Ask HN: Do you worry that our efforts are pointless in the scheme of things?

No, these little tech startups (mostly, with obvious exceptions) make no difference in the world and will die in a few years never to be remembered. The point is that people enjoy doing them.

People play piano too. That doesn't do much for the world around them, but they and the people listening to them get enjoyment from it.

You can't ask for everything you do to have a lot of purpose for the rest of the world. We do things because we enjoy them, and what is life if you don't enjoy it?

Working at the wrong startups can be a cure for this. After a failure, you no longer worry about your efforts being pointless in the grand scheme of things. You've already received stark confirmation your efforts are indeed pointless, even in the smaller scheme of internet startups.

30,000 children die in africa each day from easily preventable causes. That is the ultimate calamity. There is no point in feeling guilty over things you have no control over there is simply too much suffering in the world - most of which you know nothing about. You should give back, but don't make yourself miserable over not feeling like you are doing enough. You simply will never be able to do enough - just give back as much as you want.

Yes I do worry about that. What scares me is that I hardly know very much at all about my great grandfather or great great grandfather. They were probably good men, looked after their families, were successful, yet I don't know much about them. In a few generation, (perhaps just 100 years) will I be forgotten?? What impact am I really leaving?

At age 19 I quit my burgeoning career after a similar realisation in India, where I had been sent to present a satellite surveillance solution to their military. Similar trips followed to other asian governments, R&D on surveillance systems for national police, etc. I quit instead of take the dirty money. Some people are happy to do that, but I always make sure what I work these days on can only be used for good or is relatively harmless at worst.

I have what I affectionately call The Capitalist Hippie Complex. It means that I have hippie ideals and want to save the world, but I enjoy the challenge of creating wealth and having nice things; and, these two conflicting ideals cause me great distress.

What I one day realized was, donating 10 hours a month doesn't compare to what Bill Gates can now do for the world with his money. It's important to give your actual time, don't get me wrong, but with millions of dollars you can feed a substantial amount of people, pay others to help distribute that massive food allocation, and so on. You can fund disease research. You can do things that create lasting change.

The important part is remembering to give back when that time comes. In the meantime, you can also help with your time, but if you truly have the skill to create more wealth than others, your best contribution may be doing so and then giving back generously. There is nothing wrong with that. It's a remarkable and noble goal, even if it seems more self serving.

No, I don't worry, mainly for two reasons:

First, it's extremely difficult to predict how a company, product, or idea will evolve. What seems insignificant now might be world-changing in the future.

Second, the universe will die a heat death someday, so in some sense nothing matters "in the scheme of things." However, that perspective is depressing and unproductive, so I prefer to try to find the good in everything; that is, everything matters.

At the end of the day, it is up to you how you decide to give back. I, and I would hope a lot of HNers, give to charities.

tl;dr: makes more sense for skilled people to make money and donate to charity than to actually focus on helping others.

Money is a powerful force. I have accepted that its impossible for me to know what is best for the rest of the world. I have a vague idea of some of the general higher-level goals [like health care] but I profess ignorance to the micro-requirements.

I could learn, but it would be less efficient for me to learn and spend time than it would for me to donate money to someone else who has already figured out how to most efficiently use time and money to help others.

In my case, I donate enough money to subsidize at least two people's efforts overseas. Given my lack of experience, I know its more efficient than actually putting effort into figuring out what needs to be done.

Where things fall apart is when people dont actually know how to use time and money to help others in the world. Surprisingly enough, this is fairly common.

There is plenty of suffering in the world, and who could wish to belittle it, but that's no reason or excuse to give in to pessimism.

The world is more peaceful today than at any time in history.

Infant mortality in Africa is decreasing, despite the complex political and economic problems that beset many countries there.

Startups are important because they are attempts to solve complex problems and with every failure more knowledge is created. (They are also symbols of optimism.)

Thus, human effort is important in the scheme of things. Even the cosmological scheme of things: pretty soon we'll have the technology to deflect asteroids and comets. We might eventually, if we want, go on to defuse all the local supernovae (by removing matter from the relevant stars).

News like these and the realization that I am powerless to do anything about it are precisely the reasons I have stopped following these kind of news.