Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

insouciant.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 169 posts

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

#91

Post by jchrisa »

timr wrote: post #72
nostrademons wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm so tired of the thoughtless repetition of this talking-point. Yes, some technologies developed serendipitously for luxury products. But when you take a broader view than the latter half of the 20th century, most of the technological progress that actually made our lives better were the results of targeted effort: wastewater treatment, antibiotics, essentially all medications. We didn't get to these things acciden…

I've been working on p2p sync since 2008 or so. Now we have a real deployed base. I feel lucky because I chose the tech for it's political possibilities. This keeps me on track on the days when it'd be hard to focus otherwise.

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

#93

Post by angersock »

timr wrote: post #72
nostrademons wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm so tired of the thoughtless repetition of this talking-point. Yes, some technologies developed serendipitously for luxury products. But when you take a broader view than the latter half of the 20th century, most of the technological progress that actually made our lives better were the results of targeted effort: wastewater treatment, antibiotics, essentially all medications. We didn't get to these things acciden…

Penicillin was discovered by complete accident, actually.

Also, the jury is still rather out on the long-term impact of medications...it sure made a bunch of rich folks richer, though!

EDIT:

Also, most of those solutions came through private industry working on .gov contracts. A better example you might want to use is the innovations out of Bell Labs, all done basically to further solidify the telephone monopoly. That in turn could be argued to be a monopoly granted by a state to solve the communications problem, but still.

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

#94

Post by jchrisa »

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.

I don't like this argument b/c it assumes your money can go further than your time and personal engagement with an issue.

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

#95

Post by afarrell »

pagingdraltman wrote: post #79
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.

Hey @dang and @altman: if you two are remotely serious about trying to make HN a decent place, then you need to ban this shit and ensure that anybody who upvoted it can never vote again. That's not a joke. I get that you two tend to ban only people who are personally rude, but sophistifunk was just INCREDIBLY rude to anybody who is an essentially decent human being. Ridiculously rude. Unforgivably rude. HN used to be…

This is an ineffective comment for a few reasons: 1) The person you are responding to is advocating a course of action (funding work to end malaria) which helps poor people. They are responding to advocacy of a course of inaction (not developing taxi apps). The comment thus has some value, even if you disagree with it's conclusion. 2) You are advocating banning people for saying things. This puts a burden on you to make the case for why they should be banned. You don't explain anything about what was so bad about the comment, but simply insist that it must be obvious by inspection. 3) You assert that anyone who isn't offended by the comment is "fucking blind" and not "an essentially decent human being". This means that anyone who does not immediately agree with your comment is going to be defending their decency rather than giving your post a second thought.

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

#96

Post by jchrisa »

omouse wrote: post #32

> Most social impact projects and organizations are in the east coast, and, at least as far as I could tell (but in all likelihood, it’s probably because I suck at finding them), most of them don’t seem to have significant / meaningful software projects That's because they're stuck in the stone-ages and don't have the imagination to use and create software (aka they're run by marketers, managers and people who want t…

The flip side of "you can't expect much" is that a little help from tech folks would go a long way. Organize a hack event where non-tech people describe the stuff they need help with and tech people try to form solutions. The important thing is the relationships, not the solutions.

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

#97

Post by deepdiver16 »

What would be a good way to find companies that try to address more "pressing needs" and need strong technical help? I am currently in Indonesia, on a break after 20y in Silicon Valley, and would have time to help. I've thought about NGOs but I suspect these may be hard to navigate? Thanks in advance for any pointers and ideas

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

#98

Post by pdeuchler »

clebio wrote: post #84
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…

I disagree with your first paragraph, but plenty of others here are already responding to that 'trickle-down' sentiment. I also didn't read the article as being 'holier-than-thou' (in fact, entirely secular, but hey). It sounded to me more like someone narrating their own, personal, feelings on a topic and giving some context to why he might not give an unequivocal affirmative response to coworkers' queries about sta…

I never implied, nor do I endorse the fact, that this results in a trickle down effect. If you would like to dispute the actual economics of my first sentence I have roughly 700 years of history and research to back my claim.

However your quibble with my phrasing of "holier" and the fact that you needed to point out that there aren't binaries in life kind of shows your true intentions in disagreeing, don't you? Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when you start moralizing and implying that your opinion is preferable on moral grounds, well... I'm gonna call you out.

>>> "Working for the U.S. Digital Service showed me that, indeed, there were far better ways for me to spend my time if I really wanted to make a difference in people’s lives."

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

#99

Post by nbevans »

I love how after 6 months working for someone he is happily blogging about it and he isn't ashamed about it even in the slightest. If I saw he'd worked for someone for 6 months only then I'd want to hear a good reason why he left. Otherwise I will just assume he was fired, or knew he was struggling against his peers and decided to move on by himself. You have to read his About page to realise that is probably not likely to be the case in this instance, but still.

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

#100

Post by ibejoeb »

codeonfire wrote: post #88
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…

Ride sharing is helping lots of not-rich people in small and medium sized towns who can't find jobs but have a car. I can go to my hometown and probably would request an Uber or Lyft. I never once took a taxi living in the same area for 20 years. I for one think technology should help the living. The goal should not be to maximize human population on Earth. If we could reduce the birthrate, fewer children would die f…

Ride sharing also helps the middle class by providing available, affordable transportation and reducing the need for (multiple) vehicle ownership. It certainly has the potential to reduce emissions and other waste.

There are certainly some trivial things out there, but I wouldn't include ride sharing in that population.

I agree with the "help the living" objective. Helping poor, sick, foreign children is a fine cause. So is helping Joe Public.

If you make video games, and those games offer a few people a little entertainment and enjoyment, I think you've done some good.

Post reply on HN