> Are we litigating modern capitalism through the lens of a tiny SF tech healthcare charity?
The author completely failed to do any real scrutiny here. Neocolonialism isn't about how awkward one westerner feels looking at pictures of others. Nothing was included about western Capital purchasing labor and resource rights from these countries, which could frame the need for the service in the first place. Namechecked indeed.
However, the rhetoric around start-ups places them as the fixers, leaders and disruptors of the economic order. Those claims invite and deserve critical analysis. It wouldn't be fair to have Watsi be a punching bag stand-in for the Dutch East India Company, but let's please not pretend that Watsi somehow stands outside of the economic order or that we shouldn't be skeptical of claims of disruption.
Tech industry solutionism (to ruefully borrow a term from Evgeny Morozov) concerns me too, but it's a problem when it attaches itself to public policy decision-making, not when it attaches itself to charity.
The author completely failed to do any real scrutiny here. Neocolonialism isn't about how awkward one westerner feels looking at pictures of others. Nothing was included about western Capital purchasing labor and resource rights from these countries, which could frame the need for the service in the first place. Namechecked indeed.
However, the rhetoric around start-ups places them as the fixers, leaders and disruptors of the economic order. Those claims invite and deserve critical analysis. It wouldn't be fair to have Watsi be a punching bag stand-in for the Dutch East India Company, but let's please not pretend that Watsi somehow stands outside of the economic order or that we shouldn't be skeptical of claims of disruption.