My co-alumni and frequent social media user Zhe Yu Lee (https://www.facebook.com/zheyu.lee?fref=nf) has posted a very interesting article/essay/opinion piece from Al Jazeera (still one of the most interesting news and opinion sites out there) entitled Exposing the great 'poverty reduction' lie (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/08/exposing-great-poverty-reductio-201481211590729809.html) written by Jason Hickel (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/profile/jason-hickel.html). (Apologies for font and size issues, this is still a new endeavor for me and I wanted to get this stuff down before tech issues overwhelmed me). Hickel's piece is incisive, factual, and damning of the BINGO and UN score keeping shenanigans that continue to serve those giving aid rather than those needing it. But what I really liked about the piece is that it reminded me that many metrics of development, poverty, aid, etc. are arbitrary, and beyond that, serve the interests of donors. I was also reminded how difficult it was for me to internalize 'happiness' metrics over consumption metrics as measures of development and well-being. But it is truly a marker of how blind our big brains can make us that I could not then, and have only recently begun to recognize, that development and its quantitative measures fall way short of human desires and needs. Zoh Laguna community members in southeastern Mexico measured happiness in family, health, and well-being. Material goods were appreciated but peripheral for most to personal achievement. It may be our burden to come up with mobile, and meaningful development measures to avoid arithmetic critiques of the UN in the future.
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