Ask HN: How can I *really* change the world? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How can I really change the world?

I stumbled across this video circling the interwebs today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRLJscAlk1M

Within tech, we place a focus on products/services that can be influential, to the point of "changing the world". And sure, the SaaS app that I work on each day has an influence, but naturally, I'm feeling a little disheartened.

Given our very Westernized culture, can we as individuals still have an impact on the future of our Earth? How?

It's sad to me that I have never really researched effectives ways that individuals can contribute to huge social issues before. My hypotheses is that there are many of us out there that want to do something, but perhaps see it as a futile mission, so end up doing nothing.

What do you think?

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My hypothesis, which I am not doing the best job of working in harmony with, is that the effort that's gonna have the most positive impact is proactive thinking and experimentation around both hastening and potentiating/spreading but also _planning for_ a post-scarce economy and society

My cynical view is that hardline capitalism operates on a faulty assumption of unlimited opportunity and unlimited growth. I believe that between population growth and accelerating automation, that barring a major casualty event such as a large-scale pandemic, the number of people will eventually outnumber the number of useful jobs that legitimately need doing. (or that worse the resource burn to sustain the model will undermine its feasibility and that of "good life" in general).

To this end, I think we need good minds figuring out how a world works in which people are less busy and own less. I don't know how that works but I think it involves education, maybe art, and also probably a greater popularization of mindfulness and contentment-first thinking.

This isn't to say there aren't big "hard" problems to tackle as well. In my eyes they are mostly the resource-management ones:

  - Alternative energy
  - Waste management and improved recycling tech
  - Space exploration?

And probably too the health ones, though population age bolstering is a real double edged sword:

  - cancer treatment
  - antibiotic alternatives (in the face of resistance)
  - better, more pleasant contraception?

I also have strong beliefs in the inherent good of technologies that can improve large scale understanding and communication:

  - machine translation (accounting for cultural factors too)
  - software for sensemaking and fair/just governance
  - more far-afield: neuro-analysis and possibly "telepathy" tech

... and yet for some reason I work on the infrastructure for a marketing platform :-/

May I add to the list of hard problems that make a difference:

- Local / sustainable food systems

I have been working on an application for the past year involving connecting local producers with local customers. It is a different kind of application than typical e-commerce because it revolves around a scheduling component so that farmers can drop off food at the food hub and customers can pick it up their or have it delivered.

There are many others working on similar systems such as http://openfoodfoundation.org/project/open-food-network

There are hundreds of these 'food hubs' in the United States ( definition: http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/foodhubs ).

As far as I observed, each food hub seems to operate quite differently thus making it difficult to facilitate each food hub's needs in one application. There doesn't seem to be a "market leader" software. This is a very grass roots sector and I suspect many food hubs are operating using excel spreadsheets or homebrew solutions.

Anyways, there is a lot of opportunity to make a big difference in the world around you. It has been a very rewarding and challenging thing for me to be involved in. Let me tell you, UI for farmers is quite difficult! :)

The most likely way in which you can be impactful is just to be stubborn about your work. Slow and steady, trial and error type work is less easily explored and thus more bountiful if you can persist. Everyone uses their own particular strategy, but your strategy is defined by your personality. Lots of creatures in the wild can be observed solving big challenges like "how to escape" or "how to get the food" just with persistence, without being particularly crafty or skillful. With ideas and social problems, the same kind of persistence is important. If it were easy, it'd already be done.