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Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

#2

Post by saint_fiasco »

The boring answer is that as long as you are making money, you can donate some to charity.

Making lots of money and donating it to an effective charity is usually a more efficient way to change the world for the better than choosing a sub-optimal career trying to change the world by yourself.

If you think you can be a good software engineer, you should go for it.

Re: Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

#3

Post by zachlatta »

saint_fiasco wrote: post #2

The boring answer is that as long as you are making money, you can donate some to charity. Making lots of money and donating it to an effective charity is usually a more efficient way to change the world for the better than choosing a sub-optimal career trying to change the world by yourself. If you think you can be a good software engineer, you should go for it.

> Making lots of money and donating it to an effective charity is usually a more efficient way to change the world for the better than choosing a sub-optimal career trying to change the world by yourself.

Been thinking about this as well, would love to hear any further thoughts on this.

Following that same strain of logic, if I want to build a successful business, why not choose an optimal career and then hire someone to build the business for me?

Re: Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

#4

Post by Skeletor »

Yes. I feel software engineers at drchrono make a difference every day by giving amazing software to doctors who use it to treat more patients and make more money doing it (which will keep them from rage quitting medicine after using other EMR software which is just terrible.)

Re: Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

#5

Post by codeshaman »

I think it's inevitable that you will need software if you're going to use science/tech.

Software did change the world and is continuously doing that. The jump from even 30 years ago is spectacular.

This trend will continue in the foreseeable future.

But notice that there's a slight difference between 'changing' the world and 'making the world better'.

The first means doing thing differently, which doesn't necessarily mean that it is in everyone's best interest. Change can also be a bad thing. The second means giving humanity tools which they can use themselves to solve some of their existential problems.

When you solve one of these problems you can either: profit immensely from it by being a monopoly (change the world) or share your solution with the world and contribute to everyone (make the world better).

Then there's you very personal desire to 'make an actual impact'. You have to very carefully examine why you want it to be you and not someone else. If you're looking to get rich, you can do it in a lot of other ways. If you want a place in history, you can also do it by going into politics or science or art. If you want to improve the condition of the human race, then ask yourself - are you willing to still do it even if you get no reward or recognition for it ?

I guess that's more than you asked for, but I think it's important to consider these things early as they will haunt you for the rest of your journey. Good luck.

Re: Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

#6

Post by probably_wrong »

My take on this: it's already hard enough not to screw the world any more that it already is. My favorite example: adding "[this project] shall be used for Good, not Evil" to your code will bring infinite arguing back and forth[1].

I try to focus on the small things. There are alternatives to owning the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Choosing not to work for Zynga, or refusing to help the NSA's data collection is more than enough for a start. Write an app that makes life in the 3rd world easier, and you are already ahead of the curve.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866

Re: Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

#8

Post by Blahah »

Whatever your career, if you earn money then effective altruism is an evidence-based approach to improving the world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism https://centreforeffectivealtruism.org/

I suspect this isn't what you were thinking of - but it's something you can do that doesn't prevent you improving the world directly through the software you make.

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