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What we need is to begin working really hard on creating a new society. A society where every human life is priceless, where there is no space for "race" or "se

by 6d6b73 10y ago

What we need is to begin working really hard on creating a new society. A society where every human life is priceless, where there is no space for "race" or "sex" on the application because it's not needed.Where the environment is cared for and not exploited. Where science is respected and not just used to push someone's agenda. Where people are supported and helped whenever they need that help, but they also understand basics of being responsible for their own actions. While it seems impossible (and most likely it is), there is only one way to find out - try. I don't know about you, or anyone else here, but I bet there are thousands, if not millions of people here who don't give a ff about having the newest phone in their pocket, newest social app, etc. but would give all the time and money they have to create a better world if not for themselves - at least for their children. "How do you propose doing that?" most people will ask - a very good question with a very simple answer - I don't know, but I'm sure that it's not something that few like minded people could figure out. We would possibly fail, but so what? Either way, it seems like we're doomed, so we have nothing to lose.

LeifCarrotson 10y ago
I think you missed the thrust of TeMPOraL's request for high-impact projects. There's a spectrum of difficulties (or, alternatively, price) and of effectiveness: Very Easy/Cheap ^ | | Not | Highly <------------+---------------> Effective | Effective | | v Very Hard/Expensive Your suggestion is in the bottom right corner, requiring a complete rework of society. It makes sense to prioritize efforts in the top right corner - perhaps as adrianN suggested, contributing a change that will reduce power consumption of millions of servers. That is a lot more important than changing that light bulb in your closet to LED and saving a couple kW while the home stands, versus a small fraction of an industry that consumes gigawatts of power. Similarly, while we can hope for an immortality solution or cancer cure in the distant future, right now your dollars are a lot more effective at the Against Malaria Foundation.
- 6d6b73 10y ago
  I'm not sure it would require a complete rework of society, but of course large part of it would need to be redesigned. It would be not easy but it would definitely have a large impact, that's why I think it's worth it. And of course sooner we start replacing rotten foundations of our society with something better, the better. > [...] changing that light bulb in your closet to LED and saving a couple kW while the home stands, versus a small fraction of an industry that consumes gigawatts of power. Yes and now. By changing light bulb bazillion times, we were able to save gigawatts of power. It did require just a little bit of work and investment from everyone, but it was more attainable than building new ecologically sound power plants. If just 1mln bulbs were replaced, and each saved 50W /day - we were able to save 50GW of power each and every day. How much more work/money/politics would be required to save as much by building cleaner power plants? > right now your dollars are a lot more effective at the Against Malaria Foundation. That might be right, but we have enough resources, to tackle all of the important projects, however due to the way our society is structured we waste these resource on stupid, pointless stuff.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    > It did require just a little bit of work and investment from everyone The problem is, this work adds up superlinearly. The thing about humans is that coordination is hard. In order to change enough lightbulbs to have an impact on global energy use, you'd have to convince many millions of people to act against their personal, short-term, economic best interest (if it was already in their perceived interest, they'd change the bulbs by themselves). This is a kind of problem you can't really take on directly. An indirect approach would be to e.g. significantly reduce the cost and increase distribution of the better bulbs, leveraging technology and market economy to your advantage. This way the bulbs will start making economic sense, and people will switch by themselves. It's a difficult approach, but much less difficult than persuading people directly. But then again, you may discover that optimizing power usage in data centres can save as much power, but requires less work and less convincing than the lightbulbs scenario. It would be better to start from that. This is the kind of solutions we need to prioritize - low effort, high impact.
ivm 10y ago
> "How do you propose doing that?" most people will ask - a very good question with a very simple answer - I don't know, but I'm sure that it's not something that few like minded people could figure out. Non-profit non-government education programs. I'm designing one currently.
- 6d6b73 10y ago
  Any details? Need some help?
  - ivm 10y ago
    I will post to HN as soon as it's ready to get more people on board. Now it's just dozens of drafts, we will need ~2 years more to get it to MVP since it's not full-time currently. The main idea is to create a learning platform for 9-13yo kids, with high quality apps to learn English, basic coding, and (!!) life skills like personal finance, critical thinking, even using Google efficiently. Then you can just download and deploy it on RaspberryPi/OrangePi or old PCs in your country and distribute it to disadvantaged kids.

by 6d6b73 10y ago

LeifCarrotson 10y ago

I think you missed the thrust of TeMPOraL's request for high-impact projects. There's a spectrum of difficulties (or, alternatively, price) and of effectiveness: Very Easy/Cheap ^ | | Not | Highly <------------+---------------> Effective | Effective | | v Very Hard/Expensive Your suggestion is in the bottom right corner, requiring a complete rework of society. It makes sense to prioritize efforts in the top right corner - perhaps as adrianN suggested, contributing a change that will reduce power consumption of millions of servers. That is a lot more important than changing that light bulb in your closet to LED and saving a couple kW while the home stands, versus a small fraction of an industry that consumes gigawatts of power. Similarly, while we can hope for an immortality solution or cancer cure in the distant future, right now your dollars are a lot more effective at the Against Malaria Foundation.

6d6b73 10y ago
I'm not sure it would require a complete rework of society, but of course large part of it would need to be redesigned. It would be not easy but it would definitely have a large impact, that's why I think it's worth it. And of course sooner we start replacing rotten foundations of our society with something better, the better. > [...] changing that light bulb in your closet to LED and saving a couple kW while the home stands, versus a small fraction of an industry that consumes gigawatts of power. Yes and now. By changing light bulb bazillion times, we were able to save gigawatts of power. It did require just a little bit of work and investment from everyone, but it was more attainable than building new ecologically sound power plants. If just 1mln bulbs were replaced, and each saved 50W /day - we were able to save 50GW of power each and every day. How much more work/money/politics would be required to save as much by building cleaner power plants? > right now your dollars are a lot more effective at the Against Malaria Foundation. That might be right, but we have enough resources, to tackle all of the important projects, however due to the way our society is structured we waste these resource on stupid, pointless stuff.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  > It did require just a little bit of work and investment from everyone The problem is, this work adds up superlinearly. The thing about humans is that coordination is hard. In order to change enough lightbulbs to have an impact on global energy use, you'd have to convince many millions of people to act against their personal, short-term, economic best interest (if it was already in their perceived interest, they'd change the bulbs by themselves). This is a kind of problem you can't really take on directly. An indirect approach would be to e.g. significantly reduce the cost and increase distribution of the better bulbs, leveraging technology and market economy to your advantage. This way the bulbs will start making economic sense, and people will switch by themselves. It's a difficult approach, but much less difficult than persuading people directly. But then again, you may discover that optimizing power usage in data centres can save as much power, but requires less work and less convincing than the lightbulbs scenario. It would be better to start from that. This is the kind of solutions we need to prioritize - low effort, high impact.

ivm 10y ago

> "How do you propose doing that?" most people will ask - a very good question with a very simple answer - I don't know, but I'm sure that it's not something that few like minded people could figure out. Non-profit non-government education programs. I'm designing one currently.

6d6b73 10y ago
Any details? Need some help?
- ivm 10y ago
  I will post to HN as soon as it's ready to get more people on board. Now it's just dozens of drafts, we will need ~2 years more to get it to MVP since it's not full-time currently. The main idea is to create a learning platform for 9-13yo kids, with high quality apps to learn English, basic coding, and (!!) life skills like personal finance, critical thinking, even using Google efficiently. Then you can just download and deploy it on RaspberryPi/OrangePi or old PCs in your country and distribute it to disadvantaged kids.