Some other examples of stuff that seem to benefit a lot from local knowledge:
1. Source control of epidemics/pandemics. A DRC native is presumably much better equipped to understand and deal with the 2020 Ebola outbreak than I am.
3. Improving Institutional decision-making in the “laboratories of democracy” sense. I think part of the value is the direct impact of reducing corruption, etc, but a lot of it is having sufficient experimentation with local politics and then being able to copy over the lessons to other larger, more influential, governments. For example, you can imagine that if Europe’s GDPR or Brazil’s LGPD are good ideas, other countries will copy the better ones over. Similar stories may be true for micro-experiments in congestion pricing or pandemic preparedness. That said, the Western world’s bizarre unwillingness to listen to East Asia about the current pandemic undercuts my point a lot.
4. Local animal activism. I think (medium-low confidence) there are a lot of optics and logistical issues with outsiders being overly “pushy” about animal activism, and it’s usually better for such things to arise mostly organically from within.
Some other examples of stuff that seem to benefit a lot from local knowledge:
1. Source control of epidemics/pandemics. A DRC native is presumably much better equipped to understand and deal with the 2020 Ebola outbreak than I am.
2. Wars, especially local wars, H/T brb243
3. Improving Institutional decision-making in the “laboratories of democracy” sense. I think part of the value is the direct impact of reducing corruption, etc, but a lot of it is having sufficient experimentation with local politics and then being able to copy over the lessons to other larger, more influential, governments. For example, you can imagine that if Europe’s GDPR or Brazil’s LGPD are good ideas, other countries will copy the better ones over. Similar stories may be true for micro-experiments in congestion pricing or pandemic preparedness. That said, the Western world’s bizarre unwillingness to listen to East Asia about the current pandemic undercuts my point a lot.
4. Local animal activism. I think (medium-low confidence) there are a lot of optics and logistical issues with outsiders being overly “pushy” about animal activism, and it’s usually better for such things to arise mostly organically from within.
Thanks Linch, these are very good points (I´m particularly interested in number 3, I never thought of it that way, but I agree).
Thanks a lot!