codinghorror

The largest chunk of federal "cash transfers" is not welfare; it is retirement and disability spending. The rural population is significantly older than the urban population.

Bear in mind that rural poverty rates (~17%) remain persistently higher than urban poverty rates (~12%).

And in a high-wage urban area (e.g., Seattle), a $20,000 Social Security check is a tiny fraction of the local per capita income. In a rural area, that same $20k check represents a much larger slice of the total economic pie. This makes the reliance on government cash appear massive -- ~29% rural and ~17% urban -- even if the absolute dollar difference is more modest.

Also, metro areas receive MASSIVE amounts of federal contracting money (defense, science, universities, federal employees), whereas rural areas get virtually none.

Mostly this is caused by the "graying" of rural America and the persistent lack of high-wage employment in rural areas.

with GMI the conditions are very simple math: what percent of the poverty line are you within?

I agree that adding a lot of conditions is part of the problem, but "help those who most need it first" seems like a very logical primary (and perhaps only) condition.

Yes, within 8 months we went from "how do we make systemic change" to actually doing it. This is proof. And the GMI topics are on that dedicated site, not Coding Horror.

"Why rural Americans? The same amount of cash will go a lot further and likely be more effective in rural areas of other countries."

Again, the data goes into an open global repository that DOES help the entire world. We will all learn from it. When our house is currently on fire, I think we should deal with that first.

It's also "yes, and". Gates Foundation (among others) is working on other areas of the world and has vastly more money.

What's bad about this idea? I'd like to know.

100% do things locally. If there is a food bank in your area, support it heavily. That's the absolute base of the hierarchy of needs. For example, in that blog post, expand the immediate donations. Note $100k to Alameda Food Bank, where my partner Betsy regularly volunteers.

"The whole reason he's a public figure is from his blog posts that include a bunch of deliberately placed attitude and bombast of the sort that turns a lot of people away but is selected for anyway because it gets just as many (or more) followers, and attention is only additive."

This is not a defensible statement *based on my writing*. Give it a shot, if you think you can pull it off. I'd like to see some real citations here rather than broad, unsupported generalizations.

Now try *that same statement against DHH's writing* -- what you said is exactly correct.

I suggest you look at closely at DHH for an example of what you're really talking about.

Thank you! We did it together. More news will be coming soon ;)

Thank you for the kind words! A project should never be about me, personally, anyhow -- it's always joint decisions between the team and the communities actually using the software. Please email me at [email protected] if you'd like to review a draft of an upcoming blog post I'm planning to make that relates to Discourse, but is far wider in scope.