In technology, we spend so much time experimenting, fine-tuning, getting the absolute cheapest way to do something - so why aren't we doing that with social policy?
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the need to apply the same innovative and cost-effective strategies used in technology to the development of social policies.
Esther Duflo highlights a critical observation that while technology thrives on experimentation and optimization to reduce costs and improve efficiency, similar methodologies are often lacking in the realm of social policy. She advocates for a more scientific approach to addressing social issues, encouraging policymakers to adopt rigorous experimentation and fine-tuning to enhance the effectiveness and accessibility of social programs.
In practice
In a speech addressing future innovations in welfare systems.
And there is a lot of idiosyncrasy. But there are also regularities and phenomena. And what the data is going to be able to do - if there's enough of it - is uncover, in the mess and the noise of the world, some lines of music that actually have harmony. It's there, somewhere.
The poor get bored the same as the rest of us. Their happiness might be as important to them as their health.
For millions of girls around the world, motherhood comes too early. Those who bear children as adolescents suffer higher maternal mortality and morbidity rates, and their children are more likely to die in infancy.
Part of me always wanted to do something useful for the world. It came from my mother. She is a paediatrician and she was active in a small NGO for the child victims of war.
It's amazing how quickly people on the internet can pick something up, but it's also amazing how quickly they can drop it.
We curate our lives around this perceived sense of perfection, because we get rewarded in these short term signals: Hearts, likes, thumbs up. We conflate that with value, and we conflate it with truth, and instead, what it really is is fake, brittle popularity that's short term and leaves you even more vacant and empty before you did it.
The only way to make software secure, reliable, and fast is to make it small.
I get hired by companies to hack into their systems and break into their physical facilities to find security holes. Our success rate is 100%; we've always found a hole.
To be a programmer is to develop a carefully managed relationship with error. There's no getting around it. You either make your accommodations with failure, or the work will become intolerable.
I should be able to pick which applications I use for managing my life, I should be able to pick which content I look at, and I should be able to pick which device I use, which company I use for supplying my internet, and I'd like those to be independent choices.
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