Don't forget though that the market tends to highly reward the contrarian thinkers if they can prove that attacking a problem from a non-conventional way or against conventional wisdom actually turns out to provide something that gives a lot of value to people. And you can always find contrarian investors as well who are willing to take a risk on something that bucks conventional wisdom.
The one part of your response that I'll completely concede is that I did straw man your argument as "already solved.,"
That nuclear weapons *coukd* lead to say societal collapse seems manifestly true. I didn't assign a probsblhiity but would anyone disagree that's it's a possibility? That refutes your ststments placing nuclear weapons so firmly on the good for humanity side of the ledger.
The villain of the movie "Antitrust" has a foundation too, so Bill Gates can stay a bad guy.
Bill Gates is just not a bad guy anymore.
Funny, last I checked he was taking the largest sum of wealth ever accrued by an individual, sticking it into a tax-evading non-profit he has control over, and pissing it away in the third world while the megacorporation he founded marches along to the same mantra of "fuck everyone who helped me get where I am, it's time for some cultural marxism and social 'justice.'" There is nothing good about Bill Gates, the fact you think otherwise is just another negative to add to the list (the liberal elites have brainwashed nearly an entire generation into believing in self-defeating ideologies.)
You mean? No way. He's still the villain. This is too good to be true. Do you have citations to back up what you're saying? Hey, I'm hoping he comes out of retirement because really who's his replacement? Name me one villain who even holds a candle to Bill Gates in his prime asshole days?
Your question in the title is an accusation: the headline accuses 'techies' of not improving the world. Don't go around accusing people.
Look at the part written by Marmot7 specifically to be fair as to what I specifically asked. And this was not intended as an accusation at all. This is/was an earnest attempt to learn more about a topic that I think it's important and want to understand better than I do now. I've found reading people's responses even the vehement disagreements and even the comments that misunderstood what I was trying to ask were interesting. I don't have an agenda or a specific ideology.
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.
That's me, a total fucking moron looking to go punk rock on your goddamned committee with some stupid fucking ideas. When someone asks me a question, I always answer "there's an app for that." There's not? What? And it's not possible to solve that problem with an app? That's an opportunity not a problem. Let's get on it.
marmot7 displays a charming naivery and desire to help everyone who needs help. Excellent qualities! However, this is expressed rather the wrong way round: "Is it that there's no profit to be made in solving the most important problems?"
On the contrary, it is that there is so much profit to be made precisely by NOT solving the most important problems. Poverty, inequality, discrimination, war, pollution... all those evils are directly caused by the extraction of profit from the world and its people by certain elites who are already very rich and powerful indeed. It comes as a shock when one first understands that the rich, as a rule, grow steadily richer by taking money from the poor. After all, the poor are the most easily exploited. They are the ones who have to buy necessities in small batches rather than saving money by buying wholesale. (They can't afford fridges or freezers, and have very little storage space). They are the ones who have to use expensive coin-fed meters for power, rather than saving money by paying regularly by electronic means. They are the ones who are so desperately busy, trying to survive from each day to the next, that they have no leisure or disposable income left with which to find out ways of living more economically. They are the ones, overwhelmingly, who play lotteries - that "tax on stupidity" (or rather "tax on ignorance and desperation").
Just as a fridge makes its interior colder by pumping heat out into the external world, the rich contrive to become steadily richer by exporting poverty to those who are already poor. To solve the most important problems, as marmot7 suggests, is not a technical challenge: it would be a political challenge, and would require a revolution.
It's possible that I'm naive but, if what you say is true, the die is cast... Go study your dystopia novels for inspiration, I guess. But I'm an idealist and an optimist. I don't really subscribe to any ideologies at all unless my faith and optimism that we can build a better future are an ideology. It's possible. I've got a son who's got to deal with this world we are building. I have some skin in the game beyond myself at this point. I choose to believe that a better future is possible. I hope I'm not lying.
. So, I don't have to speak softly around it: you are a selfish, ignorant jerk who is trying to elevate his social status by pretending to speak for the good of humanity.
Normally I try to respond to the part of a comment but your close was just obnoxious. Where did I say that I should make these decisions instead of markets in my OP or in any of my comments or responses to anyone? Where did I say that socialism was the way forward in my OP or any of my comments? I intended my original post question to understand something better than I do now. It seems you didn't take the time to try to understand but just attacked me personally, well, really you attacked a Marmot, a high altitude climbing wood chuck essentially.
And where did I claim to speak for anyone but myself? It'd be good to read and attempt to understand a question before responding and, if you aren't sure, you could ask for clarification on what someone means. I tried to read as many comments as I could. A lot of people disagreed with me vehemently but this is the only comment where someone insulted me, made assumptions about my motivation, even attributed traits and ideologies to me. I'm impressed that so few people actually use ad hominem attacks here, making yours an unpleasant surprise. I don't mind aggressive disagreement, nobody should mind that, but nobody should pull this sort of thing, either.
I'm not sure if it's AS true right now. But there was a time when Microsoft was trying to pull a lot of kind of scary stuff even resorting to building and using considerable political muscle. It got a bit weird to the point where it was rational to talk about it. I wouldn't be surprised if even if it's not an existential threat at this moment, though, I'd imagine there's still tension that's unresolved back when MS had the chops and the will to be aggressive assholes. I could be totally wrong to say I don't feel they're aggressive, destructive assholes anymore but I think it's true. Bill Gates devoting his life to the good of human society might have had an influence on Microsoft's culture. I have no idea. Just speculating.
Actually that's a very good point that I hadn't really thought of.
Thanks! I really appreciate that. I rarely get a "hey that was a good point" especially if there's disagreement. People frequently choose a position and stay with it. I am one to concede flat out that I've lost a debate, sometimes shocking the person I'm debating. It's not a common move to concede as though it's a chess game, apparently.
Giving public platforms to ordinary people? Blogs solved that.
This is actually an enormously important change that's taken place over the past 10-20 years. In the past, you'd need permission from "the powers that be" to get your voice (or creative works) out there into the public eye. Today, if you have the motivation, pretty much anyone can get public (and global) notice.
This is both good and bad (village idiots are now given attention to on a nation scale, whereas previously they've be ignored), but I think that overall its quite a positive shift.
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
I agree with all this and that's sort of part of what I was getting at with my question. Some of the problems are market failures and there's no obvious way to directly profit from working on the problem so if we are going to spend money it'll likely be through the political process. . The government's likely to be the one investing in technology directed at these problems. Even if it's contractors doing the work, the funding comes from the government. Certain domains, such as military get plenty of resources, but other critical domains do not. I'm not even suggesting that our military spending is bad, by the way. I'll forever be grateful to ARPA (DARPA) for inventing the Internet.:-)
I think the expectation that the application of tech will fix something that's wrong with the world very quickly is a big part of the problem.
How long have humans been dumping garbage into the environment? Why would you expect that recycling, composting, reclamation and other technologies will not only stop the poisoning of the environment and clean up the current mess in the order of years?
Same thing for CO2 in the atmosphere. We've been burning increasing amounts of fossil fuels for 130 years or so, why would you expect that a new technology would stop this within years but also return CO2 levels to their original state?
Same comments on other issues like the growth of the Sahara desert, deforestation, etc.
I expect new technologies to help stop the increasing damage and reducing the current level of damage to come about over time, but the expectation that it can be fixed almost immediately with the application of a new technology simply isn't reasonable.
You make some good points here. Could that rate of progress increase if more money were put on more important problems and less on bullshit?
Socialism has not only failed every single time it has been tried, but it has also killed something like 300,000,000 people along the way. But next time! Next time, it'll work for sure!
How about we try this instead: Start by getting government money out of colleges and universities so that tuition and expenses can return to earth and the next generation of young people doesn't start day one of their adult life with a mortgage worth of debt. Then, cut taxes (at all levels) down to something reasonable, like 5 or 10% of total income, instead of the 60% we've got now. Third, put America back to work by cutting job-killing regulations and keep cutting until we every remaining regulation is necessary for (actual) health and (actual) safety. Scrap all of the current federal welfare programs and replace them with a single system focused on getting people back to work, and keeping them afloat until that happens.
Those four steps will restore the most important safety net of all, the personal savings account. It will also cause an explosion in charity, since the inverse of those steps is what killed it in the first place. Most importantly, by putting the productive classes of society back in control of their finances so that they can raise families, you'll naturally direct their energy towards future-oriented projects.
The tax and redistribute system makes everyone cheap, greedy and selfish. Growing it is the absolute worst possible thing to do if you want to promote altruism in a society.
I'm not sure that it's even useful to promote altruism in society. I could say something like I'd like to influence how people think about things in a small way then that'd be cool but even that's highly unlikely. I'm not promoting anything. I'm trying to learn. We live in very interesting times I'd say and this is one of the many questions I have. It's not answers that haunt me right now, it's mostly questions. I think there's enough flux going on right now that I think being in a bit of a learning mode is useful. I'm not sure if a lot of the ideas apply any more at least like they did before.
If society woke up one day and decided that something other than money would be used to determine relative value, this argument wouldn't exist. Until then, people are going to be driven by money -- for survival at a basic level, but then for lifestyle and status improvement as the levels rise. They're going to do what they think can make them the most money so they're not out on the street or eating macaroni and cheese for most dinners.
It's all the same problem:
- During the last late 90s dotcom bubble, people complained that scientists weren't going into research and scientific jobs because the startups stole all the talent away by offering inflated VC-fueled salaries.
- During the housing bubble of the early 2000s, all the math and CS guys were being stolen away by the banks to be "quants" - because the banks were paying top dollar to have a tiny edge in high-frequency trading or construction of new derivatives.
- And during the current dotcom bubble (a repeat of the 90s except replacing the Internet and websites with social media, phones and data mining) all the talented people (and lots of non-talented ones) are back in the SV startup crowd again.
In the end, people will do what makes them the most money for the level of risk they're comfortable with. As a personal example, I work on the systems engineering side of IT. I have chosen the "stable" path of full-time large corporate work over the crazy freelance consulting world. Yes, corporate work has pitfalls, but the paychecks show up every month and you're not constantly hustling for more work, worried about who's going to pay you next. I know freelance guys who are extremely talented, so much so that they make multiples of an average salary. I've often been asked by those types why I don't go this route; I'm actually pretty decent at my job. The answer is safety - If I'm willing to put up with stupid rules and play some politics, I get paid regularly. My family is happy with me, and my home life is stable. The only freelancer I know who is still married has what's basically a mail order bride - everyone else is divorced mainly because they're never home.
Want to make people more altruistic? Give them a real safety net that ensures one wrong move doesn't ruin their lives. You're not going to kill consumerism overnight, so work around it by coming up with something better than US unemployment insurance.
I'm not arguing for any "ism" least of all socialism. I'm not presuming any grand strategy sort of answer at all. People should feel more comfortable pointing out the difference between shit and shinola with an opinion on which is which. And there's a bit too much shit and not enough shinola. You wouldn't agree after just a quick look at any popular tech magazine for a while, one of those score keeper pubs, that those are important problems? Some are shinola, a whole lot are shit. I was asking why. I do not know the answer.
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 made a mistake in the wording of my question as a common response is to list out the accomplishments that most of us already know as defense. I'm specifically talking about the boatloads of resources going into trivial problems. I made up a the name BeerMe but I could have chosen real life examples too silly to believe. BeerMe actually almost solves a real problem, not really.
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.
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?
Is there a systematic bias that channels technology workers into more profitable careers?
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?
Sure, of course that's how the market works. It's not a fucking religion, though. I don't have to speak softly around it. No it does not answer my question nor really attempt to do so as I'm aware of the accomplishments. That does not mean this is off limits to discussion because people did some good stuff. That's why I posted it here as I respect the readers of Slashdot.
Most people don't give a crap about their fellow human.
People think mostly of the benefit to themselves, then their families, their race, their country, their pets, and rarely do they care anything about a random human especially in Africa or some other place. It's human nature, at best some humans care about their family or country more than themselves but mainly this is the order. They actively try to eliminate and discredit anyone who dares care about random humans. That's just the way it is. Humans.
I do not agree with you at all. You can find a lot of people that fit what you're saying but I've met enough really good, earnest people. I've had people come through and help me in various ways big and small, sometimes out of nowhere to help. There are a lot of good people if that's where you put your energy. Whenever i'm in a sort of dark place, I attract that sort of action by people that I can understand why someone might even think the world was full of pretty much only people like you describe. But what counteracts that is that when I'm in a good place, I attract good people. And I don't just mean friends, I mean like even just how things go driving from point A to point B, or how positive the interaction at the grocery store checkout line flows. Yes, I think you can see physical manifestations of the energy you put out there at any given time.
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.
No, I've spent most of my working life working for tech companies doing stuff that was making the world a better place in the sense of widgets or services like most of us. I have been active on various side projects but I'm sure there are a lot of people here who are contributing orders of magnitude more than I am to the world.
I'll say it hear that I do not know the answer to what exactly the problems are or the answer, or I wouldn't have asked any questions. I do not know the answer to my own question. Why would I bother asking or expressing any opinion if I already had the answers? I'm earnestly interested in this topic, it wasn't trolling or preaching, I intended this to try to learn more.
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.
Dude, what the hell? I'm with you on Linux and open source. How does my question call for an aggressive defense by offense? What's threatening about it to warrant a fuck you not especially nice and reserved I would think for unredeemable assholes, at least that's how I use it. It Seems based on some assumptions on my intentions here.
Huh? Where did I mention working for free in there? I wasn't even intending to focus on volunteer efforts at all. I didn't mention it in the question at all. I'm not sure why the question can't be addressed at face value.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't forget though that the market tends to highly reward the contrarian thinkers if they can prove that attacking a problem from a non-conventional way or against conventional wisdom actually turns out to provide something that gives a lot of value to people. And you can always find contrarian investors as well who are willing to take a risk on something that bucks conventional wisdom.
That is cool and I think you're right on that.
In your opinion, what software does not exist, but would benefit society/the world if it did?
I have no idea. Do I have to know the answer to my own question? That kind of sucks.
The one part of your response that I'll completely concede is that I did straw man your argument as "already solved.," That nuclear weapons *coukd* lead to say societal collapse seems manifestly true. I didn't assign a probsblhiity but would anyone disagree that's it's a possibility? That refutes your ststments placing nuclear weapons so firmly on the good for humanity side of the ledger.
The villain of the movie "Antitrust" has a foundation too, so Bill Gates can stay a bad guy.
Bill Gates is just not a bad guy anymore.
Funny, last I checked he was taking the largest sum of wealth ever accrued by an individual, sticking it into a tax-evading non-profit he has control over, and pissing it away in the third world while the megacorporation he founded marches along to the same mantra of "fuck everyone who helped me get where I am, it's time for some cultural marxism and social 'justice.'" There is nothing good about Bill Gates, the fact you think otherwise is just another negative to add to the list (the liberal elites have brainwashed nearly an entire generation into believing in self-defeating ideologies.)
You mean? No way. He's still the villain. This is too good to be true. Do you have citations to back up what you're saying? Hey, I'm hoping he comes out of retirement because really who's his replacement? Name me one villain who even holds a candle to Bill Gates in his prime asshole days?
Your question in the title is an accusation: the headline accuses 'techies' of not improving the world. Don't go around accusing people.
Look at the part written by Marmot7 specifically to be fair as to what I specifically asked. And this was not intended as an accusation at all. This is/was an earnest attempt to learn more about a topic that I think it's important and want to understand better than I do now. I've found reading people's responses even the vehement disagreements and even the comments that misunderstood what I was trying to ask were interesting. I don't have an agenda or a specific ideology.
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.
That's me, a total fucking moron looking to go punk rock on your goddamned committee with some stupid fucking ideas. When someone asks me a question, I always answer "there's an app for that." There's not? What? And it's not possible to solve that problem with an app? That's an opportunity not a problem. Let's get on it.
marmot7 displays a charming naivery and desire to help everyone who needs help. Excellent qualities! However, this is expressed rather the wrong way round: "Is it that there's no profit to be made in solving the most important problems?"
On the contrary, it is that there is so much profit to be made precisely by NOT solving the most important problems. Poverty, inequality, discrimination, war, pollution... all those evils are directly caused by the extraction of profit from the world and its people by certain elites who are already very rich and powerful indeed. It comes as a shock when one first understands that the rich, as a rule, grow steadily richer by taking money from the poor. After all, the poor are the most easily exploited. They are the ones who have to buy necessities in small batches rather than saving money by buying wholesale. (They can't afford fridges or freezers, and have very little storage space). They are the ones who have to use expensive coin-fed meters for power, rather than saving money by paying regularly by electronic means. They are the ones who are so desperately busy, trying to survive from each day to the next, that they have no leisure or disposable income left with which to find out ways of living more economically. They are the ones, overwhelmingly, who play lotteries - that "tax on stupidity" (or rather "tax on ignorance and desperation").
Just as a fridge makes its interior colder by pumping heat out into the external world, the rich contrive to become steadily richer by exporting poverty to those who are already poor. To solve the most important problems, as marmot7 suggests, is not a technical challenge: it would be a political challenge, and would require a revolution.
It's possible that I'm naive but, if what you say is true, the die is cast... Go study your dystopia novels for inspiration, I guess. But I'm an idealist and an optimist. I don't really subscribe to any ideologies at all unless my faith and optimism that we can build a better future are an ideology. It's possible. I've got a son who's got to deal with this world we are building. I have some skin in the game beyond myself at this point. I choose to believe that a better future is possible. I hope I'm not lying.
I'm not sure if it's AS true right now. But there was a time when Microsoft was trying to pull a lot of kind of scary stuff even resorting to building and using considerable political muscle. It got a bit weird to the point where it was rational to talk about it. I wouldn't be surprised if even if it's not an existential threat at this moment, though, I'd imagine there's still tension that's unresolved back when MS had the chops and the will to be aggressive assholes. I could be totally wrong to say I don't feel they're aggressive, destructive assholes anymore but I think it's true. Bill Gates devoting his life to the good of human society might have had an influence on Microsoft's culture. I have no idea. Just speculating.
The are some brilliant projects yet simple (elegant is sometimes the word), the sort that I admire the most.
My story has 420 points... I mean in general where do those points come from.
Actually that's a very good point that I hadn't really thought of.
Thanks! I really appreciate that. I rarely get a "hey that was a good point" especially if there's disagreement. People frequently choose a position and stay with it. I am one to concede flat out that I've lost a debate, sometimes shocking the person I'm debating. It's not a common move to concede as though it's a chess game, apparently.
Giving public platforms to ordinary people? Blogs solved that.
This is actually an enormously important change that's taken place over the past 10-20 years. In the past, you'd need permission from "the powers that be" to get your voice (or creative works) out there into the public eye. Today, if you have the motivation, pretty much anyone can get public (and global) notice.
This is both good and bad (village idiots are now given attention to on a nation scale, whereas previously they've be ignored), but I think that overall its quite a positive shift.
Hell yes.
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
I agree with all this and that's sort of part of what I was getting at with my question. Some of the problems are market failures and there's no obvious way to directly profit from working on the problem so if we are going to spend money it'll likely be through the political process. . The government's likely to be the one investing in technology directed at these problems. Even if it's contractors doing the work, the funding comes from the government. Certain domains, such as military get plenty of resources, but other critical domains do not. I'm not even suggesting that our military spending is bad, by the way. I'll forever be grateful to ARPA (DARPA) for inventing the Internet. :-)
I think the expectation that the application of tech will fix something that's wrong with the world very quickly is a big part of the problem.
How long have humans been dumping garbage into the environment? Why would you expect that recycling, composting, reclamation and other technologies will not only stop the poisoning of the environment and clean up the current mess in the order of years?
Same thing for CO2 in the atmosphere. We've been burning increasing amounts of fossil fuels for 130 years or so, why would you expect that a new technology would stop this within years but also return CO2 levels to their original state?
Same comments on other issues like the growth of the Sahara desert, deforestation, etc.
I expect new technologies to help stop the increasing damage and reducing the current level of damage to come about over time, but the expectation that it can be fixed almost immediately with the application of a new technology simply isn't reasonable.
You make some good points here. Could that rate of progress increase if more money were put on more important problems and less on bullshit?
Sure.
Socialism has not only failed every single time it has been tried, but it has also killed something like 300,000,000 people along the way. But next time! Next time, it'll work for sure!
How about we try this instead: Start by getting government money out of colleges and universities so that tuition and expenses can return to earth and the next generation of young people doesn't start day one of their adult life with a mortgage worth of debt. Then, cut taxes (at all levels) down to something reasonable, like 5 or 10% of total income, instead of the 60% we've got now. Third, put America back to work by cutting job-killing regulations and keep cutting until we every remaining regulation is necessary for (actual) health and (actual) safety. Scrap all of the current federal welfare programs and replace them with a single system focused on getting people back to work, and keeping them afloat until that happens.
Those four steps will restore the most important safety net of all, the personal savings account. It will also cause an explosion in charity, since the inverse of those steps is what killed it in the first place. Most importantly, by putting the productive classes of society back in control of their finances so that they can raise families, you'll naturally direct their energy towards future-oriented projects.
The tax and redistribute system makes everyone cheap, greedy and selfish. Growing it is the absolute worst possible thing to do if you want to promote altruism in a society.
I'm not sure that it's even useful to promote altruism in society. I could say something like I'd like to influence how people think about things in a small way then that'd be cool but even that's highly unlikely. I'm not promoting anything. I'm trying to learn. We live in very interesting times I'd say and this is one of the many questions I have. It's not answers that haunt me right now, it's mostly questions. I think there's enough flux going on right now that I think being in a bit of a learning mode is useful. I'm not sure if a lot of the ideas apply any more at least like they did before.
If society woke up one day and decided that something other than money would be used to determine relative value, this argument wouldn't exist. Until then, people are going to be driven by money -- for survival at a basic level, but then for lifestyle and status improvement as the levels rise. They're going to do what they think can make them the most money so they're not out on the street or eating macaroni and cheese for most dinners.
It's all the same problem: - During the last late 90s dotcom bubble, people complained that scientists weren't going into research and scientific jobs because the startups stole all the talent away by offering inflated VC-fueled salaries. - During the housing bubble of the early 2000s, all the math and CS guys were being stolen away by the banks to be "quants" - because the banks were paying top dollar to have a tiny edge in high-frequency trading or construction of new derivatives. - And during the current dotcom bubble (a repeat of the 90s except replacing the Internet and websites with social media, phones and data mining) all the talented people (and lots of non-talented ones) are back in the SV startup crowd again.
In the end, people will do what makes them the most money for the level of risk they're comfortable with. As a personal example, I work on the systems engineering side of IT. I have chosen the "stable" path of full-time large corporate work over the crazy freelance consulting world. Yes, corporate work has pitfalls, but the paychecks show up every month and you're not constantly hustling for more work, worried about who's going to pay you next. I know freelance guys who are extremely talented, so much so that they make multiples of an average salary. I've often been asked by those types why I don't go this route; I'm actually pretty decent at my job. The answer is safety - If I'm willing to put up with stupid rules and play some politics, I get paid regularly. My family is happy with me, and my home life is stable. The only freelancer I know who is still married has what's basically a mail order bride - everyone else is divorced mainly because they're never home.
Want to make people more altruistic? Give them a real safety net that ensures one wrong move doesn't ruin their lives. You're not going to kill consumerism overnight, so work around it by coming up with something better than US unemployment insurance.
I'm not arguing for any "ism" least of all socialism. I'm not presuming any grand strategy sort of answer at all. People should feel more comfortable pointing out the difference between shit and shinola with an opinion on which is which. And there's a bit too much shit and not enough shinola. You wouldn't agree after just a quick look at any popular tech magazine for a while, one of those score keeper pubs, that those are important problems? Some are shinola, a whole lot are shit. I was asking why. I do not know the answer.
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 made a mistake in the wording of my question as a common response is to list out the accomplishments that most of us already know as defense. I'm specifically talking about the boatloads of resources going into trivial problems. I made up a the name BeerMe but I could have chosen real life examples too silly to believe. BeerMe actually almost solves a real problem, not really.
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?
Sure, of course that's how the market works. It's not a fucking religion, though. I don't have to speak softly around it. No it does not answer my question nor really attempt to do so as I'm aware of the accomplishments. That does not mean this is off limits to discussion because people did some good stuff. That's why I posted it here as I respect the readers of Slashdot.
You're erroneously generalizing from yourself to other humans.
I agree. It's a mistake that's easy to make and takes real discipline to overcome. Most of us are not there.
Most people don't give a crap about their fellow human.
People think mostly of the benefit to themselves, then their families, their race, their country, their pets, and rarely do they care anything about a random human especially in Africa or some other place. It's human nature, at best some humans care about their family or country more than themselves but mainly this is the order. They actively try to eliminate and discredit anyone who dares care about random humans. That's just the way it is. Humans.
I do not agree with you at all. You can find a lot of people that fit what you're saying but I've met enough really good, earnest people. I've had people come through and help me in various ways big and small, sometimes out of nowhere to help. There are a lot of good people if that's where you put your energy. Whenever i'm in a sort of dark place, I attract that sort of action by people that I can understand why someone might even think the world was full of pretty much only people like you describe. But what counteracts that is that when I'm in a good place, I attract good people. And I don't just mean friends, I mean like even just how things go driving from point A to point B, or how positive the interaction at the grocery store checkout line flows. Yes, I think you can see physical manifestations of the energy you put out there at any given time.
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.
No, I've spent most of my working life working for tech companies doing stuff that was making the world a better place in the sense of widgets or services like most of us. I have been active on various side projects but I'm sure there are a lot of people here who are contributing orders of magnitude more than I am to the world.
I'll say it hear that I do not know the answer to what exactly the problems are or the answer, or I wouldn't have asked any questions. I do not know the answer to my own question. Why would I bother asking or expressing any opinion if I already had the answers? I'm earnestly interested in this topic, it wasn't trolling or preaching, I intended this to try to learn more.
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.
Dude, what the hell? I'm with you on Linux and open source. How does my question call for an aggressive defense by offense? What's threatening about it to warrant a fuck you not especially nice and reserved I would think for unredeemable assholes, at least that's how I use it. It Seems based on some assumptions on my intentions here.
Huh? Where did I mention working for free in there? I wasn't even intending to focus on volunteer efforts at all. I didn't mention it in the question at all. I'm not sure why the question can't be addressed at face value.