17 ms·

On Saving the World and Other Delusions

104 points by proveanegative 12y ago

comrade1 12y ago
But you can work in this industry and do good in the world. You may not make as much or have a big payout though. I originally focused my career on healthcare and first wrote software used by biotech/pharma companies to support their communications with doctors. Then I focused on privacy issues and worked for PGP. I then went 180 degrees may have added some evil to the world and worked on NSA/military projects for awhile (only defensive projects though). I'm now back to a public health focus to make up for it. It's kind of depressing work. I write software used by crisis call centers, suicide hotlines, 211 call centers, etc. and when I log into the server and watch the messages passing through the system in realtime I see people being talked out of suicide, children talking about being bullied, lots of pregnant single mothers looking for shelter... One of the most depressing for me though was a guy looking for replacement glasses since his broke and he couldn't afford a new pair. We're a barebones operation (just three of us) and we don't make a ton of money - most of our customers are non-profits. We'll never have a big payout, or a big exit. And being closer to the problems in society is a little depressing, to see how a large number of people really live. I can see how people delude themselves into thinking "Making the world a better place, through minimal message oriented transport layers" is a real thing.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  > We're a barebones operation (just three of us) and we don't make a ton of money - most of our customers are non-profits. We'll never have a big payout, or a big exit. And being closer to the problems in society is a little depressing, to see how a large number of people really live. I can see how people delude themselves into thinking "Making the world a better place, through minimal message oriented transport layers" is a real thing. If you ever need infrastructure/devops help, or even someone just to help with the little tasks you don't have time for, more than willing to help.
  - davis4459 12y ago
    I hope you might be willing to give me some advice. I read your comments on the Aereo SC decision and was intrigued with the prospects of providing content to my 67 apartment tenants in a small town in North Carolina. I would like to market the apartments as having free access to 100Mbps internet and free access to any movie, TV show, etc available on the internet. ... Or, something like that. Imagine a server in the clubhouse as a gigantic time shifting gadget. I'd raise the rent, of course, the same for all units. I am considering a dedicated fiber link to the backbone (2000ft) and wiring every unit with fiber as well. Thoughts?
    - toomuchtodo 12y ago
      What's the best way to get in touch? More than happy to share whatever I can on the subject.
te_platt 12y ago
What I got from the article: "Save the world" = really, really hard. "Improve the world" = challenging, but doable. It seems like I have my "save the world" visions as I'm getting ready for bed and trying tho think through what I can do the next day. In the morning it seems hard enough to do mundane chores let alone get everything set up to save the world. I think my most productive times are when I've found something tangible I can make better and work through it in small steps.
vezzy-fnord 12y ago
This is a neoreaction blog. Before anyone else feels the need to point that out. With that said, I think there's two major reasons for bold "save the world" visions expressed by startups to lack viability. The first is that the symbiosis between startups and venture capital creates a cycle where the most successful players are inevitably end user-facing services optimized for rapid growth. There are a ton of problems whose solutions do not find under this model. In fact, being too big of a visionary is usually considered a negative: it likely means you have no product-market fit. The incentive henceforth becomes to achieve a maximum market valuation and preferably a low fair value (less effort in creation, ops and maintenance). The second is what jerf terms the "BOAC fallacy" (http://www.jerf.org/iri/post/2916 http://www.jerf.org/iri/post/2916). Lots of programmers seem to have this odd magical thinking that they can trivially obsolete industries and professions by just applying statistical learning over some data sets, or by writing what amounts to a spreadsheet... except marketed and branded towards a given field. Doesn't change the fact that it's just a spreadsheet application, and that there are other intricacies that naturally impede automation of a certain area which you haven't accounted for.
- dash2 12y ago
  Apologies but what is neoreaction?
  - mindcrash 12y ago
    "The neoreactionary movement (a.k.a. neoreaction, NRx, the Dark Enlightenment, the alt-right movement) is a loosely-defined cluster of Internet-based political thinkers who wish to return human society to forms of government older than liberal democracy" http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement
    - dash2 12y ago
      Thank you!
  - takasc2 12y ago
    A faction of intellectual or pseudointellectual bloggers (depending on your opinion) - it is probably easier to say what they are against progressive politics and modernity, than what they are for - but at times they have openly or covertly advocated wanting to do some/all of bring back monarchy, return to traditional gender roles, abolish the distinction between church and state, isolationist foreign policies, racial segregation or "scientific racism" and so on. So, its pretty easy to see why they are quite controversial.
Jimmy 12y ago
This really resonates with me. On the one hand, you have the desire for greatness and importance, and on the other, the sobering realization that unless you do something completely absurd - inventing free energy, for instance, or getting us into contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence - your work can only have an impact on a limited number of people, and will almost certainly be unknown to the vast majority of humans. I look to the great minds of history, people like Aristotle, Newton, and Nietzsche, as role models and examples of who I want to be like, but then I remember that even for them, the majority of people on earth don't know their names. To say nothing of actually being acquainted with their work. Perhaps a good compromise is that, while you might not be able to impact everyone alive, present and future, you might be able to impact all people who share some property X. Most people don't know who Gauss is, but everyone who is a part of the mathematical community and studies mathematics to a certain level knows who Gauss is. In that way, some kind of enduring immortality and greatness can still be achieved.
- wavefunction 12y ago
  They pursued The Work, whatever that might have been for each individual, not because being known to many humans was important. Let go of your Ego and your works will flourish and spread even a bit more light in the world.
DennisP 12y ago
I have to admit my own goals are absurdly ambitious, but those are the ones that excite me so I'm sticking with it. Right now I'm reading Bold, the new book by Peter Diamandis, who has pretty much the opposite opinion of this article. One thing he points out is that if you start with an absurdly ambitious goal, then even if you only accomplish a small portion of it, you're still really successful.
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  > I have to admit my own goals are absurdly ambitious, but those are the ones that excite me so I'm sticking with it. Nu, so what are they?
  - DennisP 12y ago
    Right now I'm trying to build something kinda like Ted Nelson's Xanadu. There are lots of degrees of success on this one...anything from a useful tool for an individual, to a system for workgroups, to a global network that makes much of the web obsolete. I hope to bootstrap by making something that works at all these levels. I'm also designing a cryptocurrency system that I think could make a dent in global warming. If the Ethereum project succeeds, it'll be a lot easier to implement that one. Last year I did some volunteer fundraising for a small team attempting to invent cheap practical fusion power. Also I've got some less-ambitious projects that I hope will help make a little money along the way.
- quonn 12y ago
  > then even if you only accomplish a small portion of it, you're still really successful Or you burn out, get depressed and become much less successful and effective than you could be.
  - ZenoArrow 12y ago
    > "Or you burn out, get depressed and become much less successful and effective than you could be." Only if you base your self worth on what you accomplish (which some people undoubtedtly do). Those who accept their inherent worth wouldn't be affected. I admit it's easier said than done sometimes.
DodgyEggplant 12y ago
Well, two comments: First, it's hard, but never before a single person or small company could at least technically reach millions of people with feasible investment. Now you can. Second, by the time people who do paper work got to position that can make change, many already confirmed to their system bureaucracy and traditional point of view and interests. You need the people who don't take that way.
skybrian 12y ago
There is an individualistic notion here that you, personally, need to be the leader of a project to change the world. Or if not the leader, one of the founders. Perhaps that's inherent in founding a startup. There are not many people involved, so if it's going to succeed, it's up to you. (Sort of. It's also up to your customers.) But I think a lot of people would be just as happy working on a project along with many others to change the world, provided that they have confidence that it's a just cause, has a good chance of succeeding, and they're treated reasonably fairly. When these preconditions align (in perception if not in reality) you can get something big.
- wavefunction 12y ago
  One of the often-overlooked opportunities to change the world is to empower others to change the world in their own small ways, to lift them up and open their eyes to the possibility of their own capabilities, and build and provide them the tools to succeed in their own missions of good.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Could you recommend historical exemplars of this philosophy?
    - wavefunction 12y ago
      That's really just my own take rather than a formal philosophy, but I think it's at the essence of the leadership offered by history's "liberation" teachers for example. The following is my interpretation: I think individual humans are often fearful about reality which is often outside of our control and goes against what we would prefer to happen. This fear generally expresses itself as individual reserve, which means that even if there is a negative issue in our vicinity, we would rather accept its negative effects then proactively attempt to change it, even if changing the negative issue is within our capability. I think the power of a true liberation teacher (Mandela, MLK Jr., Ghandi, Whitman, Tolstoy, Mohammad, Jesus, Mani, the gautama or whoever you might include in that list that is incomplete) is that they show us that we can travel beyond our fear to improve the world. It's not so much that Ghandi, for example, stood up to the British Empire all by himself, but that he showed his countrymen that they could stand up as well. At a more personal level, consider the teachers and mentors who've helped you and pushed you forward beyond where you thought you could go. They didn't take your math test for you, but expanded your own ability to see success perhaps. They didn't give you that great creative idea, but they supported it or helped you refine it by probing its weaknesses. In addition, we're the product of all the people making incremental improvements and negative effects who have come before us, so no amazing success is the product of a complete vacuum. It's our duty as beneficiaries of that positive balance of improvements versus decrements to at least improve the environment for further improvements in the world's situation despite costs to ourselves. I dunno, that's just my long-winded idea of how we may not be able to do some crazy ground-breaking accomplishment or develop a paradigm-shifting idea ourself, but we can lay the groundwork through our fellow man so that they might themselves. Just a thought...
kylehotchkiss 12y ago
I think it's good people have an honest desire to make the world a better place. But it's not always going to be the responbility of your specific app or business to do just that. Bringing internet to people who can't even get water without a trek to a well isn't best place to start sometimes, internet will be needed eventually, but basic needs are needed first. There are many, many, many great NGOs that you can donate to and make a huge impact. I was just looking at UNHCR the other day, and they have some really important projects going on in a world where some 30 million people are displaced. If you have kids, you have people who you can spend each and every day investing in and you'll likely get to see that impact firsthand, and lead them in the right direction for many years to come, and I think that's really just awesome. And if you're reading this, you probably went through the challenges of learning to code, and think of how you can improve the lives of your friends who will put the work forth to honestly learn - now they have a desireable skill and can find a job and poteintally take better care of their families as well. I'd call both of those changing your world!
- rwallace 12y ago
  With regard to your first paragraph, it's often the other way around; trying to cater to people's material needs from several thousand miles away through multiple layers of agency problems often ends up doing more harm than good, distorting local economies, encouraging corruption and undermining the efforts of developing countries to build a stable society. If people have literacy and Internet access, they have access to all the world's knowledge and a better chance of helping themselves; if you would send gifts, send those. I agree entirely with your second paragraph, however.
dash2 12y ago
As he suggests, it is helpful to have life goals that are more modest than saving the world, but more idealist than just making money. Here's a not bad measure of life success: after you retire, how many Christmas cards will you get each year?
harigov 12y ago
This article resonates with me. I find myself very often in this situation of trying to find meaning in what I do. When you tie this to evolution and what more or less appears to be biological machines trying to eek out some meaning in otherwise meaningless life, nothing seems to make sense any more. What's the point of anything at all? We try so hard to reason and find it hard when we reach the boundaries of reasoning and enter the domain of faith and beliefs, but choose to ignore them because they aren't scientific enough. I believe a much simpler notion is to treat yourself as an artist or an entertainer and look at your work as a means of enriching someone's life - not because of its utility or function or what not but just because its beautiful and brings out joy to people in your world, however small the number might be. We keep thinking about the whole world and forget about our own small world, when in reality, it's our small world that gives us all of our joy and happiness.
- user7923489 12y ago
  Wait. To our best knowledge we don't know whether there is a meaning of life, right? And it would be irrational to act based on a conjectured purpose if there isn't solid evidence for it. So even if we will burn in hell if we don't destroy ourselves, there is no solid evidence for that, so it would be irrational to do so. The best way of proceeding is then to keep our options open as long as possible. Our quasi-purpose is to find out whether there is a purpose in the first place.
  - poopsmithe 12y ago
    Why look for a meaning when you can make your own?
    - rokhayakebe 12y ago
      That is what I think. Everything is free will. From the first particle which decided to Be, to me writing this comment, to Meaning.
      - user7923489 12y ago
g0v 12y ago
Never give up. I have a poster on the wall behind my monitors of the 5th Solvay Congress in Brussels. It has many of the greats including Planck, Curie, Lorentz, Einstein, Schrodinger, just to name a few. There are times when, for example, I've been working on a problem or trying to understand a concept and want to walk away; I will look up at the poster and think about how those people spent their entire lives on problems, they were the type that didn't give up. Things don't happen all at once, sometimes you have to be more patient than you'd like. But I believe it's those people that never give up that make the most impact. Be realistic with yourself but aim high; work hard and smart and you have a better chance than many to get what you want.
drawkbox 12y ago
Money is the great change agent, get enough of it and you might be able to do some change that impacts widely. If you can somehow get markets invested in the direction you want to change it, it may happen. If you can't do that, you can also impact others around you in good ways.
Htsthbjig 12y ago
I had some success in my life and got to met pretty successful people, the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of different fields. I had never met any of them wanting to "save the world". Saving the world does not make sense. It is too diffuse, too abstract. When you met someone like Bill Gates, you met someone who has traveled to Africa and seen people suffering, children and women spending hours a day to get water (that they can't use for other things like learning). Children dying of diarrhea(because of the water), Parents dying because of H.I.V and creating millions of orphans. You see, this is not abstract but concrete problems. You can actually do something today to improve other people's lives, today. The world is full of them. We love problems because we can solve them, and this is not a delusion. It is a gift. You can improve people's lives in lots of ways. Geeks have the opportunity to improve millions of lives. Helping people is incredible rewarding, just by itself.
tomjen3 12y ago
There is something I didn't expect to ever see: a neoreaction blog post on Hacker News.
- theorique 12y ago
  A positive development, overall. Based on my conversations, I think a lot of tech people are closeted neoreactionaries, but maybe the climate has developed that we can come out?
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    Of course, a disturbingly large amount of tech people are uncloseted neoreactionaries, for a profession that simply cannot work at all without the scientific mentality of the Enlightenment.
    - theorique 12y ago
      What number or fraction is acceptable before it becomes "disturbingly" large? A lot of good math and science was done before the Enlightenment - look at Newton or Euler or Descartes, for example. The scientific environment often operates rather independently of the political environment - the Soviets also had high-quality science going on.
      - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
        >A lot of good math and science was done before the Enlightenment - look at Newton or Euler or Descartes, for example. The scientific environment often operates rather independently of the political environment - the Soviets also had high-quality science going on. Newton and Descartes are considered part of the Enlightenment, and you cannot conduct high-quality science while the politicians are telling you that conclusions like "evolution operates by natural selection" (re: Lysenkoism) or "there's no evidence for a natural hierarchy of races" (re: both current and previous incarnations of racism) will lose you your job.
estill01 12y ago
Disagree. Do attempt to save the world; it's not going to happen on its own and is enormously worth pursuing.
- eevilspock 12y ago
  I'm with you. While I agree with most of what the article says, too many people use the reason of the article as a copout. There are so many problems that would get better fast without new technical or social inventions but only needing a critical mass of people with courage and the willingness to sacrifice for the greater good.
FD3SA 12y ago
This reads like a self parody. "We're making the world a better place...[1]". The modern capitalist society is not designed to "make the world a better place". It's designed to justify the status seeking behavior inherent in mankind, and allow the few winners to enjoy their wealth without being vilified. Want to make the world a better place? Start thinking about a steady state economy, a steady state lifestyle and a minimal consumption, minimal destruction society. That means minimizing energy usage, consumption and waste. This the complete antithesis of everything modern capitalism stands for. I'm sure this isn't gonna go over well here, as we have quite a few dyed-in-the-wool Randians, but its the truth. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-GVd_HLlps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-GVd_HLlps
- ZenoArrow 12y ago
  Who said making the world a better place had to be linked to commercial products? Also "minimal consumption, minimal destruction" isn't necessarily what will be required, a better approach can be found in mimicking nature, waste=food, etc... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoRjz8iTVoo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoRjz8iTVoo
CPLX 12y ago
This is a problem that young people have.
xaetium 12y ago
Haven't we already learnt that the world reacts badly to 'being saved'? I cite religious battle. But seriously - this article forgets that 'nerds' measuring what they call success is key; by doing so they get a much better handle on it. In that sense, if you try to save the world like a nerd, you'll at least know if it's working.

104 points by proveanegative 12y ago

But you can work in this industry and do good in the world. You may not make as much or have a big payout though. I originally focused my career on healthcare and first wrote software used by biotech/pharma companies to support their communications with doctors. Then I focused on privacy issues and worked for PGP. I then went 180 degrees may have added some evil to the world and worked on NSA/military projects for awhile (only defensive projects though). I'm now back to a public health focus to make up for it. It's kind of depressing work. I write software used by crisis call centers, suicide hotlines, 211 call centers, etc. and when I log into the server and watch the messages passing through the system in realtime I see people being talked out of suicide, children talking about being bullied, lots of pregnant single mothers looking for shelter... One of the most depressing for me though was a guy looking for replacement glasses since his broke and he couldn't afford a new pair. We're a barebones operation (just three of us) and we don't make a ton of money - most of our customers are non-profits. We'll never have a big payout, or a big exit. And being closer to the problems in society is a little depressing, to see how a large number of people really live. I can see how people delude themselves into thinking "Making the world a better place, through minimal message oriented transport layers" is a real thing.

toomuchtodo 12y ago
> We're a barebones operation (just three of us) and we don't make a ton of money - most of our customers are non-profits. We'll never have a big payout, or a big exit. And being closer to the problems in society is a little depressing, to see how a large number of people really live. I can see how people delude themselves into thinking "Making the world a better place, through minimal message oriented transport layers" is a real thing. If you ever need infrastructure/devops help, or even someone just to help with the little tasks you don't have time for, more than willing to help.
- davis4459 12y ago
  I hope you might be willing to give me some advice. I read your comments on the Aereo SC decision and was intrigued with the prospects of providing content to my 67 apartment tenants in a small town in North Carolina. I would like to market the apartments as having free access to 100Mbps internet and free access to any movie, TV show, etc available on the internet. ... Or, something like that. Imagine a server in the clubhouse as a gigantic time shifting gadget. I'd raise the rent, of course, the same for all units. I am considering a dedicated fiber link to the backbone (2000ft) and wiring every unit with fiber as well. Thoughts?
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    What's the best way to get in touch? More than happy to share whatever I can on the subject.

te_platt 12y ago

What I got from the article: "Save the world" = really, really hard. "Improve the world" = challenging, but doable. It seems like I have my "save the world" visions as I'm getting ready for bed and trying tho think through what I can do the next day. In the morning it seems hard enough to do mundane chores let alone get everything set up to save the world. I think my most productive times are when I've found something tangible I can make better and work through it in small steps.

vezzy-fnord 12y ago

This is a neoreaction blog. Before anyone else feels the need to point that out. With that said, I think there's two major reasons for bold "save the world" visions expressed by startups to lack viability. The first is that the symbiosis between startups and venture capital creates a cycle where the most successful players are inevitably end user-facing services optimized for rapid growth. There are a ton of problems whose solutions do not find under this model. In fact, being too big of a visionary is usually considered a negative: it likely means you have no product-market fit. The incentive henceforth becomes to achieve a maximum market valuation and preferably a low fair value (less effort in creation, ops and maintenance). The second is what jerf terms the "BOAC fallacy" (http://www.jerf.org/iri/post/2916 http://www.jerf.org/iri/post/2916). Lots of programmers seem to have this odd magical thinking that they can trivially obsolete industries and professions by just applying statistical learning over some data sets, or by writing what amounts to a spreadsheet... except marketed and branded towards a given field. Doesn't change the fact that it's just a spreadsheet application, and that there are other intricacies that naturally impede automation of a certain area which you haven't accounted for.

dash2 12y ago
Apologies but what is neoreaction?
- mindcrash 12y ago
  "The neoreactionary movement (a.k.a. neoreaction, NRx, the Dark Enlightenment, the alt-right movement) is a loosely-defined cluster of Internet-based political thinkers who wish to return human society to forms of government older than liberal democracy" http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement
  - dash2 12y ago
    Thank you!
- takasc2 12y ago
  A faction of intellectual or pseudointellectual bloggers (depending on your opinion) - it is probably easier to say what they are against progressive politics and modernity, than what they are for - but at times they have openly or covertly advocated wanting to do some/all of bring back monarchy, return to traditional gender roles, abolish the distinction between church and state, isolationist foreign policies, racial segregation or "scientific racism" and so on. So, its pretty easy to see why they are quite controversial.

Jimmy 12y ago

This really resonates with me. On the one hand, you have the desire for greatness and importance, and on the other, the sobering realization that unless you do something completely absurd - inventing free energy, for instance, or getting us into contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence - your work can only have an impact on a limited number of people, and will almost certainly be unknown to the vast majority of humans. I look to the great minds of history, people like Aristotle, Newton, and Nietzsche, as role models and examples of who I want to be like, but then I remember that even for them, the majority of people on earth don't know their names. To say nothing of actually being acquainted with their work. Perhaps a good compromise is that, while you might not be able to impact everyone alive, present and future, you might be able to impact all people who share some property X. Most people don't know who Gauss is, but everyone who is a part of the mathematical community and studies mathematics to a certain level knows who Gauss is. In that way, some kind of enduring immortality and greatness can still be achieved.

wavefunction 12y ago
They pursued The Work, whatever that might have been for each individual, not because being known to many humans was important. Let go of your Ego and your works will flourish and spread even a bit more light in the world.

DennisP 12y ago

I have to admit my own goals are absurdly ambitious, but those are the ones that excite me so I'm sticking with it. Right now I'm reading Bold, the new book by Peter Diamandis, who has pretty much the opposite opinion of this article. One thing he points out is that if you start with an absurdly ambitious goal, then even if you only accomplish a small portion of it, you're still really successful.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago
> I have to admit my own goals are absurdly ambitious, but those are the ones that excite me so I'm sticking with it. Nu, so what are they?
- DennisP 12y ago
  Right now I'm trying to build something kinda like Ted Nelson's Xanadu. There are lots of degrees of success on this one...anything from a useful tool for an individual, to a system for workgroups, to a global network that makes much of the web obsolete. I hope to bootstrap by making something that works at all these levels. I'm also designing a cryptocurrency system that I think could make a dent in global warming. If the Ethereum project succeeds, it'll be a lot easier to implement that one. Last year I did some volunteer fundraising for a small team attempting to invent cheap practical fusion power. Also I've got some less-ambitious projects that I hope will help make a little money along the way.
quonn 12y ago
> then even if you only accomplish a small portion of it, you're still really successful Or you burn out, get depressed and become much less successful and effective than you could be.
- ZenoArrow 12y ago
  > "Or you burn out, get depressed and become much less successful and effective than you could be." Only if you base your self worth on what you accomplish (which some people undoubtedtly do). Those who accept their inherent worth wouldn't be affected. I admit it's easier said than done sometimes.

DodgyEggplant 12y ago

Well, two comments: First, it's hard, but never before a single person or small company could at least technically reach millions of people with feasible investment. Now you can. Second, by the time people who do paper work got to position that can make change, many already confirmed to their system bureaucracy and traditional point of view and interests. You need the people who don't take that way.

skybrian 12y ago

There is an individualistic notion here that you, personally, need to be the leader of a project to change the world. Or if not the leader, one of the founders. Perhaps that's inherent in founding a startup. There are not many people involved, so if it's going to succeed, it's up to you. (Sort of. It's also up to your customers.) But I think a lot of people would be just as happy working on a project along with many others to change the world, provided that they have confidence that it's a just cause, has a good chance of succeeding, and they're treated reasonably fairly. When these preconditions align (in perception if not in reality) you can get something big.

wavefunction 12y ago
One of the often-overlooked opportunities to change the world is to empower others to change the world in their own small ways, to lift them up and open their eyes to the possibility of their own capabilities, and build and provide them the tools to succeed in their own missions of good.
- walterbell 12y ago
  Could you recommend historical exemplars of this philosophy?
  - wavefunction 12y ago
    That's really just my own take rather than a formal philosophy, but I think it's at the essence of the leadership offered by history's "liberation" teachers for example. The following is my interpretation: I think individual humans are often fearful about reality which is often outside of our control and goes against what we would prefer to happen. This fear generally expresses itself as individual reserve, which means that even if there is a negative issue in our vicinity, we would rather accept its negative effects then proactively attempt to change it, even if changing the negative issue is within our capability. I think the power of a true liberation teacher (Mandela, MLK Jr., Ghandi, Whitman, Tolstoy, Mohammad, Jesus, Mani, the gautama or whoever you might include in that list that is incomplete) is that they show us that we can travel beyond our fear to improve the world. It's not so much that Ghandi, for example, stood up to the British Empire all by himself, but that he showed his countrymen that they could stand up as well. At a more personal level, consider the teachers and mentors who've helped you and pushed you forward beyond where you thought you could go. They didn't take your math test for you, but expanded your own ability to see success perhaps. They didn't give you that great creative idea, but they supported it or helped you refine it by probing its weaknesses. In addition, we're the product of all the people making incremental improvements and negative effects who have come before us, so no amazing success is the product of a complete vacuum. It's our duty as beneficiaries of that positive balance of improvements versus decrements to at least improve the environment for further improvements in the world's situation despite costs to ourselves. I dunno, that's just my long-winded idea of how we may not be able to do some crazy ground-breaking accomplishment or develop a paradigm-shifting idea ourself, but we can lay the groundwork through our fellow man so that they might themselves. Just a thought...

kylehotchkiss 12y ago

I think it's good people have an honest desire to make the world a better place. But it's not always going to be the responbility of your specific app or business to do just that. Bringing internet to people who can't even get water without a trek to a well isn't best place to start sometimes, internet will be needed eventually, but basic needs are needed first. There are many, many, many great NGOs that you can donate to and make a huge impact. I was just looking at UNHCR the other day, and they have some really important projects going on in a world where some 30 million people are displaced. If you have kids, you have people who you can spend each and every day investing in and you'll likely get to see that impact firsthand, and lead them in the right direction for many years to come, and I think that's really just awesome. And if you're reading this, you probably went through the challenges of learning to code, and think of how you can improve the lives of your friends who will put the work forth to honestly learn - now they have a desireable skill and can find a job and poteintally take better care of their families as well. I'd call both of those changing your world!

rwallace 12y ago
With regard to your first paragraph, it's often the other way around; trying to cater to people's material needs from several thousand miles away through multiple layers of agency problems often ends up doing more harm than good, distorting local economies, encouraging corruption and undermining the efforts of developing countries to build a stable society. If people have literacy and Internet access, they have access to all the world's knowledge and a better chance of helping themselves; if you would send gifts, send those. I agree entirely with your second paragraph, however.

dash2 12y ago

As he suggests, it is helpful to have life goals that are more modest than saving the world, but more idealist than just making money. Here's a not bad measure of life success: after you retire, how many Christmas cards will you get each year?

harigov 12y ago

This article resonates with me. I find myself very often in this situation of trying to find meaning in what I do. When you tie this to evolution and what more or less appears to be biological machines trying to eek out some meaning in otherwise meaningless life, nothing seems to make sense any more. What's the point of anything at all? We try so hard to reason and find it hard when we reach the boundaries of reasoning and enter the domain of faith and beliefs, but choose to ignore them because they aren't scientific enough. I believe a much simpler notion is to treat yourself as an artist or an entertainer and look at your work as a means of enriching someone's life - not because of its utility or function or what not but just because its beautiful and brings out joy to people in your world, however small the number might be. We keep thinking about the whole world and forget about our own small world, when in reality, it's our small world that gives us all of our joy and happiness.

user7923489 12y ago
Wait. To our best knowledge we don't know whether there is a meaning of life, right? And it would be irrational to act based on a conjectured purpose if there isn't solid evidence for it. So even if we will burn in hell if we don't destroy ourselves, there is no solid evidence for that, so it would be irrational to do so. The best way of proceeding is then to keep our options open as long as possible. Our quasi-purpose is to find out whether there is a purpose in the first place.
- poopsmithe 12y ago
  Why look for a meaning when you can make your own?
  - rokhayakebe 12y ago
    That is what I think. Everything is free will. From the first particle which decided to Be, to me writing this comment, to Meaning.
    - user7923489 12y ago

g0v 12y ago

Never give up. I have a poster on the wall behind my monitors of the 5th Solvay Congress in Brussels. It has many of the greats including Planck, Curie, Lorentz, Einstein, Schrodinger, just to name a few. There are times when, for example, I've been working on a problem or trying to understand a concept and want to walk away; I will look up at the poster and think about how those people spent their entire lives on problems, they were the type that didn't give up. Things don't happen all at once, sometimes you have to be more patient than you'd like. But I believe it's those people that never give up that make the most impact. Be realistic with yourself but aim high; work hard and smart and you have a better chance than many to get what you want.

drawkbox 12y ago

Money is the great change agent, get enough of it and you might be able to do some change that impacts widely. If you can somehow get markets invested in the direction you want to change it, it may happen. If you can't do that, you can also impact others around you in good ways.

Htsthbjig 12y ago

I had some success in my life and got to met pretty successful people, the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of different fields. I had never met any of them wanting to "save the world". Saving the world does not make sense. It is too diffuse, too abstract. When you met someone like Bill Gates, you met someone who has traveled to Africa and seen people suffering, children and women spending hours a day to get water (that they can't use for other things like learning). Children dying of diarrhea(because of the water), Parents dying because of H.I.V and creating millions of orphans. You see, this is not abstract but concrete problems. You can actually do something today to improve other people's lives, today. The world is full of them. We love problems because we can solve them, and this is not a delusion. It is a gift. You can improve people's lives in lots of ways. Geeks have the opportunity to improve millions of lives. Helping people is incredible rewarding, just by itself.

tomjen3 12y ago

There is something I didn't expect to ever see: a neoreaction blog post on Hacker News.

theorique 12y ago
A positive development, overall. Based on my conversations, I think a lot of tech people are closeted neoreactionaries, but maybe the climate has developed that we can come out?
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  Of course, a disturbingly large amount of tech people are uncloseted neoreactionaries, for a profession that simply cannot work at all without the scientific mentality of the Enlightenment.
  - theorique 12y ago
    What number or fraction is acceptable before it becomes "disturbingly" large? A lot of good math and science was done before the Enlightenment - look at Newton or Euler or Descartes, for example. The scientific environment often operates rather independently of the political environment - the Soviets also had high-quality science going on.
    - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
      >A lot of good math and science was done before the Enlightenment - look at Newton or Euler or Descartes, for example. The scientific environment often operates rather independently of the political environment - the Soviets also had high-quality science going on. Newton and Descartes are considered part of the Enlightenment, and you cannot conduct high-quality science while the politicians are telling you that conclusions like "evolution operates by natural selection" (re: Lysenkoism) or "there's no evidence for a natural hierarchy of races" (re: both current and previous incarnations of racism) will lose you your job.

estill01 12y ago

Disagree. Do attempt to save the world; it's not going to happen on its own and is enormously worth pursuing.

eevilspock 12y ago
I'm with you. While I agree with most of what the article says, too many people use the reason of the article as a copout. There are so many problems that would get better fast without new technical or social inventions but only needing a critical mass of people with courage and the willingness to sacrifice for the greater good.

FD3SA 12y ago

This reads like a self parody. "We're making the world a better place...[1]". The modern capitalist society is not designed to "make the world a better place". It's designed to justify the status seeking behavior inherent in mankind, and allow the few winners to enjoy their wealth without being vilified. Want to make the world a better place? Start thinking about a steady state economy, a steady state lifestyle and a minimal consumption, minimal destruction society. That means minimizing energy usage, consumption and waste. This the complete antithesis of everything modern capitalism stands for. I'm sure this isn't gonna go over well here, as we have quite a few dyed-in-the-wool Randians, but its the truth. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-GVd_HLlps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-GVd_HLlps

ZenoArrow 12y ago
Who said making the world a better place had to be linked to commercial products? Also "minimal consumption, minimal destruction" isn't necessarily what will be required, a better approach can be found in mimicking nature, waste=food, etc... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoRjz8iTVoo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoRjz8iTVoo

CPLX 12y ago

This is a problem that young people have.

xaetium 12y ago

Haven't we already learnt that the world reacts badly to 'being saved'? I cite religious battle. But seriously - this article forgets that 'nerds' measuring what they call success is key; by doing so they get a much better handle on it. In that sense, if you try to save the world like a nerd, you'll at least know if it's working.