[aphx]

We run into similar challenges of scale and experience in humanitarian/aid work. It's easy to be overwhelmed by the numbers of suffering people when the primary dimension of representing them is something like "food consumption." Stats are vital for the logistics of meeting acute needs, but they erase (abstract out) the rich dynamics of human life.

You might think photos would help, but the endless stream of images of "starving people" ends up being cumulative, compounding the matter.

Projects that systematically dig into the lived experience of beneficiaries and treat them as complex social beings start to bridge that gap. They not only dignify the people involved (providers and beneficiaries both), but also often discover systemic issues that "the numbers" would never reveal.

I wonder what conversations the author had with people who lived there (genuine question, not a criticism).

[gota]

I can't phrase this question very well, but from your experience, what are the possibilities with Virtual Reality in that? As in, could we ever reach a state of virtual-presence rich enough that it does the trick and is not the Matrix?

[aphx]

Good question. Or maybe in the direction of Professor Xavier's machine that (IIRC) taps him into zillions of people's experiences in parallel, but also with bar graphs? Feel everything and then zoom in to the specific?

A pretty effective approach is something like ICIJ has done https://projects.icij.org/fatalextraction/ We're working on generating those efficiently from collected data, but you still need an author of sorts. Ultimately that's still in the slide deck realm, though.

A possibly less familiar solution is what's called Executive Briefing Centers that can get pretty Minority Report-like: a wall of screens with an interactive display (mouse/keyboard/script driven). Those presentations are curated and composed (think $100k slide decks or maybe a 1-off immersive video game) to get deep into understanding how a customer segment would experience a new product in a new store (is what I've seen).

Folks like IDEO have done some experiments with 3D cameras and VR. When I've tried it, I found the non-eye-contact disturbing ("And you can't smell the shit," as a friend put it). It's one thing to not speak the language. Quite another to not know what the ritual you're observing means to the participants (the VR scene I'm thinking of dropped you into a "sacred African dance around a fire").

An important distinction here is about reporting vs interacting. We say interaction is paramount. But it doesn't really scale--numbers do. That's kindof the point of the article: both have their place. The goal isn't to traumatize _more_ people, it's to communicate--effect a sharing of worlds--with the hope of breaking cycles of trauma and violence. Like some counseling techniques, maybe numeric abstraction provides a necessary distance from the immediacy of experience that allows us to get a handle on things and make change.

Insight Share and the participatory video folks are pushing the limits with current tech. There you get into enabling folks to solve their own problems, no need to convince donors.

There's an empowering irony in using iPhones or Occuli to interview tantalum/coltan/tin miners. But I bet if we asked them, they'd have some pretty sweet ideas for where/how to direct the talent and resources being used to develop the devices to help them...

Thanks for the question!

[gadders]

I Was on Facebook the other day in a group about gym-going and a black lady posted a question about working out. It was evident that English wasn't her first language, so I clicked through to her profile out of interest and had a look at some of her posts.

One of them I remember was where she had laid out some new purchases or something on her bed. What struck me, though, was that the walls of her room were corrugated iron. I wish I could have sent her £50 or something right then, without sounding like a patronising twat. Not a life changing sum, but maybe it would have helped her in some way.

[shalmanese]

This TED talk [1] about seeing how the rest of the world lives was very insightful for me. Anna Rosling Rönnlund (Hans Rosling's daughter in law) went to 264 homes of varying income levels and took photos of beds, stoves, toys and other standardized goods. When sorting by income level, you can spot globalized trends by income regardless of nationality.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4L130DkdOw

[aphx]

Oh yeah, Dollar Street (what that talk is based on) is a great project!

"In the news people in other cultures seem stranger than they are. We visited 264 families in 50 countries and collected 30,000 photos. We sorted the homes by income, from left to right."

https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street/matrix

[aphx]

What about engaging her in a get-to-know-you conversation? Maybe you'd discover a different way to help (or how to send the money! :) ). Maybe she has something to offer you!

[sien]

Have you read Factfulness - the book mentioned at the end of the article?

Hans Rosling has had lots of these conversations with people. They are detailed in the book as described.

It's a fantastic book BTW.

[aphx]

Did a quick skim through what Amazon Look Inside provides. It definitely looks worth checking out (all copies are in use at the SF pub lib).

I think I've seen Mr Rosling's presentation on birthrates before, IIRC something to the effect of: Our "first world" assumption that might drive policy decisions is that "all the poor people" are having seemingly unlimited babies, when actually e.g. Bangladesh is at or almost below replacement. Global population will peak at ~10 billion in 2050 and then decline. Africa is still a variable. (These are from foggy memory, but match what I skimmed). It's compelling and hopeful work!

The projects I have in mind are monitoring & evaluation ones that some of our customers have done. (This gets a little deeper into methods, but still extends the conversation) E.g. as follow-up on World Food Program food distribution projects: A standard food security questionnaire asks something like, "when you're out of food, do you starve, borrow, or steal?" On paper that's all you get, those 3 dimensions. A different approach had an evaluator show video clips of local people talking (scripted) about doing those things. Beneficiaries are asked to pick which video best matches what they do. Then the evaluator interviews them about why they made their choice. It opens up dialog. The best example was the man who said, "Oh, I'm fine about food. But the video I picked showed that all tress are cut down in the background. We like your food, but it would be better if you would plant trees so we could go back to farming the way we know how." ...the recommendation and ensuing follow-up was a tree planting campaign!

So, to connect it back to the article, maybe, "Do all those people want to be riding buses, living in sky scrapers, ...?"

From a different angle, that brings to mind Seth Chase's excellent doc "We Will Win Peace" (https://www.kanopy.com/product/we-will-win-peace). Looks at the "popular" perception of conflict minerals economic issues in central Africa vs reality, ensuing US policies based on perceptions, and ensuing negative impact. (BTW If you ever need a filmographer, Seth is great!)