Startups cannot change the fact people abandon their elderly parents. They'll just make it worse.
Startups cannot make people less egotistical or make them think about the other. They'll just make it worse.
Startups cannot take the existential anxiety and anger from you. They'll just make it worse.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11813571 and marked it off-topic.
But on a deeper, intuitive level things rings completely true. It's not something I can prove, it's something that can be proved, but I can't shake the feeling that this carries weight.
This is a world where Facebook use averages 50 minutes per day, and we're going to solve the problem with startups? Really? I tried a popular, profitable app that "gamifies" good habits recently, and almost immediately realized that it was just going to make me take another slice of my day to update an app about the stuff I've already done. Great.
At best, startups can grease the wheels. My 'favorite' apps, the ones that improve my life, are the ones that quietly make easier something I was going to do anyway. They help clear out mental clutter and offer simple reminders, making room for the human things that have to emerge from me rather than a product. So yes, better software and better companies can help, but mostly by getting out of the way; by smoothing over the humanity-eroding problems of other systems and products. This is a wicked problem, one that's entrapping whole societies, and change will have to come from equally large alterations.
Can a startup change the core of human nature? Can it change thousands of years of Philosophy? Can it change our socio-economic background? Can it change history?
If you can, then... dear Lord... this is Apotheosis.
People have been forming close-knit communities for all of human history. But modernity has changed things as we now have fewer excuses to interact with each other. People still want and need that sense of community, and I think giving people a way to meet over and over again that's both comfortable and convenient is what is needed.
This doesn't help anyone; it only makes them feel worse. You will only make people have even more superficial relationships - the last thing a depressed alienated individual needs.
Empathetic bonds do not have a "template" - it is based in the individuality of each person in a group. There is not a single statistical model at scale that is able to predict what can take you out of isolation and alienation.
> I think giving people a way to meet over and over again that's both comfortable and convenient is what is needed.
Just confirms what I argued. They crave real emotional bonds, not an easy "fast-food way" to talk to strangers. Long-term relationships are complicated, deep and time-consuming.
In no way do I think startups are a panacea for the ailments of society, but you do realize that they are made up of people?
People can do all the things that you list and more.
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Overfunded startups cannot change that.
Overfunded startups can only provide another pill to ignore the problem (making it even worse).