Try living for a week on $2 a day.

Comment by John D. Boyden on March 19, 2010 at 4:40pm

+1 local insight. Understanding is vital. The technique of innovating can be mastered only in that you create a mindset that is opportunistic, open to possibility and an ability to see both what is there and what could be there that is better.

Comment by Brian Ballsun-Stanton on March 20, 2010 at 2:14am

Live for a week /where/ at $2 a day? What does this factor in? Whose $2?

Comment by Turil Cronburg on March 20, 2010 at 3:11am

This is pretty easy when you have plenty of money in the previous and post weeks. But I imagine that even the exercise of not spending any money for a week would be useful to most folks.

I've lived in the Boston area for less than $700 a year (which is less than $2 a day), though that doesn't include some money for food (I get $200 a month for food), but that $700 does include housing, which I get from some friends who can use my help out around the house and with their twin preschool kids.

In general, learning how to get your needs met without money is a fantastic idea, and I encourage people to work in their communities to make the basic needs for health something that everyone has access to, unconditionally.

Comment by Per Jonsson on March 20, 2010 at 8:39am

What you have to understand about what I was talking about is that I don't actually think people should try living for $2 a day. But rather to experience the problem for your self. So if you wanted to solve the problem with homeless people in New York than living for $2 a day might be a good idea. But if you want to solve the energy crisis, well then you should do something along the lines of living where people don't have energy, etc.

Comment by Turil Cronburg on March 20, 2010 at 11:14am

Indeed, I would hope that really understanding a problem from first hand experience is an obvious ideal to most folks, which is why it's always so much better to let the decisions about how problems should be solved be made by those who are most effected by the problems, and not by some distant authority or even a friendly non-profit. So much is wasted by throwing random resources at problems without really thinking about how effective the resources are being. For example, most homeless people are directly harmed by homeless shelters, yet the government and non-profits continue to pump vast amounts of resources into the shelters, and actively discourages dialogue and brainstorming and information sessions with the homeless and the systems set up to "help" them. Thus exacerbating the problem drastically, rather than solving it!

Comment by Turil Cronburg on March 20, 2010 at 11:18am

Another way to say it is: Solve your own problems first, and stay out of other people's problems, unless they ask for help (and then let decide what they need). :-)

Comment by Jan Lampe on March 20, 2010 at 12:00pm

if you do not count my rent and electricity as well as books and tuition fees etc, i as a college student live off 2 dollars a day (or maybe euros), but i am actually quite well off with that.

but still, 2 dollars a day sounds like an arbitrary number to me, because well, purchasing power parity might or might not apply, but i would say a homeless man in new york is worse off with 2 dollars a day than someone in bangkok on the same allowance.

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