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It's sad how many apps are being written lately by "innovators" and "entrepreneurs" to try and monetize already existing free services that function perfectly.

It's sad how many apps are being written lately by "innovators" and "entrepreneurs" to try and monetize already existing free services that function perfectly. Where are the real innovators and scientists who will tackle the biggest threat humanity has ever faced? Is it only Musk and Cook and Bezos amongst us? We need to stop writing apps to monetize what is already provided to consumers as free services and focus on the big issues of today. We should use technology to solve the biggest problems. Our talent to code and design systems should be used in ways that move society further towards sustainability. Climate change could ruin everything we have ever built. Everything we ever do in our lives including our families could fade forever if we don't act swiftly.

scarmig 11y ago
I can't tell what you mean by your reference to Musk, but if you're criticizing him for this in particular, you're pretty off base. He's (successfully) innovating in a broken system, and what he's doing will benefit any future evolutions of our current system. Or is it that there aren't enough Musks? If so, sure, but there are plenty of really smart, really hardworking engineers helping implement his vision.
AznHisoka 11y ago
So you're asking people to stop wanting money? The people who want to solve life threatening problems will do so and the people who want to make "trivial" apps to make lots of money will do so. Asking us to just do the former is pointless. Also what about people who aren't entrepreneurs and work at industries like finance, law, and first country problems? Shouldn't they be held under the same scrutiny? What's so special about tech entrepreneurs that they'll should be more responsible? Knowing how to code Ruby and deploy in Docker is not the same skill set needed to come up with climate change solutions.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- adventured 11y ago
  You make an extremely good point. I had not considered that every time a person complains about duplication of apps, or developers that make trivial apps for money (instead of 'changing the world'), the same standard should be applied to the tens of millions of service and industrial jobs that are mostly clones of each other and could be considered trivial by the same standard. For example: we really need to do something about all of these people working at Costco, trying to make their car and rent payments. It's ridiculous, the duplication of labor going on, where people aren't doing anything original. That would be considered a cruel, borderline malevolent statement. And following through on it would result in a hundred million people being unemployed. Somehow the standard changes when a person is mostly seeking to earn a living off of an app however.
  - blondie9x 11y ago
    I'm saying when apps are written to duplicate what is already free. The comparison to laborers is fallacious. I'm referring to innovators in computer science who say they innovate when they simply recreate. It's a waste of efforts
  - losteric 11y ago
    Are you proposing that we should intentionally keep around duplicate labor? Duplication of work is a cardinal sin of technology and automation. Millions of jobs have already been destroyed by software, and the rate of obsoletion is only growing. A few thousand LoC and a couple racks of hardware can destroy tens of thousands of jobs. That's why software companies are highly valued. Aggregated across the entire industry and we've replaced millions of jobs already... Hopefully we'll see that number hit tens of millions within a couple decades. Apps... most apps are frivolous, bordering toys. They add value like a hot dog vendor adds value to a baseball game. Why would app creators be treated any differently?
- zeemonkee3 11y ago
  The problem is to get started we need more scientists. And academia and education right now right now is so horribly broken with perverse anti-incentives that no young person in their right mind will want to pursue a career in research - they'll go code Ruby instead because they have loans to pay and want a roof over their head. We also want more engineers and other specialists in government - but decades of bureaucratic creep and managerialism on the one hand and neoliberal-driven cost cutting and privatisation on the other have made government, like academia, very unattractive to young smart people. So it's not a question of people already in finance, law or tech startups switching over to fighting climate change - as you said, they aren't in the same skill set. We need to train the next generation to fight climate change across a number of fronts - climate study, geoengineering, energy, transport, flood defense, food production and so on. And right now all the incentives are pushing that generation in entirely the wrong direction.
codecamper 11y ago
There is some innovation that can be done. But 1.0 is ready to ship! We want to solve this problem using the waterfall method, but let's just do it with scrum / MVP / agile / GTD. Ship those panels now. Get the Army and national reserve to install them. Anyone that has been unemployed too long, can start installing panels. Innovation could come around offshore panel farms, v2g, battery improvements.

scarmig 11y ago

I can't tell what you mean by your reference to Musk, but if you're criticizing him for this in particular, you're pretty off base. He's (successfully) innovating in a broken system, and what he's doing will benefit any future evolutions of our current system. Or is it that there aren't enough Musks? If so, sure, but there are plenty of really smart, really hardworking engineers helping implement his vision.

AznHisoka 11y ago

So you're asking people to stop wanting money? The people who want to solve life threatening problems will do so and the people who want to make "trivial" apps to make lots of money will do so. Asking us to just do the former is pointless. Also what about people who aren't entrepreneurs and work at industries like finance, law, and first country problems? Shouldn't they be held under the same scrutiny? What's so special about tech entrepreneurs that they'll should be more responsible? Knowing how to code Ruby and deploy in Docker is not the same skill set needed to come up with climate change solutions.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
adventured 11y ago
You make an extremely good point. I had not considered that every time a person complains about duplication of apps, or developers that make trivial apps for money (instead of 'changing the world'), the same standard should be applied to the tens of millions of service and industrial jobs that are mostly clones of each other and could be considered trivial by the same standard. For example: we really need to do something about all of these people working at Costco, trying to make their car and rent payments. It's ridiculous, the duplication of labor going on, where people aren't doing anything original. That would be considered a cruel, borderline malevolent statement. And following through on it would result in a hundred million people being unemployed. Somehow the standard changes when a person is mostly seeking to earn a living off of an app however.
- blondie9x 11y ago
  I'm saying when apps are written to duplicate what is already free. The comparison to laborers is fallacious. I'm referring to innovators in computer science who say they innovate when they simply recreate. It's a waste of efforts
- losteric 11y ago
  Are you proposing that we should intentionally keep around duplicate labor? Duplication of work is a cardinal sin of technology and automation. Millions of jobs have already been destroyed by software, and the rate of obsoletion is only growing. A few thousand LoC and a couple racks of hardware can destroy tens of thousands of jobs. That's why software companies are highly valued. Aggregated across the entire industry and we've replaced millions of jobs already... Hopefully we'll see that number hit tens of millions within a couple decades. Apps... most apps are frivolous, bordering toys. They add value like a hot dog vendor adds value to a baseball game. Why would app creators be treated any differently?
zeemonkee3 11y ago
The problem is to get started we need more scientists. And academia and education right now right now is so horribly broken with perverse anti-incentives that no young person in their right mind will want to pursue a career in research - they'll go code Ruby instead because they have loans to pay and want a roof over their head. We also want more engineers and other specialists in government - but decades of bureaucratic creep and managerialism on the one hand and neoliberal-driven cost cutting and privatisation on the other have made government, like academia, very unattractive to young smart people. So it's not a question of people already in finance, law or tech startups switching over to fighting climate change - as you said, they aren't in the same skill set. We need to train the next generation to fight climate change across a number of fronts - climate study, geoengineering, energy, transport, flood defense, food production and so on. And right now all the incentives are pushing that generation in entirely the wrong direction.

codecamper 11y ago

There is some innovation that can be done. But 1.0 is ready to ship! We want to solve this problem using the waterfall method, but let's just do it with scrum / MVP / agile / GTD. Ship those panels now. Get the Army and national reserve to install them. Anyone that has been unemployed too long, can start installing panels. Innovation could come around offshore panel farms, v2g, battery improvements.