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Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#81

Post by cornelius »

Man, do I know the feeling of guilt you describe. And yes I am going to change the world. And hopefully I will become loaded (as if not the majority of the western world already is). But I will always be a Calvinist, not by choice, but by guilt. But I have realized a long time ago, I was not only lucky getting the proper physical and geographical properties, but also getting a real talent in one specific area: abstract reasoning. And so I can do 2 things; Be a volunteer for something in which I am not incredibly good (I'm not so much a 'sensitive' guy) or I could feel obligated to exploit the talent to the best I can (and enjoy it) and earn money of people that are living well enough, and spend that in the best possible way. Then I would be helping the world more. I feel it is everybodies obligation to reach for the best in themselves and use that for the interest of mankind.

Cornelius

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#82

Post by angryprofessor »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #36

I would ask yourself a few honest questions if I were you. 1) Do you want to change the world, really? Or do you just want to feel good? Lots of people have spent lots of money on eliminating poverty. And it's still here. That's not saying it's a lost cause, only that the benefit for all those other people was that it made them feel like they were trying. One day we will succeed. Until then, the numbers look like a l…

>So if you're still feeling guilty, target some investment money in saving time for scientists -- all scientists. If you could save them a few hours each week, imagine how much value you could add?

One very useful webapp would be a personal bibliography database, i.e. BibDesk for the web. Let me create an account, and upload papers. Give me tags, comments and full text search, as well as bibtex output. Maybe even the ability to share papers with other authors (possible copyright issues here).

Organizing papers is painful right now. My home and office are rsynced together, but that's useless when I'm in other locations, and I don't have full text search (just a list of folders by name of author). Most of my coworkers don't even do that.

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#84

Post by peterevogel »

There is certainly a part of me that feels guilty, sometimes for not taking a more active, direct role in the improvement of people's lives, of our course as a species, of the world in general. Volunteering is wonderful, but clearly that's not what we are talking about here - this is about committing your mind, all the analytical problem solving skills at your disposal, all that drive and ambition, to something that benefits others.

But there is another part of me that believes, quite firmly, that you can't force people to be socially responsible and get good results. You can't demand that everyone order their lives for the common good (I seem to recall a guy named Karl had that notion a while back, and the practical application of his ideas didn't turn out so well.) Humans are, by nature, a competitive and self-interested species, and we ignore that reality at our peril. Does this mean we should all be heartless capitalists? No, I don't see it that way. I think it's possible to "trick" human nature, to align personal ambition with something that produces a net good for society. On a more specific note, I think people in our field are part of a valuable and necessary experiment - we are helping to organize the explosion of human knowledge more efficiently, defining a world that didn't even exist in Marx's industrial worker's paradigm, that might never have existed if we were all completely altruistic. So yes, even if what we create seems trivial on the surface, even if we are just saving .01% of the population 4 minutes a day, I think that's worth something. Because you never know what those extra four minutes will bring. Or what other innovations may spring from that little brainstorm you had one day in the laundromat at 1 AM.

Here endeth the rant.

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#85

Post by kalid »

andreyf wrote: post #35
pg wrote: post #24

this just reaffirms that the little bubble world of YC, TechCrunch, and Web 2.Oh really don't mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of life. This guy wouldn't trade some extra time with his family for all the startups and VC cash in the world. Saving time is to me the most important point of doing a startup. You compress the tedious business of making a living into the smallest number of years, instead of letting it d…

> Saving time is to me the most important point of doing a startup. I mis-read this in an interesting way: some startup ventures may seem like "not a big deal", but if they save 1% of the US population 1 minute of time every month, that's almost 70 person-years per year. I can't imagine how much time GMail has saved for me that I would have spent setting up mail clients. Ditto for reddit, or news.YC - there is no way…

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the 1 minute * 300 million argument because we fritter enough time away already (TV, internet, waiting in line, chewing too slowly, hitting snooze, etc.). A minute here or there will invariably be sucked up somewhere else.

I used to work at a large, very large, software company. I learned not to buy the argument of ("Hey, design this right and you'll save 1 minute on 450 million machines") as a motivating factor. You just don't notice small things enough, and there are a million small things every day. (Did you notice the new wide-mouth soda cans? They do save you time gulping. But would you be satisfied being their inventor?).

Personally, I'd prefer to have a large impact on a few people and grow from there. But that's just me.

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#86

Post by surya »

I believe doing your best work, is the best way of helping the world. If you love what you are doing, if you are one with yourself when you are doing it, you are giving the most you can ever give to the world.

All religions say that selflessness is the path to happiness and enlightenment. I think true selflessness can only be achieved when you are truly at one with your work and its flow, when you see it all around you, and you loose yourself in it...

Even though Michaelangelo didn't cure any life threatening diseases he did make something that gives everyone who watches it, a moment of beauty, a moment of perfection, a moment of heaven. I think that gift is no less than any other.

I hope I gave you something to think about. This was my good deed of the day... :)

I also recommend an old Japanese movie by Akira Kurosawa called 'Ikiru'. It has a nice perspective on the topic.

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#87

Post by tuukkah »

Shooter wrote: post #11
rms wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people that are HIV+, the CCR5 delta32 mutation indicates a slower progression to AIDS. It's not a reliable enough measure to adjust dosages of anti-retroviral drugs though eventually we expect CCR5 delta32 to be part of a suite of tests to determine optimal HIV drug dosage. For HIV- individuals, the test can provide relative peace of mind. We still strongly advocate safe sex to everyone but certain populations o…

Yeah, I read your site. I'll email you, but I'm posting this here to get input on this issue from others. Cheap marketing research. I really don't mean to bust chops. I'm just not sure I agree with the 'feel good' angle of your diagnostic kit. There seems to be three options you can take with a genetic testing kit: 1."You are naturally resistant to X. Yay for you." 2."You are going to get or already have X disease. S…

As long as the resistance isn't 100%, aren't the options 1 and 3 basically the same from an individual's point of view? That is, can't you rephrase "You are naturally resistant" as "You don't have increased risk", as long as you talk to individuals rather than to societies? Like you explain, what people can do with this kind of information individually is get health advice that applies to them personally.

Edit: I think I should explicate that I think people take a doctor's opinion more seriously if they can see it's tailored to them more.

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#88

Post by jaesch »

I would say look into public education in the inner city. I don't know "public" education is funded in your part of the states, but in PA it is funded by _local_ property taxes --- so children of wealthy parents get enourmously well funded "public" schools, and children of poor parents go to "public" schools that can't even afford textbooks. I don't know how kids in the city are supposed to break the cycles of crime and poverty in their communities if they are systematically denied a decent education --- and public schools were, I believe, created explicitly for children in these kinds of situations. If you believe in the power of education and access to information in changing lives for the better, I'd say this is a good place to start.

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#89

Post by mtrimpe »

Hehe, that's a lot of comments. I guess your remarks really got people going. But anyhow, I'm really into changing the world and have been thinking about it incessantly for several years now. For me the greatest thing was seeing spirituality and technology merge.

According to Buddhism a lot of the stuff we regard as 'real' are just beliefs, and are no more real than a record in a database somewhere. Everything we think is just that, only thought. Thought is where all problems exist (if we all started seeing challenges, there would no longer be any problems, right?) yet also where solutions arise to in order to be passed on.

So what the most important thing to do for this world is to create better ways of thinking. The internet, Web2.0, the Social Web, the Semantic Web, they all provide is with a richer, more direct access to the though processes of other people.

Thanks to this technology I can now imagine being in your position in fairly great detail. If I were to read all your twitter messages, emails, blog posts, bookmarks or calender I could understand you even better, and through that I could learn in what ways you think that I haven't thought of yet, and I could also identify ways of thinking that I've found wanting and alert you of my motivations for abandoning those beliefs/methods of thinking.

Now this is the stuff we IT-people are making possible. This is what we are doing to change the world and trust me ... there's a new generation rising that will blow our minds. I'm 25 and even though I can process vast amounts of information effortlessly and navigate and skim through tons of blogs to get a very detailed feel of any field I'm interested in in a fairly short amount of time ... this new generation, to be born in 5 years or so, will grow up thinking like this. They will have such a massive amount of information at their disposal that what they will be able to do is beyond our wildest dreams.

I envision a generation that has the ability to collectively focus on an issue like the Sudan war and has the ability and willingness to put an end to that suffering in a matter of weeks.I believe that when another hurricane Katrina will strike in 40 years people from around the world will rush to the city and will either have it rebuilt in a month or three or will have found a new home for anyone living there hours after the flood.

That's the kind of stuff we nerds are making possible right now ... Anyhow, this is a bit of a rant. Check my blog where working in the somewhat more formal explanation of this stuff: blog dot mondiality dot nl.

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#90

Post by david927 »

curi wrote: post #13

Is making an AJAXified tool or toy that will likely be used by less than 1% of the people in the richest country in the world the absolute best use of your time and talents right now? Honestly? This is a good question. Here are some thoughts about the answer in a general sense: Why do people make ajax websites like that? To get money, mostly. (It's also fun because programming is fun.) How do you get rich making a we…

> Why do people make ajax websites like that?

Because it's a get-rich-quick scheme.

> This is capitalism at its finest.

Twitter? Facebook? I absolutely agree.

> There is an idea that the richest country doesn't need more help, doesn't need further luxury.

Are you talking about Norway? Or Luxembourg? Or Switzerland? They're all richer than the US. In fact, with the current drop in the dollar, and if Current Account is factored in to the GDP, the US is not in the top 20. (Income from debt is not the same as earning it.)

> We are the richest country because we have the most productive people.

Nope. Most European countries have higher productivity. And more vacation to boot.

While it's true, increased productivity is great and valuable, I'd argue very little Web 2.0 increases productivity at all. Quite the opposite. YouTube, for example, has opened up whole new worlds of ways to waste time.

I'm sorry if this comes across mean. I thought exactly the same way at 19. (And I'm from Berkeley too.) But please travel a bit before you spit out more of the platitudes that you're fed every day as an American. When you come back and trip over the homeless on Shattuck, you'll understand that America has squandered its inheritance like a trust fund kid.

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