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Comment by atmosx | Hacker News Reader

> This programming thing is a lot of fun, right? We have been entrusted with the unique responsibility of making pretty much the entire world go round.

I stopped reading after this quote. I don't have the will or time to wast in such ... naivety.

I wonder, do really programmers believe that they change the world say the way Newton (principia mathematica - first one to apply the scientific method), Einstein (Theory of relativity), Platoo (Creation of first higher education institution on the western world - Athens Academy) , Solon (Famous policy maker of the first direct democracy - Athens 600 BC), A. Flemming (inventor of penicillin), etc. ?

Because Steve Jobs didn't change the world. Really, he did NOT. Neither Gates or Zuckerberg imho. Ghandi did, Mandela did, in ways that technology never will.

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Maybe not Jobs, Gates, or Zuckerberg. But Turing, Von Neuman, Dijkstra, and the like have.

Newton and Einstein certainly changed the world, but modern physics would be untenable without computation. The LHC would be useless without the ability to deal with the data.

Computation is being used to revolutionize higher education from me being able to take learn CS from professors at top ranking universities for free to data analysis being used to develop more effective teaching methods in inner city schools.

Do you imagine that the next big antibiotic or vaccine will be possible without computational effort?

I imagine Ghandi would appreciate the power that the web has brought to individuals in voicing their opinions, in organizing against oppression, etc.

There is far more to programming than Facebook and iPhones.

That being said, his quote is quite arrogant.

"Gates, or Zuckerberg"

Perhaps not as a programmer but as a business person?

Gates (along with IBM and a zillion other things coming together at the same time) have allowed the popularization of computers and reduced the cost to allow many things to happen as a result of what they have done. Think of medical advances as a result of people who were able to cut their teeth on computers and/or components dropping in price. If no PC, no YC or PG and all that follows from that. Etc.

Things invented lead to other things.

In that sense even Zuckerberg has changed the world by the associations that people have made that have lead to something because of who they met or became friendly with on Facebook.

The question is really how do you define "change the world"? And how do you separate one persons involvement from just what happened to be around at the time and would have happened anyway had someone else done it first?

Gates can reasonably claim credit for taking computing away from the high priesthood and giving it to the masses. Sure it might have happened without him, but he's the one who actually did it. You're right about the other two.

As individuals, of course modern programmers don't change the world on the order of the people you've mentioned, but as an entire group the software development field has certainly redefined almost every aspect of human existence in ways that few other endeavors have come close to.

Also, IMO, your argument is somewhat confused by various issues:

Firstly, in science nobody will likely ever really top the original greats like Newton and such just because we've gone way past the point of such broad discovery into very niche specialization that doesn't allow for such a wide variety of discovery within one lifetime.

Secondly, I'd argue that while Ghandi and Mandela were extremely important and I respect both far more than Steve Jobs neither really changed the world to the degree to which you are stating. Beyond the "feel good" aspect of their stories, their impact was fairly localized to their regions. See, for example, the continued US imprisonment of way too much of its own black population, which wasn't fixed by Mandela's incredible progress in South Africa.

Thirdly, Steve Jobs was never really a programmer (unlike Bill Gates, or [more debatably, but technically true] Zuckerberg).

Having said all of this, I didn't care for the article, it is very 8th grade level ("why are people working on XYZ trivial thing when people are dying of cancer?") thinking at its core, and me writing this post would be a waste of time according to it, which I don't even disagree with, but wasting time is a perfectly acceptable thing for humans to do.

I was actually planning on writing a detailed blog post on the subject, due to the high volume of company looking for X super-duper developers, to help us change the world attitude that is common these days. Instead it came out as a comment... But here it goes a more detailed explanation.

What do we actually mean change the world. Although it's not clearly defined, I think we can all agree that when Steve Jobs wanted to change the world he meant to change the world for the better. In my view, better is what enables a society to become more civilized[1]. The iPhone, facebook or Microsoft Windows do NOT enable such behavior. They are tools. These tools can be used for good or bad purpose.

Ghandi, was able to free a country without lifting arms. I can not think of any one in history who achieved such a HUGE task. Ghandi showed that a man, can become a symbol and a symbol can bring an unexpected result by common sense. Also Ghandi showed that the end does NOT justify the means in an undisputed way. Ghandi changed the lives of Indian population for the better.

Mandella did the same. They changed the world for the better. If by changing the world Steve Jobs[2] meant creating the iPad, sky-rocketing Apple's stock, creating the first idiot-proof, 600 USD smart-phone, etc. I don't know. But he surely didn't change the world for the better in my view.

ps. In the Arab spring, twitter played a major role in communication. That's a good use of technology. But by no means twitter allowed the Arab sprint to take place. It was just a tool of communication with the outside world, nothing more nothing less, just a tool. If it was not for twitter, there would have been something else. Linus Torvalds (on of the few real pioneers imho among all the IT big names) said it best about the Linux (kernel): "If I haven't done it in 1992, some else would have done it in 1993, because the time was right for someone to create a kernel for the GNU".

[1] Civilized: bring (a place or people) to a stage of social development considered to be more advanced: a civilized society. (as adj.civilized) polite and good-mannered: such an affront to civilized behaviour will no longer be tolerated.

[2] http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2813-do-you-want-to-sell-suga...

Your knee jerk response takes what could be a well crafted criticism and makes it subject to the same commentary (naivety). Programmers have intense power in a world that is increasingly technologically oriented. I would argue that inventions like the internet (at the risk of citing the "easy one") have created as much of a paradigm shift in the world as a whole as any of the great social or scientific figures. (Not to diminish their accomplishments). All fields in which one can create great value can be used to create great change, and likewise, can be used to create great angry birds games, I think it's really just the person doing the creating who matters, not necessarily the field.

How did Mandela change the world?

B*tch please...

http://i.imgur.com/4aaH7GW.png

There are definitely some devs who think of themselves as above all others in society. Like Gods or something. I guess if you remain in the SV echo-chamber for long periods of time, you will feel like the whole world revolves around you.

Are you seriously telling me that the internet has NOT revolutionized the world? Everything has changed with the rise of the internet. While Gandhi (learn to spell the name correctly) certainly did big things in India which had effects on MLK's movement and such, his actions were still localized to a time and place (I'm saying this as an Indian).

The Internet, on the other hand, has completely changed the way the world works. Computers have completely changed the way we function.

The Internet is akin to the printing press, except on a far larger scale. Information has never flowed so freely as it is now. People from across the world are collaborating and getting opportunities to make their lives better.

The Internet is the biggest thing mankind has achieved so far. I wouldn't dismiss it so lightly.

Technology has significantly changed the world, maybe more so than anything else in both positive and negative ways. I feel that you are in denial. The truth is, it is above any one person (you seem to like to focus on individuals). It is our society advancing as a whole.

> I don't have the will or time to wast in such ... naivety.

Too busy making the world go round?

Joking aside, many programmers are part of an industry that really is changing the world. Mobile and web applications have had an amazing impact on the global economy and our day-to-day lives. These impacts may not be ghandi-sized, but in a time where mainstream computing and the internet is still relatively young, the average programmer probably has a more sizable impact on the world than most other professionals.

> imho

In YOUR opinion. The author is giving his opinion as well, on something he is passionate about no less, and deserves better than being called naive.

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

Mom?

So you think that Internet is not changing the world at all? or that computing in general is not enabling to discover and create fantastic things (like the LHC)?

Computing hm. Yes it's a tool. Scientists at LHC are changing the world, programmers... No they don't. Why would you think so?

The internet is changing the world for better and worst at the same time. It's a tool (as any other technology out there).

The internet enabled me and you (probably from a different country/TZ) exchanging views on this (and other) matters which is GREAT. I LOVE it. But it also makes possible massive surveillance by the NSA like never before.

It's a tool depends on how you use it. It doesn't advance society necessarily, as a whole. The internet didn't help the end of Africans starving, didn't stop any wars, etc.

Ghandi and Mandela did. Democracy gave power to the society, Einstein helped us understand the universe, Planck quantum physics, Watson and Crick explained the DNA structure, etc.

Turing yes, Dijkstra totally. But not average Google/Apple programmer creating expensive gadgets for the masses. No way.

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