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?

6 comments

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donaldguy 11y ago ↗

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 :-/

adventured 11y ago ↗

The westernized aspect has absolutely nothing to do with having an impact or not. The east / west thing is bullshit, nothing more. If someone tells you that you can't have an impact because of western culture, they're merely looking to prey on naivety or ignorance to further their own irrational agenda or bias.

To have a meaningful impact, you need a platform / vehicle. It's what all people have in common that have made a positive difference throughout history.

You can do it by inventing something new that makes life better (easier, healthier, more fulfilling, etc). Imagine how much time and effort things like refrigeration save us today, and how much better that makes ~2 billion lives. If you save someone an hour per day with an invention like that, you've just given them more life in real terms - time with their children, time in which they can make a difference, or just spare them hardship.

You can make a lot of money and put that to good use. Even though it's a wildly unpopular thing to say, Bill Gates will have a drastically greater positive impact on the welfare of humanity than Mother Teresa (or people like that). Drastically is understating things too much.

You can - try - to make a difference through politics. This is extraordinarily challenging, and can usually only have maximum impact at times of desperation and chaos. That's when people are open to new messages (good or bad).

You can make your platform an idea. Whether that's civil rights, or universal suffrage, or liberty, or privacy, etc. Then you have to choose how to go about furthering it, whether through an organization, or writing on your own, or a dozen other options.

Bottom line, you must have a lever. Your platform / vehicle is at its core a system of leverage, ideally. Meaning, it's something that other people too will care about, because it's important. If it is, then they will contribute energy into amplifying the reach and impact of that platform. You don't get very far on your own, build systems that other people will get behind and readily lift higher.

chipsy 11y ago ↗

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.