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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?
What are the important problems we are supposed to be solving that we aren't?
If Slashdot is any indication, techies are too busy whining about Microsoft or decrying every new technology as somehow invading their privacy or otherwise harming them. Instead of actually doing something to solve the security problems and move those technologies along, the supposed techies are too busy wearing tinfoil hats. The techies really are a bunch of luddites who are standing in the way of innovation and solving problems. Anytime there's a new technology discussed on here, unless it involves Linux, everyone rushes to condemn it as harmful. Take off your damn tinfoil hats and do something productive to improve the world, for a change.
What could be solved by tech? And would people use that tech?
If you don't have an answer, throwing money at it won't make it happen. If you do, you'll likely have an answer why it isn't being done.
This problem sounds like a made-up problem. Nobody's cell phone app is going to cure cancer yet... but they ARE very useful for using cameras to deposit checks and file expense reports without any paperwork... I don't see what you're getting at... there is useless crap all over the place, everyone tries their hand if they are willing to do it, and if it's something that people want, they pay for it. If it's not, then they don't. The OP is clearly focused on one or two, or twelve apps or tech that are 'useless' but I wonder if they would stop a second and think just how fast the ENTIRE WORLD is changing right now... All the time.
Speak for yourself.
"SF tech culture is focused on solving one problem: What is my mother no longer doing for me?"
Not much world changing going on in that paradigm.
Big companies do put lots of money at trying to change the world (usually in a way that also benefits them) but rarely succeed.
Most of us who entered science and academia did so to make the world a better place, and many of us are techies. You'd be amazed at home much coding and tech is required for pretty much every area of science today.
We're writing open source software to solve real problems in science and engineering. We're spending the last of our startups on open access for our papers because it's the right thing to do. We're contributing to open data repositories because sharing data makes all our work better. We're writing free content on blogs, code tutorials, and MOOCs for public outreach, because we view our roles as educators seriously.
Most people in academic endure years of low pay and job uncertainty as postdocs and entry-level faculty--and defer or postpone indefinitely having children and buying that starter home--rather than faster and better-paying paths in industry, IP law, and mathematical finance because we do want to make the world a better place, and we're actively working on it.
So, while I agree with your general feeling, take a look around, and you'll see more techies trying make a difference that you might have realized.
OpenSource.MathCancer.org: open source comp bio
Is not the genius required to keep existing infrastructure stable and feed the pace of technological advancement enough?
Have we become so jaded to the incredibly fast rate of advancement that the everyday heroes who make this happen are not enough?
Are we so self-centered in the wealthy developed parts of the world that we can't see the benefits that the rapid decrease in the cost of anything less than the absolute cutting edge have brought to poorer parts of the world?
The problem is cultural. We do not champion the production of things that enrich society in general, especially if they have no, or little, profit attached.
Speaking for myself, my whole resume as a Systems Engineer contains nothing organizations who either were directly involved in education, or served that market.. Those have been my sole employers. I've always been paid below market as an employee.
And I've always been looked at as an anomaly. Sometimes even derided. One time there was an offer that was $60,000 above what I was making. It was for a Fortune 10 company- which I turned down. Boy did I earn a high level of scorn from my friends and family who valued the paycheck over the work.
Am I the only one? I highly doubt it.
If you tally up the number of children that were educated by systems I designed- the number is conservatively above 7 million.
Was it worth it? You're goddamned right it was.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
Developers and other "geeks," as the OP calls them, aren't ever going to solve cultural problems. And that's where most of the world's problems come from.
... what, apps that teach people not to have so many babies? Apps that convince people that chopping down the rainforest so they can make ends meet on their poor rural farm this month? Apps that try to tell fishermen not to over-fish in sensitive areas because, really, do their customers really need that fish dinner after all?
Far too many people having too many babies in parts of the world that can't support those populations and thus the resulting strife and misery? Cultural problem.
Far too many parents being completely disengaged with their kids' education, or too dumb themselves to contribute to it? Cultural problem.
Sense of entitlement causing resentment instead of inspiring the creativity and productivity that comes without being raised in a state of feeling owed things? Cultural problem.
All sorts of ecological messes and resource shortages? Cultural - see first example. Persistent friction between modernity and retrograde medieval thinking, including blowing up pressure cooker bombs in NY (as we had again, tonight)? Cultural problem. There's plenty more in the way of examples. App developers suddenly deciding to stop trying to become financially stable and instead put their waking ours into
What does the OP actually envision, here? Since that wasn't even alluded to, he sounds just like the over-serious girl from (was it Animal House?): "I don't know how anyone can have a party [or was it a dance?] when there are hungry people in the world!"
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I have no obligation to sacrifice my unpaid free time simply because I have a set of skills.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
So what sorts of problems does the submitter think we should focus on? World hunger? Poverty? Disease? War?
These are very hard problems to solve. All of these have been around since the dawn of humanity, and nobody has come up with an all-encompassing solution yet.
The problems with the big problems are more than technological -- they're political. No amount of technology is going to be able to solve poverty in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (for example), when the government is corrupt and the rule of law and human rights aren't being observed. Even in a Western country like the United States, you can't fix poverty when many people blame the poor for their own situation and there is no political will to provide a minimal level of social assistance.
That said, where there is a political will, technology is already helping solve big problems. Solar cells are bringing inexpensive electricity to villages in poor countries. Software hoping with resource allocation helps aid agencies ensure they have food stocks of adequate quantities where they are needed most. Vaccines and modern medical technology are having a major impact on disease -- we've rid the world of smallpox, and we're really close to eradicating polio.
Hard problems are hard. I know we in technology like to think of ourselves as solving hard problems, but pervasive political problems are way bigger than what technology alone can resolve.
Yaz
Your question implies the following:
I'm not sure that any of these is strictly true, and I'm nearly positive that we'll only know most of those answers in hindsight.
How about race relations? There's no app for that. War? You can't solder-up a PCB that convinces governments to stop murdering each other's citizens over differences of opinion.
Speaking of governments, what would a "techie" solution to government oppression look like? We have Tor, cryptocurrencies, steganographic filesystems, and mobile devices that would destroy the data on them before giving it up to an intrusive search, and look at how governments react.
That said, how about some of the areas where technology absolutely has worked on big problems?
Do you think climate change is a big problem? Do you think that the amount of power consumed by information technology globally is a terrifying figure in the face of anthropogenic climate change? This is a problem we know how to fix in "tech," and we're working on it.
Deaths due to traffic accidents? Computer vision and distributed coordination algorithms are at the core of self-driving automobiles.
How about 3D-printed prosthetics, or the medical industry in general? Data processing revolutionized drug research and genome work. Sure, there are more people doing silly apps than designing new systems for doing drug interaction simulation because one requires connections to established research labs, years of work, very expensive studies of efficacy, a decade of postsecondary education to have the domain-specific knowledge, and a hardware budget that runs into the millions; the other requires a crappy $300 laptop and some free software.
If there's a big problem out there that you want solved, either put up, pay up, or shut up.
Pining for the days when The Glorious MEEPT!!! graced SlapDash with his wisdom.
So, marmot7...why aren't you working to make the world a much better place, if it's so easy? What makes all the other techies responsible for improving your world in the manner you think is most correct?
Hard problems have no simple answers. Being a techie is not like being Gandalf the fucking Magician...the reason that there's so much discussion around hard problems is that, despite the efforts of many, a solution has not yet been found, and being a techie doesn't grant some mystical ability to solve any problem on command.
This is not a moral failing of others, it's just the fact that these are hard problems. And the fact that you don't live in a perfect utopia is not because everyone else is greedy, lazy, selfish or short-sighted. Get over yourself, kid.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
You mean why don't techies work on things like giving everybody on the globe to access all the books ever written, listen to lectures from the best minds on the planet, communicate with anybody anywhere, access financial services across the globe, learn how to grow food better, get highly accurate and detailed maps and satellite photos for free (e.g., for improving agriculture), buy and sell pretty much anything from anywhere, create software that allows anybody anywhere to analyze scientific data and write software?
Indeed there is. In a free society with free citizens, we let individuals decide, and vote for, what they find useful. That kind of "voting" is carried out using money: if you produce something that I find useful, I give you money for it; if you produce crap that I don't want, I don't give you money for it. That way, people who produce useful stuff get rewarded and get the resources to produce more useful stuff, while the people who produce crap get fewer resources allocated to them. Does that answer your question? How else would you like things to work?
The headline asks a question that is based on a false premise. Techies are doing more than anyone to improve the world. We have gone 70 years without a major war. Why? Two reasons, better communications and nuclear weapons. Both of these are because the techies that built the Internet, launched the comsats, and split the atom. Today, the Internet is bringing literacy and prosperity to the third world. Better solar cells and windmills are bringing us clean energy. Wikipedia is compiling the world's knowledge, and Google is giving us a way to search it instantly.
All of this is being done by us nerds. Who else is doing as much to create a better world? Lawyers? Journalists? Politicians? I don't think so.
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..."
Jesus Christ. If the first thing you think of when talking about solving the world's most problems is apps, I don't want you on the funding committee.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.