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0 pointsTaylorAlexander4y ago0 comments

I’m not trying to tell anyone from Ghana how to spend their money. But the person I was responding to seems to know a lot of people making $300k and they seemed to be really good at convincing themselves to spend a lot of money on things. I made the rather meek suggestion to buy cheaper and donate. Right now people are freezing to death on park benches where I live so people really do need more help.

But other than that you’ve read too much in to me. My entire philosophy is that we must change the way our economy operates to eliminate poverty. I’m setting my own life up so that all of my engineering work goes to support this goal. Everything I do is open source so people all over the world can benefit, and I am learning how to operate an engineering project sustainably that can stay open source without needing to cave to commercial interests. The project I am learning this on is an open source farming robot of my own design, and I have sunk a fair bit of my time for free in to the project and earn less than half of what I did working at google. It was my idea to operate the project as open source, and to intentionally collaborate with people all over the world to make a design that can be fabricated cheaply anywhere.

Once I learn how to manage this community oriented engineering project, the next project will be large scale free hot meal producing machines. I want to make free meals the way the Sikhs do in India, where an army of volunteers cooks 50,000 free meals a day at a single location, and collectively across India their non profit NGO produces over 1.7 million free meals a day. I want to use my skills in automation and engineering management to make open source machines to do the work of those volunteers, and if I succeed we will open a demonstration facility in Oakland that can serve hundreds of meals a day, scaling hopefully to thousands.

You mention virtue signaling. But I am not here for signaling. I really do find it weird when people on here talk about how they’re going to spend all their money on themselves. And I make this mild suggestion that they consider donating their money because I want to see how people respond. I wasn’t condescending, I just said someone could buy cheaper and use their excess money to help the needy. We have a real problem with consumerism in the USA and it is destroying the planet. I think it’s worth making a gentle suggestion to donate. And invariably someone gets upset and makes a big deal out of it. So today that person was you.

But I’m working very hard to do my part. Sharing my work with all and trying to make it sustainable. I taught a robotics class in Mauritius to some students from Ghana, and Kenya and South Africa and Ethiopia and Morocco. When I design my farming robot I have them in mind. Once our design is operational I want to find people in Nairobi who can build them, and I will help them every way I can. Hopefully some day one of my students will be able to use it. A few of them really wanted to bring farming robots back home.

EDIT: This linked comment below really nicely sums up what I am getting at. I’m not saying a developer shouldn’t have a nice monitor but there is a point at which it becomes extravagant, and I really don’t understand why you’ve fixated on me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29708573

0 comments

BoorishBears4y ago

This entire comment is walking back what you said because I'm not the exact person you presumed I was... based on the monitor I use. You understand how ridiculous that is right?

> I don't believe you would actually do this or you wouldn't make that comment

That's what you said to me, not someone else. And all you had to go on was me saying: Spending an extra $2000 on a tool you use 8 hours a day is not something to pass a moral judgement on.

Most people would not object to what I said: a $5000 tool is a pittance in comparison to what some not nearly as well compensated people end up spending on better tools.

So if despite that you try to turn it into an issue of donating more to your fellow man... what's the term for that?

What is a term for forcing virtue and morality into a conversation in a way that does more to signal your own position than actually add to the conversation in a cohesive way?

To put it more plainly: browbeating people over not spending $2000 less on a monitor is the height of virtue signaling in a forum where people are stating they make a living off of them.

I mean even in your reply you're doing it! People are talking about an expensive monitor and somehow you twist it into:

> "I really do find it weird when people on here talk about how they’re going to spend all their money on themselves."

You really don't see how nauseatingly disingenuous you're being? Talking about spending $5,000 on a monitor is tantamount to saying you spend all your money on yourself?

Didn't that exact wrong assumption already lead you astray with me?

My first comment said it all: Why make this a morality play.

It's the definition of virtue signaling.

TaylorAlexanderOP4y ago

Respectfully, I do not see how I am browbeating anyone when I say:

> Someone could also buy a really nice monitor for $2k and donate the other 2k to a local food bank. A lot of people are struggling and hungry.

And I think it is reasonable for me not to believe that a random internet commenter is going to make a $5000 donation while they accuse me of making a morality play. I'm not saying you will never donate $5000, but I do believe you will not make any additional donations due to our exchange. It just sounded like hot air.

But I can see that you want to tear me down, and I don't really care. We have strayed far beyond good faith conversation so I'm going to exit this now.

BoorishBears4y ago

If you don't see the arrogance in telling someone talking about the tools of their trade to consider instead downgrading and donating to food banks, as if the two are mutually exclusive, or one topic begat the other: then there was never much of a conversation to be had.

You're free to martyr yourself though. Act like I'm just tearing you down. Not addressing anything you've said in these comments.

Maybe in a moment of introspection you might realize that no one would tear you down for suggesting food banks exist, and maybe, juuuuuust maybe you did something wrong when you:

- Tried to make it about choosing between spending money on tools and donating to food banks, as if the two are mutually exclusive.

- Made assumptions about a complete stranger's donation habits based on a monitor purchase and telling you not to make a tooling choice a morality play...

- Claimed that people talking about a monitor are actually saying they spend all their money on themselves.

Of course, it'll be easier to not do any of that and go on thinking that there's this weird Ghanian guy who hates food banks and spends all his money on himself because he likes the Apple Pro Display XDR.

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