Comments on: Uncertain Heroes http://onegeek.net/blog/2007/10/21/uncertain-heroes/ One Geek One Blog Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:02:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Ryan http://onegeek.net/blog/2007/10/21/uncertain-heroes/#comment-119257 Ryan Sat, 20 Oct 2007 23:50:35 +0000 http://onegeek.net/blog/2007/10/21/uncertain-heroes/#comment-119257 I don't think aid is as simple as medicine in terms of the whole "do no harm" objective. Even in medicine it's not interpreted entirely literally. In most cases creation is going to involve some amount of destruction. I'm thinking of pretty much any infrastructure project. I remember one of my development lecturers talking about the cultural destructiveness of one of this power plant upgrade projects. He said something like "despite the pain it caused the culture could not continue and had to change." I was appalled but that conceptualisation, but probably most development projects involve an element of the same thing. In some cases the creation is almost certainly worth the destruction - as is the case with a hospital. But there are other projects where the net benefits are marginal - roads, dams, business development and other industrialisation projects. And then you've got the whole trouble of what a "net benefit" actually means because preferences aren't even close to homogeneous. As with the big dams projects, which I'm not even sure were universally bad. I don’t think aid is as simple as medicine in terms of the whole “do no harm” objective. Even in medicine it’s not interpreted entirely literally. In most cases creation is going to involve some amount of destruction. I’m thinking of pretty much any infrastructure project.

I remember one of my development lecturers talking about the cultural destructiveness of one of this power plant upgrade projects. He said something like “despite the pain it caused the culture could not continue and had to change.” I was appalled but that conceptualisation, but probably most development projects involve an element of the same thing.

In some cases the creation is almost certainly worth the destruction - as is the case with a hospital. But there are other projects where the net benefits are marginal - roads, dams, business development and other industrialisation projects.

And then you’ve got the whole trouble of what a “net benefit” actually means because preferences aren’t even close to homogeneous. As with the big dams projects, which I’m not even sure were universally bad.

]]> By: ben http://onegeek.net/blog/2007/10/21/uncertain-heroes/#comment-119231 ben Sat, 20 Oct 2007 19:14:38 +0000 http://onegeek.net/blog/2007/10/21/uncertain-heroes/#comment-119231 Be encouraged, David. You have done, are doing and will continue to do good things, because you care about people. It's a bummer the India trip did not work out, though. Be encouraged, David. You have done, are doing and will continue to do good things, because you care about people. It’s a bummer the India trip did not work out, though.

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