61–70 of 162 posts
Step 1: learn about what is and isn't meaningful, instead of uncritically assuming altruistic morality is true and devoting your life to doing what is "meaningful" according to some other people. Be your own guide instead of just assuming charity = meaningful. Read Atlas Shrugged.
Careful, you might make new YC companies' head explode. (YC S11) Interviewstreet is disrupting the recruitment space and create a place where the best hackers get the best jobs (YC S11) Splitterbug private beta: track expenses with friends from your phone Munch On Me (YC S11) Helps You Discover Tasty Dishes Stypi (YC S11) Is Etherpad Reborn Parse (YC S11): A Heroku For Mobile Apps Envolve (YC S11) Launches An API For…
Mother Theresa once said: "When I look upon the masses I can do nothing. When I look upon the one, I can do something." Find someone to help. Help them. You have then changed the world for the better. Now do it again.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gj/efficient_charity_do_unto_others... "Just as there is only one best charity, there is only one best way to donate to that charity. Whether you volunteer versus donate money versus raise awareness is your own choice, but that choice has consequences. If a high-powered lawyer who makes $1,000 an hour chooses to take an hour off to help clean up litter on the beach, he's wasted the opportunit…
At the big dollar amounts, are you going to be able to make the ethical choices to only choose cases that do not do net harm? Perhaps, but not guaranteed, and one "no" to one client can lose you a big client and cause trouble getting the next.
Though not related solving these basic need problems, I'm working on providing very low cost (free) communication for people far away. Hopefully I'll get something to show soon.
It is not necessary you get involved in something big. Start from small thing and then try something big.
My 2 Cents
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Working in Education doesn't always have the same instant gratification as other projects, but if you can help people learn then you're going to have a very strong and lasting impact over time. And imagine if you created a product like, Khan Academy, that would increase the knowledge of 1% of the population by 10%. I think that's a worthy goal.
Improving education doesn't have the same immediate benefits, but the way I see it insufficient education is at the root of most of the world's problems. With improving education, you make a ripple which turns into a huge wave.
I've been toying with the idea of an organization along the lines of Engineers without Borders ("Hackers without Borders"?) or something to that effect where developers lend their talents to causes all over the world. Not saying that an iPhone app can solve everything, but I'm sure there's quite a few ways where simple apps here or there could make a big difference. Does anyone know of something like this out in the…
"Random Hacks of Kindness is a community of innovation focused on developing practical open source solutions to disaster risk management and climate change adaptation challenges. Random Hacks of Kindness was founded in 2009 in partnership between Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, NASA and the World Bank."
Johnny Long founded Hackers for Charity in 2008: http://www.hackersforcharity.org/ - see announcement talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CWrzVJYLWw
Hack for Change (http://hackforchange.com/) might be interesting as well.
The question is now "how", but "should you". Doing something meaningful, in the way you described it, looks a lot to me like guilt over a perceived unfairness of life. Yes people are dying in remote places, yes people need healthcare in the US, and yes not everyone has a job. You want to try and fix the situation, but many others also have tried, and failed. Maybe you want to do that to be relieve of your guilt, to t…
I've been toying with the idea of an organization along the lines of Engineers without Borders ("Hackers without Borders"?) or something to that effect where developers lend their talents to causes all over the world. Not saying that an iPhone app can solve everything, but I'm sure there's quite a few ways where simple apps here or there could make a big difference. Does anyone know of something like this out in the…
Not sure if the group is still active though.