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Work as a programmer for whoever will pay you the most. Invest, and donate money to causes you care about.
Work as a programmer for whoever will pay you the most. Invest, and donate money to causes you care about.
...Unless it's advetising. Or Uber. Or government wanting you to implement yet another freedom-restricting bullshit.
There are plenty of companies 10x worse than Uber. Hivemind.
Local exchange systems. Mentoring and apprenticeship forums and exchanges. Grants and sponsorship databases. Digital permaculture, hydroponics, aquaculture, aeroponics & DIY encyclopedia. Tools to fight against misleading and inaccurate information and to clarify and annotate ambiguous laws that don't benefit the population. Better corruption and dark financing graphs about people in power.
That is to say, provide email services that don't mine data for profit. Provide a social interaction space that doesn't attempt to manipulate moods, opinions, or sell its user's eyeballs. Provide an aggregation service with strong filtering tools in place of strong moderation. Provide a code repository with great tooling that doesn't include value judgements. Provide anonymous, secure communication between parties. Make mobile applications that provide wanted services without the in-app purchases, ads, or profiling.
The downside is that you're unlikely to get paid for it. You'll probably even lose money on it. In some cases, you'll even face legal pressure to stop or change.
Work as a programmer for whoever will pay you the most. Invest, and donate money to causes you care about.
...Unless it's advetising. Or Uber. Or government wanting you to implement yet another freedom-restricting bullshit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
...Unless it's advetising. Or Uber. Or government wanting you to implement yet another freedom-restricting bullshit.
> Or Uber. There are plenty of companies 10x worse than Uber. Hivemind.
The idea you can _do anything_ to _help_. Is mostly a myth people repeat so they don't constantly feel like shit for doing nothing in the face of mass social injustice by which they are (partially) the benefactors.
If you want social change, you need social action. Anything short is just rationalizing your guilt.
1) https://cyclebath.org.uk/map/ This one has gone national and is up for a Creative Bath Innovation Award.
2) Using Census 2011 Data I've created a healthy cities and towns league index as well as spatial analysis on commuter behaviour. (6M people drive to work, of which 3.5M live within a 20 minute cycle ride) https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4YARJgso6IxRjd1ZlNDZklGaX...
3) Worked with Bath Hacked and Strava to deliver a year of cycling in the city of Bath strava.bathhacked.org
4) Get involved in your local tech4good meetup.
Do not start from a "hey where can I use my skills for good?". Start with "I am passionate about X, what can I do to help X in anyway?"
This is almost certainly the wrong place to ask this question, unfortunately. The HN demographic is spectacularly disinterested in the well-being of humanity. Try /r/socialistprogrammers or /r/anarcho_hackers on Reddit.
> The HN demographic is spectacularly disinterested in the well-being of humanity. Wait, what?
All anecdotal, of course.