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Agreed on all points. But my post was really intended to ask people for smaller scale ideas than "fix entire health care system" which seems nearly unachievable

Agreed on all points. But my post was really intended to ask people for smaller scale ideas than "fix entire health care system" which seems nearly unachievable, and larger ideas than "donate what you can when you hear from someone in need". Is there nothing between the two extremes?

Mz 9y ago
There are likely other things that can be done. My understanding is that some sports leagues require a certain amount of financial education because they pay a LOT, careers tend to be short and players tend to make a lot less after their sports career ends. So when young players just piss it all away and live large, it is often a lost one time opportunity. Trying to do more financial education for hackers would not be a bad idea. Improving monetization for open source would address one element of your question. There are probably a lot of things that can be done, but they aren't likely to happen due to one question being posted to HN. Are you planning to put your back into it and run with it if given a good idea? Or are you hoping that someone else will. I have done tons of volunteer work and voluntary projects to further things I believe in for quite a lot of years. It has put damn little money in my pocket and I get no real respect. I am currently desperately poor and no one cares. For me, $20k-$30k would be life changing. Most hackers don't even want to white list my sites on ad blocker nor leave a tip. They don't want to promote my work and they accuse me of pan handling the internet when I even try to talk about the serious challenges faced by content providers who want to do something good and also somehow make money. And the point of that is that I know first hand how hard it is to accomplish anything good in this world and how hard it is to get money to do good. How committed are you to making something happen here? Because most likely it won't change unless one person or a small group of people decide to seriously commit to finding solutions and making something happen. You are probably talking about effort comparable to a start up, but with probably zero hope of a big cash out down the road. Only fools or people like me who cannot readily walk away from the need for change bother to do something like that.
- aeontech 9y ago
  > Are you planning to put your back into it and run with it if given a good idea? Or are you hoping that someone else will. I am not in position to put my back into it as a founder - with one day job, and a major side project already I am running pretty thin. It's just really sad when I think about the situation (and of course, hackers are not the only people in this situation, it affects the entire society), but the best I was hoping for was was to prompt some discussion. Of course if this thread would grab the eye of someone with unlimited resources who decided this would be a worthy cause to take up, that would be an extra special bonus, but I doubt that would happen. > Most hackers don't even want to white list my sites on ad blocker nor leave a tip. Do you have a patreon maybe? I'd leave a tip - not much, but a few bucks from a few hundred people per month would still add up to something. That doesn't solve the systemic problems though. I'm heartened when I hear about the single payer system California just passed, but not really sure how that's going to work out yet... hoping for the best, at least it's a start...
  - Mz 9y ago
    Yes, I do have a Patreon, which I completely suck at promoting: https://www.patreon.com/MicheleinCalifornia https://www.patreon.com/MicheleinCalifornia I also have tip jars on multiple sites: http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/p/my-sites.html http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/p/my-sites.html And I hope you don't think I was trying to be snarky or shoot you down for asking. That wasn't my intent. I have spent a lot of years studying such problem spaces and I was just trying to delineate some of the issues you face when you are trying to solve anything in earnest.
    - aeontech 9y ago
      Well, I joined your Patreon. You should add it to your HN profile page too, it wasn't there when I looked.
      - Mz 9y ago
        Thank you. Will do.

Mz 9y ago

There are likely other things that can be done. My understanding is that some sports leagues require a certain amount of financial education because they pay a LOT, careers tend to be short and players tend to make a lot less after their sports career ends. So when young players just piss it all away and live large, it is often a lost one time opportunity. Trying to do more financial education for hackers would not be a bad idea. Improving monetization for open source would address one element of your question. There are probably a lot of things that can be done, but they aren't likely to happen due to one question being posted to HN. Are you planning to put your back into it and run with it if given a good idea? Or are you hoping that someone else will. I have done tons of volunteer work and voluntary projects to further things I believe in for quite a lot of years. It has put damn little money in my pocket and I get no real respect. I am currently desperately poor and no one cares. For me, $20k-$30k would be life changing. Most hackers don't even want to white list my sites on ad blocker nor leave a tip. They don't want to promote my work and they accuse me of pan handling the internet when I even try to talk about the serious challenges faced by content providers who want to do something good and also somehow make money. And the point of that is that I know first hand how hard it is to accomplish anything good in this world and how hard it is to get money to do good. How committed are you to making something happen here? Because most likely it won't change unless one person or a small group of people decide to seriously commit to finding solutions and making something happen. You are probably talking about effort comparable to a start up, but with probably zero hope of a big cash out down the road. Only fools or people like me who cannot readily walk away from the need for change bother to do something like that.

aeontech 9y ago
> Are you planning to put your back into it and run with it if given a good idea? Or are you hoping that someone else will. I am not in position to put my back into it as a founder - with one day job, and a major side project already I am running pretty thin. It's just really sad when I think about the situation (and of course, hackers are not the only people in this situation, it affects the entire society), but the best I was hoping for was was to prompt some discussion. Of course if this thread would grab the eye of someone with unlimited resources who decided this would be a worthy cause to take up, that would be an extra special bonus, but I doubt that would happen. > Most hackers don't even want to white list my sites on ad blocker nor leave a tip. Do you have a patreon maybe? I'd leave a tip - not much, but a few bucks from a few hundred people per month would still add up to something. That doesn't solve the systemic problems though. I'm heartened when I hear about the single payer system California just passed, but not really sure how that's going to work out yet... hoping for the best, at least it's a start...
- Mz 9y ago
  Yes, I do have a Patreon, which I completely suck at promoting: https://www.patreon.com/MicheleinCalifornia https://www.patreon.com/MicheleinCalifornia I also have tip jars on multiple sites: http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/p/my-sites.html http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/p/my-sites.html And I hope you don't think I was trying to be snarky or shoot you down for asking. That wasn't my intent. I have spent a lot of years studying such problem spaces and I was just trying to delineate some of the issues you face when you are trying to solve anything in earnest.
  - aeontech 9y ago
    Well, I joined your Patreon. You should add it to your HN profile page too, it wasn't there when I looked.
    - Mz 9y ago
      Thank you. Will do.