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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?
As a coatings chemist, then Technical Director, I developed the first low VOC waterborne coating for computers that lowered the bake from 30 minsutes at 350F to 30 minutes at 150F. I knew the otherwise thermoplastic resin self-condensed (crosslinked) at 140F, so no hazardous melamine or urea were needed to develop the office chimerical resistance (cleaners, foods) that was specified, either. This was around 1978. It was developed originally for Digital. Customers took forever to approve it even though it met their specs. How could a low polluting. energy saving waterborne acrylic be as good as a high temperature bake polyester coating with 6 pounds of hydrocarbons per gallons? Give the younger techies an opportunity to try new ideas. Let them make a little dent. All the little improvements add up to less energy use and cleaner air.
Yeah, if only there techies who spent a bunch of time writing free software. If only there were people who dedicated their lives to making free software. They could start a foundation.
But no, everyone knows open source is about the money.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I think I realised that the world had really changed about 10 years ago when I was vacationing in the south of Thailand. Standing on the beach on Koh Lanta at sunrise, I used my mobile to ring my mom back in the States and let her know that I was fine and hadn't even been in Bangkok during the previous day's coup d'état.
It was my first mobile phone, and I'd only bought it about 2 months earlier. One of the early Samusung flip-phones. I still have it, and it still works just fine for voice, SMS, and very primitive (text-only) web browsing.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.