Re:Mackenzie Scott gives away another £2B
by wavefunction on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @03:45PM
(#27520534)
I agree with you. She seems to recognize that helping people to help themselves is a better use of the funds than trying to swoop in and "save them."
Re:Mackenzie Scott gives away another £2B
by mikepurvis on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @03:50PM
(#27520595)
It's tough because I think in some cases there really are new things that can be done, where the volume of money in question makes it logical to start over— thinking of the Gates foundation trying to tackle malaria, or address sanitation issues around toilets.
But education? Inequality? These aren't ones where some random person who hasn't been thinking about it for decades is going to come up with a radically new approach.
Re:Mackenzie Scott gives away another £2B
by zozbot234 on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @03:58PM
(#27520696)
Even the Gates foundation itself wasted quite a bit of money in funding approaches to education (like "small schools") that just didn't yield good outcomes, and were sometimes harmful.
Re:Mackenzie Scott gives away another £2B
by mikepurvis on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @04:21PM
(#27520992)
Yeah, that was one of the ones I was thinking of, I just couldn't remember the details— here it is for anyone else out of the loop:
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09/th...
But there are a lot of people working on this, including many who are already employing a "disruption" mindset.
I think it's refreshing that her approach isn't dripping with that classic tech-boy hubris of looking for two seconds and deciding you need to reinvent, but is rather rooted in affirming and uplifting good work that's already going on, regardless of whether that work is bootstrapping new and better systems, or may well just be passing on the cash— which in many cases could in fact be the most effective thing to do with it:
https://epar.evans.uw.edu/blog/long-term-impacts-cash-transf...