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Ask Slashdot: Why Aren't Techies Improving The World?
Slashdot reader marmot7 isn't impressed by "the latest app that solves some made up problem. I'm impressed by apps that solve real problems..."
I don't feel that developers, sys admins, finance people, even policy wonks focus on the problems that we need to solve to have a healthy functioning society. It seems like it's mostly about short-term gain and not much about making the world better. That may be just the way the market works.
Is it that there's no profit to be made in solving the most important problems? I'm puzzled by that as I would think that a good solution to an important problem could find some funding from somewhere but maybe government, for example, won't take investment risks in that way?
Is there a systematic bias that channels technology workers into more profitable careers? (Or stunning counter-examples that show technology workers are making the world a better place?) Leave your answers in the comments. Why aren't geeks doing more to improve the world?
Is it that there's no profit to be made in solving the most important problems? I'm puzzled by that as I would think that a good solution to an important problem could find some funding from somewhere but maybe government, for example, won't take investment risks in that way?
Is there a systematic bias that channels technology workers into more profitable careers? (Or stunning counter-examples that show technology workers are making the world a better place?) Leave your answers in the comments. Why aren't geeks doing more to improve the world?
Keeping in touch and up to date with old friends? Social networks solved a lot of that.
Having visual conversations with distant relatives? Video chat solved that.
Getting lost? GPS navigation solved that.
Finding answers to factual questions? Search engines (kinda) solved that.
Giving public platforms to ordinary people? Blogs solved that.
Just try going back and living in the early 90's and see how you like it. Techies have addressed tons of real world problems, and come up with at least partial solutions to a lot of them. Naturally many remain and some new ones have arisen, we don't live in a utopia, but it's not like they've been doing nothing.
I stole this Sig
Check out the Hackaday prize, over at Hackaday.io.
For three years running, Hackaday has hosted the contest with a $100,000 first prize and a handful of $10,000 prizes.
Several of the prize categories would be appropriate for solving world problems, such as "citizen scientist", "automation", and "assistive technologies". (The other two categories are catch-alls which could also contain world-bearing solutions.
Many of the projects are high-concept. There are about 1000 entries this year, so you will get a wide range of possible project including some risible ones.
But there are definitely some strong entries this year.
I follow the Automatic Digital Microscope project, which hopes to automate (and speed up) the detection of tuberculosis in 3rd world countries.
The Electrospinning machine looks really interesting, could possibly become the next "3d printer" appliance for hackers.
The very high accuracy tilt sensor is possibly a new technology (I hadn't seen or heard of it before).
If you want to find techies improving the world, you might include Hackaday.io (specifically: the prize entries) in your search.
If you want to improve the world yourself, you might consider coming up with a project and entering the prize next year.
If you want to *help* improve the world, you might consider joining a Hackaday.io team that's entered for the prize.
Not that guy, but one company which springs to mind immediately is HGSI. They cured AIDS, were bought out by Glaxo-Kline-Smith and all their research was shelved because GKS has a treatment-for-life product which a cure would have made obsolete.
Yeah, except that's not true at all. HGSI had a ccr5 monoclonal antibody in clinical trials, but it hadn't shown itself to be as effective as other existing medications let alone constituting having "cured AIDS". And Glaxo has been working on ccr5 agonists of their own (e.g aplavoric), with similarly mixed results.
There's a ton of money and prestige in an AIDS cure, there's no way a pharmaceutical company would submarine it.
And Glaxo and HGSI were beaten to the punch on CCR5 agonists by Pfizer, who got FDA approval for maraviroc (brand: Selzentry) and are making millions off of it.
rage, rage against the dying of the light
Alternatively we could invent a smart content filter that allows us to simply not hear idiot conspiracy nutters that are SO batshit crazy that there's an exact zero chance that any of their "predictions" can ever come true that we can put more focus on the real problems.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Please count the number of casulaties that have fallen in those 'minor' wars for the resources that make our financial elite even more rich than they already are, and then tell me again it's only 'minor'.
It's worth doing that exercise. The author of the linked webpage claims about 22 million war deaths including genocide and non state-based warfare from after the end of the Second World War through to 2007. That's about what the First World War killed in four years (not counting the 1918 influenza epidemic which was greatly expedited by the war). And of course, the Second World War killed at least three times as many people in an eight year period.
If we look at per capita, war deaths in the current period of peace are even more pronounced. The Second World War is thought to have killed at least 3% of the people alive at the time. That would be well over 200 million people now. We are nowhere near that.
Do the numbers. See for yourself.