Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#91

Post by xg15 » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 12:37 AM UTC

linuxftw wrote: post #22

jefurii wrote: post #17

It's most certainly better for your soul, but get ready to take a pay cut. After a short career in game development and a much longer career in museum/library/archives, my take is that our societies values are out of whack: the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services. You'll also take a hit in your reputation among other deve…

> the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services. In a free market economy, this is an entirely false statement. People pay for the things they value. They more they value it, the more they pay. Compare the amount of hours spent playing video games to the amount of hours spent touring museums. It's not close. People value video…

Easy solution: Put everyone under highly-addictive drugs. The addiction will ensure that people value getting more of the drug far more than anything else, so we can consolidate the complete economy into producing drugs and nothing else. It's alright, cause we're producing what people value, right?

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#92

Post by probinso » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 12:49 AM UTC

droneseed

inaturalist

Cornell ornithology lab

eesa

Caltech JPL

USFWS

MBARI

blue point conservation science

NOAA

Sitka technology group

conservation x labs

sail drone

uw escience institute

greenridge sciences

Oregon carbon

m science (marine research)

Tortuga agtech

conservation metrics

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#93

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 12:49 AM UTC

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #39

jefurii wrote: post #17

It's most certainly better for your soul, but get ready to take a pay cut. After a short career in game development and a much longer career in museum/library/archives, my take is that our societies values are out of whack: the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services. You'll also take a hit in your reputation among other deve…

> my take is that our societies values are out of whack: the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services. There is no "what society values" at work here, only supply and demand. What you witness is the fact that jobs that have intrinsic meaning and are more fulfilling are paid less well, because employees are willing to make that…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#94

Post by reustle » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 2:03 AM UTC

ericvanular wrote: post #10

Check out https://enviro.work ! I'm the founder and created the site because I felt similarly to you. Aligning personal values and your career is a great feeling

Nice work! May I suggest adding a more detailed page title? When I send or bookmark it, it just says "latest jobs"

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#95

Post by MrBuddyCasino » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 2:30 AM UTC

acituan wrote: post #89

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my take is that our societies values are out of whack: the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services. There is no "what society values" at work here, only supply and demand. What you witness is the fact that jobs that have intrinsic meaning and are more fulfilling are paid less well, because employees are willing to make that…

> There is no "what society values" at work here, only supply and demand That sounds as if supply and demand were laws of nature like gravity or speed of light. They are nothing but forces we create (i.e. purely anthropogenic), and appear god-like only because what society solely values right now is the normativity of the market (as opposed to historical normativities such as the state power, religion, morality and s…

> They are nothing but forces we create (i.e. purely anthropogenic), and appear god-like only because what society solely values right now is the normativity of the market (as opposed to historical normativities such as the state power, religion, morality and so on).

What happens when you start to distort markets with top-down intervention is, in sum, decreased prosperity for all. Communism is just the most extreme example of this.

The market has failure modes that need to be actively corrected, like pricing in externalities or preventing monopoly abuse. But governments usually err on the over-interventionist side. When you look at the world you can’t help but notice this pattern, it is really that obvious.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#96

Post by dchasson » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 3:12 AM UTC

dencodev wrote: post #49

jefurii wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my personal experience working in nonprofits there is a tendency for organizations to have the actual technical work done by vendors rather than staff unless the work is central to the mission of the organization. There's a feeling that this is cheaper than trying to hire and maintain staff with those skills.

It may be less about it being cheaper, and more that you know what your budget is for a given year but perhaps not what it is three years from now. You can spend this year's budget with confidence and not worry about having to lay off your dev staff next year when donations dry up. It also requires management expertise to manage a software building team - not something a lot of non-profits have.

I learned from your perspective here. Thank you for sharing your experience.

Interesting, because this trade study could be conducted by an engineer and a manager in a small company and still have starkly different results in the weighing of concerns.

Most of my early career was solo. I recognize the importance of a good team, but as a business you (even non profits and myself solo) have to understand the bottom line for all stakeholders.

If anyone else could expand on this person's ideas, please do!

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#97

Post by Razengan » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 3:22 AM UTC

petargyurov wrote: post #69

Razengan wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. From a quick scan of the site and their safety information page, it seems they do not handle payments between users like Airbnb does, or do they? And since they require an upfront membership fee, has anyone here used Workaway? How was your experience?

Yes, the membership fee is a bit annoying but I paid because my girlfriend and I were planning on volunteering abroad - then the pandemic hit. So I haven't actually done one of these workaways. > it seems they do not handle payments between users Most of the offerings you will find on there will only provide you with housing, maybe food, in exchange for labour. Some do pay, but I strongly suspect that it is in cash.

> Most of the offerings you will find on there will only provide you with housing, maybe food, in exchange for labour. Some do pay, but I strongly suspect that it is in cash.

Ah I do not require payment for myself, I just thought some hosts may request payment for accommodation or the initial moving-in costs (paperwork etc.)

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#98

Post by acituan » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 4:20 AM UTC

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #95

acituan wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no "what society values" at work here, only supply and demand That sounds as if supply and demand were laws of nature like gravity or speed of light. They are nothing but forces we create (i.e. purely anthropogenic), and appear god-like only because what society solely values right now is the normativity of the market (as opposed to historical normativities such as the state power, religion, morality and s…

> They are nothing but forces we create (i.e. purely anthropogenic), and appear god-like only because what society solely values right now is the normativity of the market (as opposed to historical normativities such as the state power, religion, morality and so on). What happens when you start to distort markets with top-down intervention is, in sum, decreased prosperity for all. Communism is just the most extreme e…

> But governments usually err on the over-interventionist side. When you look at the world you can’t help but notice this pattern, it is really that obvious.

There can be 3 classes of errors with interventions; 1) intervening when it is not warranted (over-intervention), 2) not-intervening when required (under-intervening) and 3) intervening in a way that ends up not working out (intervention-outcome mismatch).

I think most of the errors are type 3, which are most liable to mis-identified as "over-intervention", but they are not. Mismatched interventions do not prove that there is a magical essence to real-world markets that render them infallible, dynamical, adaptive, self-correcting systems.

A simpler explanation to all this is that it is really hard to come up with the right interventions for the market, but also markets really need interventions when they need it.

60% of the time, they work everytime.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#99

Post by millstone » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 7:11 AM UTC

mepiethree wrote: post #35

jefurii wrote: post #17

It's most certainly better for your soul, but get ready to take a pay cut. After a short career in game development and a much longer career in museum/library/archives, my take is that our societies values are out of whack: the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services. You'll also take a hit in your reputation among other deve…

when I left Google to work in clean energy, I took a 50% pay cut. But, that's still more than enough money to live very happily on. IMO it's true what they say about there being no marginal improvement to happiness after ~80k.

Did you consider instead earn to give?

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#100

Post by MrBuddyCasino » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 7:45 AM UTC

acituan wrote: post #98

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are nothing but forces we create (i.e. purely anthropogenic), and appear god-like only because what society solely values right now is the normativity of the market (as opposed to historical normativities such as the state power, religion, morality and so on). What happens when you start to distort markets with top-down intervention is, in sum, decreased prosperity for all. Communism is just the most extreme e…

> But governments usually err on the over-interventionist side. When you look at the world you can’t help but notice this pattern, it is really that obvious. There can be 3 classes of errors with interventions; 1) intervening when it is not warranted (over-intervention), 2) not-intervening when required (under-intervening) and 3) intervening in a way that ends up not working out (intervention-outcome mismatch). I thi…

> I think most of the errors are type 3, which are most liable to mis-identified as "over-intervention", but they are not.

The thing is, there is no reliable way to prevent these errors, which means in general it is better to not interfere. If we had a way to ensure good decisions, we wouldn’t need some of the institutions that we have in our modern states.

One especially egregious example: California Assembly Bill 5. You could argue that this wasn’t just incompetence, but union corruption, costing many freelancers their livelihood. Another one was SF mayor London Breed‘s misguided attempt to regulate food delivery during the pandemic, which had the predictable result of cutting off regulated areas from service altogether.

You cannot let people decide these things that have no personal accountability and suffer no downside from this madness. It sure would be nice if it worked, but it doesn’t.

> 60% of the time, they work everytime.

Citation needed.