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Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

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Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#61

Post by hodgesmr »

hueving wrote: post #59

Something about DC seems to give people the impression that anyone doing anything else in the world is "stuff that doesn't matter". R&D at these companies is what actually solves problems at the root cause. How would all of that healthcare exchange work have gone if the tech industry didn't build the massive infrastructure it relies on (database tech, network tech, version control, the Internet)? It feels like the pe…

Something about DC seems to give people the impression that anyone doing anything else in the world is "stuff that doesn't matter".

I see this from people that live in the Bay too.

NYC too.

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#62

Post by schoen »

hodgesmr wrote: post #61
hueving wrote: post #59

Something about DC seems to give people the impression that anyone doing anything else in the world is "stuff that doesn't matter". R&D at these companies is what actually solves problems at the root cause. How would all of that healthcare exchange work have gone if the tech industry didn't build the massive infrastructure it relies on (database tech, network tech, version control, the Internet)? It feels like the pe…

Something about DC seems to give people the impression that anyone doing anything else in the world is "stuff that doesn't matter". I see this from people that live in the Bay too. NYC too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen#C...

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#63

Post by britknight »

Sophistifunk wrote: post #55

Standard liberal guilt. If you're a programmer and you feel like curing malaria is more important than Uber, you should make a shit-ton of money and give it to Bill Gates. Without the teen angst.

> "If you feel like curing malaria is more important than Uber"?

I'm sorry, but that strikes me as a pretty privileged sentiment. Would you say that everyone who feels a calling to work in the nonprofit/humanitarian sphere is merely doing so to assuage their "teen angst"?

If someone else feels compelled to work more directly to help those in need, and he or she is perfectly respectful of others' work (as OP clearly is), why do you feel compelled to reduce their desire to "standard liberal guilt" or "teen angst"?

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#64

Post by dragonwriter »

carlosdp wrote: post #51
wpietri wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I think you're arguing against something that is not actually in the article. I read him as pointing at ends of a continuum, and I think you're falsely constructing a dichotomy out of that. He says quite clearly: "I’m still a believer in technology, particularly in the web platform, as a force for good." He also is explicit that for himself he wants something farther toward the clear-impact end of the spectrum…

Forgive me, but you're kind of reframing his remarks a bit. For example, you cut off the second part of this sentence: "Even though I’m still a believer in technology, particularly in the web platform, as a force for good, society needs more people working directly on problems that matter. " While the author acknowledges in the abstract that the internet has improved people's lives, I still see the tone implying we s…

> While the author acknowledges in the abstract that the internet has improved people's lives, I still see the tone implying we should all be directly working on more worthy causes if we really want to be doing stuff that "matters".

Er, no. Again, you are engaging in binary thinking not warranted by what was actually said. He doesn't say or imply "we should all" be doing any one thing, he very directly says that "society needs more people working directly on problems that matter."

Note, particularly "more people" (not "we...all" as you would present it), and "directly". That is, there are plenty of things that indirectly matter, and plenty of people working on those, but, in the author's view, not enough people working directly on certain important applications.

The judgement you are reading into it that everyone not working in certain preferred areas is doing something less-than-ideal and not doing stuff that matters is simply nowhere in the text.

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#65

Post by britknight »

carlosdp wrote: post #51
wpietri wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I think you're arguing against something that is not actually in the article. I read him as pointing at ends of a continuum, and I think you're falsely constructing a dichotomy out of that. He says quite clearly: "I’m still a believer in technology, particularly in the web platform, as a force for good." He also is explicit that for himself he wants something farther toward the clear-impact end of the spectrum…

Forgive me, but you're kind of reframing his remarks a bit. For example, you cut off the second part of this sentence: "Even though I’m still a believer in technology, particularly in the web platform, as a force for good, society needs more people working directly on problems that matter. " While the author acknowledges in the abstract that the internet has improved people's lives, I still see the tone implying we s…

> "society needs more people working directly on problems that matter"

This does not imply that "we should al be working directly on more worthy causes". My impression was that the author was simply making an observation about the relative distribution of labor (specifically: that there are not enough people working directly on causes that "matter"), which should by no means be reduced to the absurd by saying that all people should be working on those causes.

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#66

Post by nostrademons »

wpietri wrote: post #36
dnautics wrote: post #6

"Helping rich people get taxis easier". As a Lyft and Uber driver, I count among my rides: getting a rough looking fellow (who has spent years in prison after accidentally killing someone in a bar fight) get to the only job that would take him - affordably and on-time (he would have been fired otherwise). I've given an enlisted navy family from Oklahoma (husband was deployed) get home from a late night run to a dista…

The explicit inspiration for Uber's founding was as a "limo timeshare service": http://newsroom.uber.com/2010/12/ubers-founding/ I"m glad that some people are also getting easier taxi service. But having worked in in SF since the last bubble, there is definitely an intense focus here on solving rich-people problems; when they serve others (e.g., struggling felons and young military personnel) it is often, at best, a…

That's often how technological progress works: it's developed to solve either a pressing-but-not-so-noble problem and then someone adapts it so the average person can benefit, or it's developed to solve a trivial and useless problem and someone improves it so it's useful to the average person.

We built radar so we could detect German bombers; we got microwave ovens from it. We built GPS so we could guide missiles and spy satellites; we got turn-by-turn navigation and Uber out of it. We built Twitter so we could send 140-character text messages; we got the Arab Spring out of it. We built the ARPANet to coordinate top-secret military projects; we got the Internet out of it. We built PCs to play games; we got Visicalc, Word, and all sorts of productivity boosts from it. We built computers to break German codes and guide artillery shells; you know where that went.

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#67

Post by noir_lord »

Kephael wrote: post #24
walshemj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a big ask Googles software requires a different mind set than say correctly calculating veterans pensions. From googles perspective having 2 or 3% suboptimal query's is fine but that wont pass muster for other types of work. Try building billing systems for a global Telco and have one of Vint Cerfs reports nudge you and say this had be right otherwise we are both out of a job :-)

Calculating a pension and building a billing system is rather basic CRUD work compared to scaling software to handle millions of concurrent users. Google's hiring bar is relatively high compared to any government position in terms of quantitative skills you'd need to demonstrate.

Last year there where 279 changes to the federal tax code.

That system handles hundreds of millions of people and trillions of dollars.

Calling it "rather basic CRUD work" is incredibly myopic and/or arrogant.

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#68

Post by nostrademons »

wpietri wrote: post #38
alwaysdoit wrote: post #29

Why not take rich people's money for taxis, and then donate how ever much of your salary to charities that are trying to fight malaria you think is appropriate? Is making $40K/yr doing something "meaningful" better than making $100K/yr doing something "meaningless" and donating $60k/yr to meaningful causes?

Have you tried this? I know a lot of people, but nobody who has done this sustainably. I've definitely seen people start out on that road. But either they eventually quit and find jobs with meaning or they gradually end up not caring about meaning and spend the money on creature comforts.

Bill Gates is the most prominent public example.

I also know a number of folks at Google who are very charitably active despite working big-corp jobs. Usually they compartmentalize very drastically, though, so I never heard about their charitable activities at work and only learned about them second-hand, through chance encounters with mutual acquaintances.

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#69

Post by gress »

pdeuchler wrote: post #37

Large leaps in technology have always, and will always, benefit the wealthiest 1% at the beginning. This is just the basics of capital in a capitalistic society. The internet has already redistributed earth shattering quantities of wealth in record time. Besides, to actually solve the "real problems" (no true scotsman, but we won't go down that path) you still need massive amounts of capital. Where else are you going…

> The Internet has already redistributed earth shattering quantities of wealth in record time.

Given that inequality has been steeply rising, you must mean that it has redistributed wealth further from the poor to the rich.

Re: Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

#70

Post by Kephael »

markdeloura wrote: post #48
Kephael wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those listed as employees of the digital service on the main site seem to be employed for political purposes, if you read their biographies most don't have deep technical skills. The whole department seems to have been created to help Obama deflect from the healthcare.gov debacle and make it seem like he was taking serious action to fix the site.

Sorry... that's just totally not accurate. While there may be some who are not hacking code 24/7, it's because they're providing project management or leadership functions. This is a damn elite team of technologists there to make a difference - not for politics.

Mikey Dickerson, who is now running the US Digital Service, was previously involved in the Obama for America campaign. I don't see how we can pretend that politics play no part in this organization.
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