Ask HN: What can I do as a software engineer to help the underpriviliged?

Post by patio11 » Wed, Feb 21, 2018, 6:34 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #48

Are you gainfully employed? The best answer might be the simplest, both to describe and execute: cultivate your career and use it to generate funds for people who help the underprivileged as a specialty. The market can put your time to better use than you can helping people directly, and plenty of important public assistance groups are starved for cash. Start donating now. Get into the habit. Ramp up your contributio…

Post by pvaldes » Wed, Feb 21, 2018, 9:29 AM UTC

gt_ wrote: post #44

pvaldes wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best answer in the thread and a very clever one, IMHO. Fixing things that lead directly to thousands of people falling in poverty each year is better than the neverending cycle of applying patches to mitigate its consequences.

We could call those “patches too. Supporting a free market always requires maintaining an environment that allows it to justify it’s means. It seems there are probably many paths to this end. This is the only proven one as far as I know. In other words, I am not aware of any healthy economies which lack healthy safety nets.

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Feb 23, 2018, 12:47 AM UTC

swaggyBoatswain wrote: post #30

thaumaturgy wrote: post #3

Leave your bubble. There is almost certainly some volunteer group in your area that could use an extra pair of hands. You might be tempted early on to offer suggestions to improve their efforts through better software; don't. Instead, just watch, ask, listen, and learn. Once you've got enough experience to be confident that you understand end-to-end how everything works in whatever group you volunteer for, you'll pro…

Adding onto this, you should always use the lowest tech solution possible if it satifies the problem. Sometimes that solution is basically pen + paper + a whiteboard. Or installing dropbox. Othertimes it might be a google spreadsheet, or a wordpress site, at the end of the day the solution should be simple and straightforward if thats what the problem is. More pipelines / processes just means more headache to end use…

Post by rupertdev » Tue, Feb 27, 2018, 5:09 PM UTC

whatyoucantsay wrote: post #42

Leave your bubble. Spend two or three years working in South America, Africa or Asia. Make it a goal to develop genuine friendships with some of your colleagues and neighbors. You'll have no choice but to expand your understanding of the world and your empathy for people whose lives have been very different than your own.