Ask HN: As a young person, what can I do to make things better? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: As a young person, what can I do to make things better?

3 pointsssono2 comments

I am a college senior, and I feel that I and many of my peers grapple with the question of how to make decisions that will allow us to cause positive change. It is not that there is a shortage of problems, but that the path to doing anything about them is so unclear. The most common advice seems to be to "vote with your dollar/behavior", but I struggle with this advice because it's hard to see the connection between small daily decisions and large scale change, and harder to have the discipline make those decisions. With this in mind, I'm curious as to how I can direct my career to put myself in a position to have a positive impact. I am hoping that some of you who are or have been where I am can point me in the right direction.

I am graduating Spring of 2020 with bachelor's degrees in Computer Science and Philosophy from a top 25 University. Next year, I will be working in the Bay Area for a fortune 500 company as a software engineer. I'm excited to work there, and I like the company, but I don't believe my work will have any impact on the problems I care about e.g (education, democracy, and sustainability.) I chose computer science because I believe that the best I could do was to build systems and tools to make positive change easier. Now that I'm this far, I'm not really sure what to do next? What skills should I try to build, technical and otherwise? What kinds of companies do I try to work for? What kinds of mentors do I seek out?

Some (admittedly simplified) lessons I learned after feeling the same way as a young college grad:

1) Don't set yourself on fire so that others may be warm.

Deep sacrifices aren't sustainable (not unlike extreme diets or New Year's resolutions to hit the gym every day). Don't feel guilty about aligning things you enjoy with things that help others, even if that's not the best or most efficient way to help. Shoot for "net positive" rather than "most positive".

2) Build a solid resume now, and then use it to be selective about whom you work for.

If you're unable to differentiate yourself in the job market, you may end up feeling a lot of financial pressure to work for a company with neutral or negative impact on the world. Remember that a huge portion of software engineers currently work for ad-tech or are faceless cogs in large corporate machines. Figure out how not to be one of those people.

(Hint: what sets people apart tends to be unrelated to their skill or output as a programmer. There are lots of good programmers, but not all of them understand sales, marketing, finance, management, or many of the other functions of their company.)

3) Be shamelessly public about your good deeds.

Volunteer at a soup kitchen? Post about it on Instagram. Compete in a non-profit hackathon? Put it on GitHub and tell people about it. Telling people are your good deeds may seem uncomfortably self-centered, but it has the positive effect of creating social envy and social pressure that makes others want to emulate you, even if they don't feel any intrinsic pull toward volunteering.

4) Don't micromanage your dollars or behaviors.

Does it make you happy to take 20-min showers? Do you forget to turn off lights when you leave a room? Do you eat meat? If it's maddening to try to remember all of the micro-decisions that contribute to a better world, don't let them steal attention or brain cycles. Opt for "set and forget" good, like installing solar panels, going car-less, or working for a positive organization. The micro-decisions are a distraction and an attempt by political and business leaders to blame consumers for the way the world is, when in reality those changes need to be top-down.

5) Relentlessly try to influence politics without talking politics (too much).

Lots of people are politics junkies and love having ideological arguments, and that's where it ends for a lot of them. How many people sharing political memes on reddit actually voted in their region's last election? Statistically speaking, the answer (except for Australians...) is probably less than 50%.

Do things to support candidates you agree with, help register voters, pay attention to major political news, and of course, vote. Don't think that barraging people with political arguments is going to make you happy, change their minds, or accomplish anything. It tends to be a time-suck with no benefit.

Email me at the address on my profile if you want to discuss further.

Move slow and build things.

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