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Comment by rmbyrro | Hacker News Reader

This can be true, but tech also can arguably make millions of people's lives worse.

Just like anything else. It really depends on who's implementing the tech and their intentions.

Need to care about ourselves and our intentions for "make the world a better place" a true reality.

?What is this? If it really is just a matter of who is implementing the tech and their intentions then this post is really just impugning the op apropos nothing. The reality is more complicated than the line the non tech people run to try to win political fights. The consequences are more complicated than intentions of anyone. Successful systems build around that.

We need more people working on things they believe are making the world better these days, I'm not sure what your comment is trying to accomplish

The "make the world a better place" is a jab that got popularized by the show Silicon Valley. They poked fun about how every startup claims they're making the world a better place, and it didn't matter what they actually did. A food delivery service would claim it. Some B2B SaaS would claim it.

And it's all a bunch of baloney. Unless you're solving a problem that threatens the world (climate change, disease, healthcare, hunger, poverty, homelessness, etc.), then "make the world a better place" is eye-roll worthy.

And what are our intentions?

If we go by the choices we've made as an industry our intentions are how can we make a ton of money and effectively kill more people. (The first large scale software project and literally the reason our industry was so well funded to start was how can we better guide these missiles to their targets)

Also, anecdote incoming, the largest budget I've ever had on a software project was for a "Defense" project. I'm aware that I'm a hippocrit btw and have made a ton of money from our industry and have now got to a point I am lucky enough to pick my projects to avoid questionable ones.

My point was, tech isn't trying to make the world better, we're trying to make a buck and solve interesting problems (some of which objectively make the world worse). Let's be honest with ourselves more.

If we go by the choices we've made as an industry our intentions are how can we make a ton of money and effectively get more people to stay indoors. Our nation hasn't been at war since we invented computers and television because our natural desire for conflict is pacified by video games, Netflix, and YouTube.

Also, anecdote incoming, the largest budget I've ever had on a software project was for a "FAANG" project. I'm aware that I'm a hypocrite btw and have made a ton of money from our industry and have now got to a point I am lucky enough to pick my projects to avoid questionable ones.

My point is, tech isn't trying to advance the nasty, brutish, and short struggle of human evolution, we're trying to make a buck and solve interesting problems (some of which objectively make the world worse). Let's be honest with ourselves more.

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