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Comment by sgdesign | Hacker News Reader

> We believe that most bad things in the world are the product of some form of information failure. From economic collapse and the outbreak of war and disease, to choosing the right life partner or university degree, we’re on a mission to help everybody make the right decisions and overcome information failure

I'm not commenting on the merits of the product itself, but this is exactly the kind of arrogant "make the world a better place" attitude tech could use less of these days.

When you look at how many bad decisions have been taken these past few years despite plenty of access to good information, this sentiment seems pretty out of touch…

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The following paragraph:

> Brilliant innovators have sought to organize the world’s information and make it accessible to all, and the next step on this journey is to make that information understandable and usable to everybody.

> When you look at how many bad decisions have been taken these past few years despite plenty of access to good information, this sentiment seems pretty out of touch…

I'd argue we have lots of good information about what is going on. I'm not sure we have lots of good information about what we should do. Should we move to renewables and storage, nuclear or carbon capture and storage or would it be better to geo-engineer?

There are lots of trade-offs for all these paths. Being able to simulate their interactions accurately and under different assumptions might help form a consensus about a not too bad way forward.

Agreed. And in regard to GP's comment:

> kind of arrogant "make the world a better place" attitude

It's not "arrogant" to want to make the world a better place. If GP thinks they're lying, they's better described as "deceptive". If GP thinks they're naive, they should say that, and ideally provide some constructive feedback. This kind of knee-jerk comment (and the subsequent knee-jerk upvotes) is my least-favorite thing about HN.

That’s conflating availability of lots of data with ability to understand though.

Could you be more precise in what you are responding to?

Meant to agree with your reply, the comment was for the post you were replying to. We have lots of data but that doesn’t mean we have widely distributed understanding. Data != understandable models of the world. We need much more of the later.

Right (likewise commenting on your note, and not on this product)--we need development down multiple tracks... maybe:

1. data/info-skepticism

2. data/info-literacy

3. soundly interpreting data/information

4. data/info-interpretation skepticism

5. data/info-interpretation literacy

On the other hand, there's "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."

(e.g. https://medium.com/covilian-military-intelligence-group/you-... )

> "make the world a better place" attitude tech could use less of these days.

What's wrong with aiming to empower people?

If you like to see less of that, what would you like to see?

I think the thing that’s readily critiqued is the rhetoric — instead of “X will make the world a better place “, how about just “We think X is pretty neat” or “X seems like something people will pay money for.” There’s no need to pretend that every startup is engaged in a deep moral mission.

I think that flips the logic around. Because not every startup needs to have a deep moral mission, you imply every deep moral mission is pretended.

Why are you so sure it can't be their true deep moral mission? More importantly; how would you ever be able to recognize a startup that has one in general? Should they hide their moral mission, so people like you won't judge them for it? How is that for honesty?

If you apply this logic to people, you'll only see either 'honest people who have no deep morals' and 'dishonest people who attempt to have deep morals'. you would then feel better about those that openly have lower morals. That's not in your interest.

And you would be making the world a harder place for those that actually try to improve it with their deep morals. And this annoys me, therefore, this long answer :).

For instance, FairPhone, you think they should say 'We try to make a phone that's nice and makes money?'.

https://www.fairphone.com/en/

Agreed. Seems like a bit too much self-aggrandizement. This sort of lofty rhetoric is fine if you have developed a COVID vaccine, but perhaps not if you’ve made a useful tool for system analysis. The teams that built Linux, Redis, Postgres, etc. were realistic and concrete about their value propositions and did not make any pronouncements like, “we’re changing the world.” Seems more honest.

"This sort of lofty rhetoric is fine if you have developed a COVID vaccine,"

Why wouldn't it be fine for someone who just start to study medicine to say "I'm going into medicine to try to change the world for the better." It's aspirational.

How honest someone is, is not something you can judge based on the goals that are set.

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