If you don’t know, in addition to being a huge nerdfighter, I’ve slowly also been becoming involved with the IPower community. They have a great forum and recently, user Kubuguy wrote this about the Uncultured Project.
Just to be clear – he isn’t being a troll or a hater. This is his sincere and honest assessment of the Uncultured Project and it’s been a great launching point of debate over at IPower. I’m posting this here because I’m sure this might strike a chord with at least a few:
So I was watching this Shawn doing all these awesome things and I admire him for that but then I realized … what he is doing is totally useless. It isn’t going to change a thing!
I read this under the Uncultured section:
“With no formal plan, training, experience, or real budget, Shawn has been helping combat malaria through bed net distributions, providing disaster relief after Cyclone Sidr and monsoon flooded, and has helped rural families and children through scholarships, school supplies, and even materials for home reconstruction.”
So he is giving them all kinds of things. “Things” being the key word, what when (not if) they brake, when the water is drunk, nets become torn and notepads for children are left with no more blank pages? Is he going to supply them with more for his whole life? What he is doing is conditioning them that they’re at mercy of others, other wealthy nations. That’s plain wrong. And quite frankly I was disgusted when he rolled out the US flag. It’s a symbol of suppression [sic] all over the world. But that aside, while I’m sure he doesn’t realize that and has only good intentions at heart, it’s very brave and awesome what he decided to do but useless nonetheless. This is what he and others inspired by him should realize and try to offer real solutions instead.
As the saying goes, give man a fish you feed him for a day, learn him how to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime. What these people need to do is to start their own “businesses”, to grow their own food, to take back their natural resources, to get rid of the greedy foreign corporations and their corrupt governments. These people are not lazy, they’re not stupid, they can perfectly take care of themselves you just need to show them HOW. It’s not that these people can not develop, they’re not ALLOWED to develop. That’s the key, you achieve absolutely nothing by giving them “aid”. There are how many millions of them? How many mosquito nets he gave them? I mean … just think about it.
These are valid thoughts. Come back tomorrow for my response. Or, head over the IPower and find my response already in the forums 
I think regardless of what people say about long term impact, helping those in need now and with the capabilities at our fingertips is by far one of the best things we can do. We are supposed to give when others are in need, and by politicking the process, we throw sand into the gears of something that does far more good than it ever does any bad.
We are called to give as we see fit, and I see the Uncultured project as an amazing resource for us to reach those that are in need.
he had a few good points tho
mainly the education part
he used this cynicism as a reverse psychology…
let people understand that they shud do more than just providing aid… theres a bigger picture to this
He’s right but i feel he’s a bit too idealistic. I believe more in teaching a man to fish rather than to give him the “fish”. But this would mean that the former endeavor would be bigger and therefore require more planning and resources(that’s wat i think anyway). This means that we’ll probably need someone upstairs to help us out(politicians, big corporations). At the end of the day? Chicken and egg story, which comes first?
I say s***w the chickens and their eggs, and do what we can in the field; and then only consider a much larger operation like teaching the man to fish should the opportunity arise.
P.S. You’ve got something here shawn, what you’re doing is awesome!Not everyone would have gone to such lengths and made that much of a difference! Great work!
The bigger projects are important, but they take time. What do people do in the meantime? That’s where charitable organizations come in. So the criticism is a bit over the top. Great job, Shawn. Your work is noble.