you imagine living on a city in space? If humanity is to survive, that is exactly the direction we must work toward. We will discuss this later, but for now; do you realize we are over populating our planet? At the same time we allow the exploitation of our natural resources. Scientific facts prove that modern society will completely deplete our planet of its fossil fuels. Fossil Fuel is currently the only energy source we have to power the planet. We must find other energy sources to fuel the future or live in darkness again. Science has also proven that certain life ending geological events have occurred, and will occur again. These events include several known eruptions of super volcanoes. Meteorological events have occurred on our planet also, giant meteors that have struck the earth’s surface causing massive destruction . This is not speculation, it is undisputed fact. These cataclysmic events have occurred before in history, and they will happen again in the future. The question is, can humanity survive such a catastrophic event? Life on our planet will eventually end. That is a fact. Exactly how long it is until that happens isn’t known. We can’t control volcanos or a meteor, what we can do, is improve our quality of life until the end happens. If we all decide to work together in peace, there is no known limits to human ingenuity. If we can simply put our differences aside, and agree to disagree in peace; there are no limits on what humanity will accomplish. If not, we will all kill each other. I told you things were going to start getting better. Modern society will be terribly affected, or will completely end by a catastrophic event. Either way you look at it, currently our society is doomed to eventual death and destruction unless we change our behavior. We must create a new economic and government system that can’t ever fail. This new social system will be called “Equalism”.
Here is our next matter to consider. A child’s geographic location at birth is the most important factor in their lives. If a child is lucky, they will be born into a wealthy family in an industrialized area. This child will grow up with luxuries most of the world will never know. Other children are born into war-torn areas, or areas of famine. There are tens of millions of children that will never have the opportunity to reach their full potential. These children will grow up, and live in the same horrid living conditions as their ancestors. Why? Think about this. If your own child was switched at birth with a royal prince, and no one knew but you; your child would grow up and be a Royal Prince. As a Royal Prince your child would be reared with great expectations for their future. There would be no cost spared in your young princess’s education. They would experience the best life has to offer. The point here is; any person that is treated like royalty from birth will grow to act like royalty. Doesn’t your child deserve to grow up in a society that expects royal behavior from everyone? Why should luck be the determining factor in how successful a person will become? Try to imagine a society in which everyone gets to explore their full potential. Seriously, Think about it. Why can’t we have this type of society?