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How can I use my skills for good?

7 points by arthar ↗ HN
I realize that's a vague, loaded question. But, for the last year, I've been feeling more and more detached. I'd say my core competencies are ownership, software engineering/architecture, and research. I enjoy working with different people to understand their needs and execute on it based on my capabilities.

It's just that when I disconnect from work, I feel lost because I see how sad the state of the world is for so many people. While I'm sitting in my comfortable apartment in California with my biggest complaint being the heat today because I have too many windows, there are children going to work in mines in Africa and there are also people in my neighborhood who can't afford rent. This makes it pretty difficult for me to enjoy some of the nicer things in life. I also feel some guilt at time, because I was born in another country to lower-middle family and what I have today seems unreal to say the least.

How can I take the skills I have and put them to good use? Are there any organizations I can join where I can work with other like-minded people who want to tackle hard problems for raw societal benefit?

Sorry if this sounds corny, but I really want to know. Also, please note this is not coming from a place of depression or anything like that - I just want to know how I can be useful. As awesome as it is to drive self driving car and other goodies, I have to admit the coolness wears off when I take an exit and I'm greeted by lines of tents and trash, or watch on my TV a program that shows kids working in mines so we can make cell phones.

15 comments

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cande
Would love help with Collaborateandelevate.com. We are helping students, single moms, those building from the prison industrial complex and more
arthar
Neat. I recently watched a documentary series called "College Behind Bars" which features https://bpi.bard.edu/ so that's great to hear.

I checked out an article after doing a search, https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/dayton/news/2021/01/25/business.... How can I help?

cable2600
That is good, giving prisoners a big break to learn a degree in something and use it when they get released so they don't have to face the same hardships that put them in prison in the first place.
troydavis
80,000 Hours exists to answer your question: https://80000hours.org/ , https://80000hours.org/key-ideas/
chevill
Interesting concept but its pretty discouraging browsing the website. I'm a principal analyst specializing in digital forensics and incident response and I've been thinking about ways to pivot into a job for a philanthropic organization of some kind in a role directly contributing towards the mission of helping people. I have basic coding skills but a good amount of expertise in a bunch of other technical skills.

Many of the "paths" they've identified as critical things that require people suggest that to be qualified you need a PHD from one of the best schools in the world, which involves being accepted to one of the best schools in the world or living in china for years to learn the skills required to get a job.

For most of them it seems like they are saying unless you already chose this path a long time ago or you're single and don't mind upending your life for several years, you can give up and donate money to a good cause.

There's even a path for my field "information security" which casually suggests getting into a top 5 school for AI like its something everyone can do and then doing security for an AI lab.

The most laughable recommendation was getting a job in quant so you could donate more money.

arupy
I resonate deeply with this.

I think this is strongly associated with effective altruism; It would be helpful to start with the very basic things you could do to improve the lives of others: volunteering at local food banks, teaching in places without suboptimal education, donating to reliable organizations, e.g., but since you have a highly valuable skill (you presumably have a high paying job), comparative advantage would suggest to apply your technical skills towards social good.

It would be a good idea to start by identifying problems in the world, at a macroscopic scale. The UN Sustainable Development goals would be a strong place to start. Dive into a problem, learn it’s intricacies, and figure why it cannot be resolved. We’re usually not limited by resources, but rather our allocation of these (I read somewhere that 30% of food grown is not eaten). If the limitation is something that can be lessened with technology (e.g not politics, insufficient resources, or other non-intervenable factors), then it simply comes down to creating a solution or to join an organization with an idea, but needs help.

If you find something, please do reach out. This is also something I’m searching for.

edimaudo
You can take a look at sites like heroX, data for good or MITSolve
sloaken
In all likelihood, the best use of your skills is to make money and then donate it. Find a good charity. Of course with charity you want a quality charity that spends on the intended target and not the management or ad agency. My 2 favorite are unbound and salvation army.

If you feel a need to have a lesser, but more direct impact, find a charity / church et el that you care about. I am sure in this day of the remote worker, you can do something for them.

tbabej
You can join a company whose success would be arguably a net benefit for the society. Facing a similar mindset, that is the reason I started https://proteinqure.com/ couple of years back.

Needless to say, we're always on a lookout for good people to join us. My contact info is in the profile, if you want to chat.

killtimeatwork
Recognize that technology is the source of most of the world's problems and aim for gradually eliminating it from your life. Try to get others to do the same.
2rsf
You mean that before technology the world was a better place?

How far should we go? 1940's brought WWII and lot's of deadly tech so no, 1917 was WWI with its deadly weapons so again no, Antibiotics was discovered in 1928 and need a lot of tech to be manufactured so anything before that could be deadly, if we go forward we'll find very few news services which are mostly controlled by governments or other organizations so again not a great choice...

I agree that technology causes a lot of evil and problems but always think of things in respect to the alternatives.

killtimeatwork
It's a difficult question. Technology has made us into stupid, entitled sheep (most of us are narrow specialists in the work hours, entitled and clueless consumers during the rest of our time). It has severely weakened societal and human connections. It has introduced non-locality in the market, which in turn created a ton of human and animal misery (it's a lot harder to buy a non-ethically produced good if the factory is just 500m from your home and you personally know people who work there and are suffering). And, perhaps most importantly, it is just unsustainable - if we continue this techno experiment, the earth will be a total hellhole in a couple hundred years at most. Worst case, it won't be habitable by humans at all.

I think that, given where we are today (i.e. we've already, for better or worse, invented a huge amount of technologies), it would probably be wise to start with advocating heavy restraint in tech use. Electronics, as evil as their production is, give us the Internet, which in turn can educate and enlighten people who otherwise would remain ignorant. So perhaps using an old tablet or small laptop to browse the web for educational purposes is ok. The valuable sites tend to be small (no ads) and low-tech, so they don't require a ton of compute resources and don't consume much electricity.

As for antibiotics -perhaps they could be made at home? Pennicilin was accidentally grown by a guy in a lab. That sounds replicable in home environment. It was routinely done in Poland pre-XX at least - people would combine bread, spit and spider's web, leave it alone for a while and then rub it into e.g. combat wounds to combat infections. With our current level of knowledge, I'm sure could come up with a better procedure :)

reactgeek
If you have tech skills, you can use your free time to teach / mentor someone that couldn't go to college. You could literally change someones life, and their family's too.