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Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

nytimes.com

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Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#331

Post by solidsnack9000 »

WalterSear wrote: post #282
solidsnack9000 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing the right thing — not what’s profitable or power enhancing — isn’t what business is about. In part that is because survival and solvency are quite difficult in the details; and in part that is because doing “good” requires a much richer concept of what you are doing than is required by being profitable and placating shareholders. It’s easier to get it wrong, harder to say when you’re done and can move resources…

> Those who would mix business and charitable, virtuous action are asking to be held accountable for neither while enjoying the rewards of both. The problem isn't that people are expecting businesses to be charities. It's that survival and solvency make abuse of the commons a business necessity. People want jobs that don't involve abusing the commons.

The parent comment does mentions several key areas of public benefit where they'd like to see business step in.

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#332

Post by isodude »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #275
isodude wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes your don't have the luxury to choose your work.

This is being said for Programmers, yet a good portion of HN goes out of their way to tell poor people they can just get a new job. Very contradictory!

I guess you can't talk for everybody (which happens a lot in the comments for what I've seen, HN does this, HN does that). The commenters here may be very biased though. To be clear this article seems to refer to SF workers, but I guess the same applies there even if the pay is fat. You need to generate cash to pay for the hefty rents. I should add a disclaimer here that this is just an assumption based on what I've read though.

Maybe someone could chime in on how easy it is to get a job with good morale in SF? I would imagine that it's like looking at the trees but only seeing the forest.

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#334

Post by xahrepap »

el_benhameen wrote: post #279
xahrepap wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for a medical company. It's really a tech company that makes medical software. Runs like a pretty typical successful tech startup. Our customers are hospitals and doctor clinics. The software syncs the data between various networks. Can notify a patient's primary care giver when their patient is checked into the ER, can notify a doctor if that patient is bouncing between hospitals looking for meds, there was e…

I’ve been thinking about finding a new job, and finding something that I feel is moral and pushes society forward are important criteria for me. Medtech seems like the sort of thing that might meet them. If you don’t mind me asking, how’d you end up in the medical device field? Do you feel like the projects you work on contribute to the advancement of human health? And do you feel that you’re adequately compensated?…

> If you don’t mind me asking, how’d you end up in the medical device field?

I was recruited from a B2B company by an old friend/boss. I was skeptical because I had only ever heard bad things about working for medical companies. I was very impressed with the leadership, product, and direction of the company. So I took the job.

> Do you feel like the projects you work on contribute to the advancement of human health?

I don't feel like I'm making a direct impact, no. However, I can clearly see that the work I do is a single cog in a machine that actually makes a real-world difference for medical professionals. I talked to a family friend who is a nurse. He was complaining that software was horrible for medical professionals, then he went in about this new product they started using and how it's made a world of a difference. Turns out it was our product and I just didn't know he used it and he didn't realize I had switched jobs to that company. He went on and on about how it makes things better (easier to diagnose, easier to see patient history, etc etc)

> And do you feel that you’re adequately compensated?

I got a significant raise that beat out other job offers at the time for another B2B company. I have what I feel is a competitive salary (a respectable amount higher than the average in my area) and the benefits are quite amazing (401k, untracked PTO with management who actually does a good job encouraging vacation, 100% paid health insurance, etc)

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#335

Post by el_benhameen »

xahrepap wrote: post #334
el_benhameen wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been thinking about finding a new job, and finding something that I feel is moral and pushes society forward are important criteria for me. Medtech seems like the sort of thing that might meet them. If you don’t mind me asking, how’d you end up in the medical device field? Do you feel like the projects you work on contribute to the advancement of human health? And do you feel that you’re adequately compensated?…

> If you don’t mind me asking, how’d you end up in the medical device field? I was recruited from a B2B company by an old friend/boss. I was skeptical because I had only ever heard bad things about working for medical companies. I was very impressed with the leadership, product, and direction of the company. So I took the job. > Do you feel like the projects you work on contribute to the advancement of human health?…

Really appreciate the reply, thanks. I think your answer to the second question was a good one. It would be difficult for an engineer to have a direct impact in a non-engineering field, but I think what you've described sounds like a good place to be.

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#336

Post by acct1771 »

neolefty wrote: post #121
Aeolun wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you. But if I can get riches at Google, I can get riches at Facebook, Apple or Microsoft too. The reason I would have chosen Google, and the reason I entrusted Google with all my personal information in the first place, was knowing they had that slogan. I just couldn't imagine they'd ever erase it... Now who is left? I guess I'm waiting for the Internet Archive to turn evil...

I still like Google. I never worked there, but "cataloging the world's information and making it available for free" is still great. It's complicated yes, but Google — more than any other tech company — has empowered me to do the things I care about. Mainly by making information easy to find.

Cataloging it, as long as it suits their agenda. Otherwise, deranked.

Removing videos from war reporters' channels, but promoting garbage like Lil Yachty to the top of the Youtube etc charts out of nowhere with no view numbers, let alone talent...

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#337

Post by ekianjo »

makomk wrote: post #84
taneq wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolute poverty is the important measure. If I'm hungry, I'm hungry, no matter what my neighbours have. But if I have a 50" flat screen TV, and my neighbours have a 100" flat screen TV, that inequality does not make me poor. I can still watch TV.

The big expense right now isn't 50" TVs, it's housing - and the cost of housing is very much affected by how much your neighbours can afford to spend.

Then the solution is to build more housing, so that supply increases the point of making it cheap again. A lot of housing scarcity is caused by zoning regulations.

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#338

Post by ekianjo »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #85
ekianjo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> despite living in a rich planet people are starving A overused rhetoric that does not hold much ground when you realize that poverty is decreasing fast everywhere around, and faster than we expected it to. https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/World-...

It still exists in extremely large numbers, so it's not 'overused rhetoric'. Please don't dismiss an extremely large issue as 'rhetoric'. Half of the worlds population lives in poverty, and ~650m live in extreme poverty [1][2]. [1] https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-global-p... [2] https://worldpoverty.io/

I was mostly opposing the view that "people are starving". It's well known that mass starvation is pretty much gone from the face of the Earth. Now the only places where people really die from starvation are conflict zones, or places hit by natural disasters. I am willing to admit there is are still "hunger" problems in many places, and malnutrition too, but hunger is not starvation.

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#339

Post by prolikewh0a »

ekianjo wrote: post #338
prolikewh0a wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still exists in extremely large numbers, so it's not 'overused rhetoric'. Please don't dismiss an extremely large issue as 'rhetoric'. Half of the worlds population lives in poverty, and ~650m live in extreme poverty [1][2]. [1] https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-global-p... [2] https://worldpoverty.io/

I was mostly opposing the view that "people are starving". It's well known that mass starvation is pretty much gone from the face of the Earth. Now the only places where people really die from starvation are conflict zones, or places hit by natural disasters. I am willing to admit there is are still "hunger" problems in many places, and malnutrition too, but hunger is not starvation.

That's not true either.

https://www.worldhunger.org/world-child-hunger-facts/

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#340

Post by Nasrudith »

hasbroslasher wrote: post #310
coolaliasbro wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you believe to be the cause of that abject poverty?

I believe Western imperialism has something to do with it... While it's true that capitalism has improved outcomes for some nations, it's also true that capitalist exploitation in Africa and South America really messed up the way their world works. It's made it so that free markets had something to fix later on, not fixed a pre-existing problem with these countries. People can choose what to believe and all, but it's…

Look back further - while certainly not blameless they didn't start the fire - humanity in general did. In South America even the Conquistadors even with their vast advantages would have died if not for all of the other tribes sick of their flower wars and getting captured for sacrifice. They also had an army on their side. One they later betrayed and made an underclass but fifty men in an unfamiliar territory would die eventually to their might. Africa had its own warfare and ironically one of the most benign actions of trade helped set up a collapse - trade with others is how advancement is driven and they wound up benefiting from trade in more productive crops - some with precious metals and ivory and some through slaves. That lead to a population boom and that lead bloody wars of Shaka Zulu. The point being exploitation doesn't need any outside actors and is the true enemy. The true cause of poverty and backwardness is lack of growth.

This doesn't absolve the misdeeds of exploiters - indeed colonies end in independence usually specifically because of mercantilist mismanagement squanders the true potential of the country by seeing it only as a well of land resources instead of an extension to nurture for mutual good but it is important to recognize that getting out "the Imperialists" won't make things better automatically and the wrong replacement can ironically be even worse. As bad as the British were in Rwanda they never decided to genocide the Tutsis even though their manipulations lead to it indirectly. Evil comes from within and without "the tribe" and it is important to recognize that.

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