Technology changes the world by changing the environment human nature can work within. The birth control pill, telecommunications, the internal combustion engine, and antibotics has changed the world greatly by changing what is possible.
Your App Won't Save the World
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Re: Your App Won't Save the World
#12There was about 1.5 million apps and just one world the last time I checked. Not every app needs to save the world. Making it a little better is a noble goal.
Re: Your App Won't Save the World
#13> Runkeeper won’t make an athlete out of someone with no desire to run And yet today, while driving and using the Navigon North America app on my phone, I got a nice spoken warning saying "CAUTION!" when my speed accidentally exceeded 75 mph when going downhill on a highway.
I would even disagree with the assertion about Runkeeper directly. I never had a history of desiring to run. In fact, I might even say that I hated doing it. However, the nerd in me had an interest in the data I could collect while running. That pushed me out there to actually do it. You maybe still wouldn't call me an athlete, but I am definitely more athletic now than I was before the technology was in my hands.
Re: Your App Won't Save the World
#14Oh, your app can save the world; it just depends on the app. I was trying to save the world with my pet-project http://theboycottapp.com/ but the execution has been poor.
Great idea (if I understand it correctly) but yeah, not much in the way of communicating what it's purpose is.
Did you just run out of steam?
Re: Your App Won't Save the World
#15How can you explain the fact that we are living in the most peaceful time in the human history? Surely we are not able to change the human mind to control the desires of wanting more and more but we have definitely improved the fundamental definition of what it means to be human. We are not barbarians anymore, we don't enslave other human being for fun and profit anymore. These things matter and matter a lot. We are still in the development stage in-terms of society. We still treat people differently depending upon their skills, knowledge, power and still have notion of national borders and military to protect those borders. I have a feeling that technology will take us to the level of such abundance that future generations will find it hard to believe that we killed each other for resources and honored artificial geological boundaries.
Re: Your App Won't Save the World
#16I go back and forth on this. It's true that your app won't feed people who're starving, at least not directly. But it's kind of incredible how many problems essentially boil down to information problems, and particularly search problems, and your app can certainly solve those. In particular, I think there's a very large supply of untapped goodwill, and a basically infinite demand for goodwill, that is not connecting right now (or connecting poorly, through inefficient charities). For some things, for some people, at some points in time, an app can help bridge that gap. For example, you could write a volunteer version of Exec where people in your community just, I don't know, ask for help and then someone nearby gives them help. Like going grocery shopping or something, or even helping cook dinner, clean the kitchen, etc. Particularly powerful for the elderly - and I think there's plenty of good kids out there who'd be happy to help an elder out for free.
No, it's not "changing the world" in terms of making it a utopia in one fell swoop, but it's adding a bit of the community connectivity, and making real people's dreams of making the world a better place. It's not starving kids with flies on their mouths half a world away, it's people who need help right here.
Re: Your App Won't Save the World
#17Oh, your app can save the world; it just depends on the app. I was trying to save the world with my pet-project http://theboycottapp.com/ but the execution has been poor.
Great idea (if I understand it correctly) but yeah, not much in the way of communicating what it's purpose is. Did you just run out of steam?
Thanks, just trying to save the world. I made theboycottapp during the SOPA/PIPA resistance. I ran out of steam and was bummed out that the UPC scanner wouldn't work on the iPod touch that I bought to test the app out on - not a good enough focus to resolve the UPC.
I'm working on other things now with any available time; all of them are free. I keep track of them here: http://www.nanch.com
Re: Your App Won't Save the World
#18My one line response.
I am a crazy person and I push the human race forward. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXzimTThnPM
Re: Your App Won't Save the World
#19What is the point here? What actionable advice are readers supposed to glean from reading this article? It just sounds like you're being different for the sake of it. You're not really encouraging or discouraging, offering any advice or your own personal beliefs of how things should be. Might be a bit harsh, but nothing bugs me more than a hater or someone with a dissenting opinion that offers little-to-no actionable…
> I agree that there's an issue with grandiosity, but I'm still unsure if it's a net positive or negative for society.
I believe that is a net negative for two reasons: (1) grandiosity is a sign of people tying their self-worth to their achievements and (2) grandiosity is a sign of a lack of healthy self-critique.
Tying your self-worth to your success, especially in a high-risk activity, is a recipe for long-term inconsistency and increased personal risk (which in turn impacts net productivity).
Too much optimism and self-confidence is a recipe for stagnation, and that's what we see for the most part in the startup / app-development world.
For instance, perhaps if people were a bit more self-critical, they would discover that historically most technical innovation has occurred in the context of large, well-funded research programs. People might then choose to, rather than starting that social media website that will change the world or hacking together that 'cool' project for Maker Faire, study computer science and take a job at Microsoft Research, PARC or SpaceX.
Or something else.
But any behavior that reduces the extent to which people think about their actions is probably bad.
Re: Your App Won't Save the World
#20My one line response. I am a crazy person and I push the human race forward. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXzimTThnPM
All of the people in that ad were intensely self-critical and none of them changed the world by building apps.