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Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#51

Post by nick_urban »

ga wrote: post #6

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 don't think we're are doomed to be narcissistic, but it's very easy to be so. This is a question which deserves to be taken seriously. The author is expressing a position that a lot of people fall into without actually being comfortable admitting it.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#52

Post by nick_urban »

jodrellblank wrote: post #3

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…

I agree that people who are capable of doing high level work should do so, but the comparison shouldn't be a high-powered lawyer vs. picking up trash, it should be: being a high powered lawyer vs. being a "high-powered leader" of a social movement. If Gandhi had decided to continue being a lawyer and donating his profits to charity, there's no way that all the cheap labor he could have hired would have added up to the kind of world-historical moment that his life did.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#53

Post by patio11 »

blackboxxx wrote: post #46

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.

Another Mother Teresa quote: "Never despair at being but a drop in the ocean, for without it the ocean would be one drop less."

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#54

Post by Detrus »

Similar thread from a while back mentioning charitywater http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822610 Spammy?

And I'll start with my old answer here.

I'm suspicious of attempts to solve problems in the developing world that aren't part of an all around solution. Making it easier to grow food, get water without a simultaneous plan to lower population size is a dangerous game. I think the old school approaches to charity are very wrong and if you want to do something useful for humanity, they are the last place to do it.

Yes the responses about making it easier to market crap being useful to humanity are funny and cruel. But they hint that we in the developed world don't care about poverty. We've seen many shocking ads with starving children asking for money and now we are disillusioned because charities haven't delivered after decades. In the US, well intentioned programs implemented in the 70's made the problem much worse.

Poverty in poor countries won't end until developed countries let them into the global economy on fair terms. That's how China got where it is and now we market their crap on iPhones. Is that a better world? Not exactly.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#55

Post by dpatru »

Stephen Covey gives a useful framework: Do the intersection of your ability, the existing need, your interest, and the important. Ask yourself, "What can I do (ability) that other people value (need), that I like (interest) and that I feel is ultimately important?

Also, before you embark on saving the world, you might want to study a little Austrian economics. A lot of charity work and government programs are inefficient or actually contributing to poverty because they are contrary to economic law. You don't want spend few years of your life trying to solve poverty only to realize that you've been part of the problem.

In general, societies become wealthy when they are virtuous and economically free. Virtue causes them to generate and keep wealth. Economic freedom helps them build wealth efficiently. If you want to make any society richer from a macro level, you might focus on improving one or both of these: help that society become more virtuous and more free.

Regarding virtue, you might work to decrease drunkenness (Alcoholics Annonymous), drug use, and other vices. These activities harm individuals and their families and contribute to poverty.

Regarding freedom, you might work in politics to protect property rights, to have sound money and market prices, to allow people to work without licensing and other artificial restrictions, to reduce taxes. You can also work to spread price information and make markets more efficient (Craigslist, EBay and AirBnB do this.)

On a lower abstract level, you can work to produce some good or service which people value but is in short supply. That is, find a popular, over-priced good or service, and offer it at a lower price and better quality. Khan Academy is doing this for K-12 education.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#56

Post by rokhayakebe »

1- Help others do something meaningful to them.

2- Or do like Billy. Create a monopoly in an industry and rip most of the benefits. Then take the profits and eradicate Malaria.

Note: It is arguable that Bill Gates alone does more good than all the charity donated through DonorsChoose or Kiva etc..

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#57

Post by rokhayakebe »

temphn wrote: post #28

This might be an unpopular opinion, but a nonprofit/charity will never make as big a difference as a true for-profit vehicle that is pointed at the same problem. Nonprofits are ultimately financially unustainable; they survive on donations and government grants (tax) rather than direct contributions from customers. As such they usually can't scale to employ many people or make a worldwide impact. There are exceptions…

Agreed.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#58

Post by rokhayakebe »

gfodor wrote: post #15

A good friend of mine has a startup called SmallAct whose goal is to provide software that lets non-profits better engage with their donors through social media. It is a nice cross between the types of projects traditionally attacked by your typical silicon valley startup (they're based in DC however,) but instead of using that type of technology to support rampant consumerism or sharing cat pictures it's instead foc…

My issue with non profits is that lots of them actually just use it as a cover. Someone may still be getting rich slowly.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#59

Post by ltamake »

If that really motivates you, go for it. If you think you can make a difference in communities struck by poverty, start a company. A few ideas are a simple social donation service with a spin or a site that allows you to send items easily through the mail (eBay for charity).

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#60

Post by xenophanes »

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.

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