
Ask HN: Given that I am a Software Engineer, how could I help humanity the most? - beetsdev
I am a 27 years old Software Engineer from Central Europe. I want to do something good for humanity.<p>Given my skills, how could I help society the most? I am not seeking for fame or fortune, I would even work for free in some cases (I have savings to survive for a year or two depending on a country).<p>I am tired of this capitalistic materialistic society, and just want to give something back as I feel I&#x27;ve been very privileged in my life and already experienced quite a lot (heartbreaks, travelling, working at different companies, living in different countries).<p>I am a hard-worker, so almost nothing is impossible (as long as you put lots of work and time into it).<p>I feel I need some guidance, and I can relate to this community a lot. So if I can find any online, it is here.<p>Thank you very much.
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kleer001
Start by improving yourself. Are you the best you can be? Are the lives
directly around you as good as they can be? Your immediate family? If you
can't help your immediate family what makes you think you can help the world?

Not much is worse for the world than people who want to improve it that aren't
perfect themselves.

Saw this recently, it seems like it might apply:

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims
may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons
than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may
sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who
torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with
the approval of their own conscience.”

― C. S. Lewis

~~~
byko3y
>Start by improving yourself. Are you the best you can be?

There's a thing called "motivation". You could learn to eat glass chunks and
become the best glass eater. But why the hell would you do that?

Being a software developer too, I feel useless for my local community which
simply doesn't need those skills. Pretty much all I can do is to earn some
money and help others to play an interesting and popular game of survival (no
matter whether you need some food or just another car to survive).

For this reason I started learning chemistry and medicine, but the latter one
is more about convincing people than having actual knowledge, and the former
appears to be just as useless as coding.

So one of the best solutions people find in my region is to run the hell away
from here to where you can help yourself, instead of sitting here and realize
your helplessness. So might it also be your advise? To move to the place where
you can be the best and find the environment where you will be usefull.

~~~
YoungBodhi
I've begun to view my software engineering skills as an amplifier instead of
skill that can directly impact the lives of other people. By marrying your
software engineering skills with another skill you possess you'll be able to
create change quicker, and impact more people than someone without software
engineering skills.

~~~
byko3y
>By marrying your software engineering skills with another skill you possess
you'll be able to create change quicker, and impact more people than someone
without software engineering skills.

You'd better provide some example, because for now I don't really see how the
software engineering skills would help. Anybody can gain some basic IT
knowledge and use it, but the extensive coding skills I have seem to be
surprisingly unwanted locally, although much more demanded abroad.

~~~
YoungBodhi
Let's use natural disasters. While reacting to natural disasters response
teams must be able to communicate with each other, however communication is
typically spotty during natural disasters. Your knowledge of software
engineering will allow you to think of a solution to this problem and
implement it.

Here's the process I follow, it's simple, but it takes time.

Get involved in an activity -> Become proficient in the activity -> Notice the
places software would be beneficial -> Implement -> Product.

~~~
byko3y
As a former radio amateur I can tell you the emergency services use radio
extensively for communication and no IT skills are required there. The simpler
solution is more reliable. That's one of the reasons coding skills are not
required where I live - those are complex and can be hard to maintain. Already
mentioned below, btw:

>You may leave them in a worse situation as now they have less control, less
understanding and if they need to change things and you or someone very
similar to you (which is a rare combination) is no longer available, they're
basically stuck.

~~~
YoungBodhi
I was using disaster recovery as an example. The method is still applicable.

~~~
byko3y
Rescue services were a good example indeed. Software developers are needed for
people processing large amount of information, while local communities can do
well with simple solutions.

------
dangerface
Things that scale

Social media is supposed to allow communication and bring people together, I
can't mention a social media site that actually does this, theres a need.

Our broken monetary system that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. But
then again theres enough crypto currencies in the world.

Representative democracies are broken there needs to be a distributed
cryptographically secure voting system.

Things that don't

Volunteer at local charities, they have lots of stuff they should automate but
don't have the skills to do so. Most will get you doing the general volunteer
work that can be done by anyone, this is a mistake as they won't understand
what you can do you need to make them aware how they should be using you and
your skills.

Take your problem solving skills to a new job / career and solve problems with
something other than software.

~~~
ekr
> Our broken monetary system that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.
> But then again theres enough crypto currencies in the world.

The monetary system itself is fine as an exchange medium (apart from it being
controller by non-neutral, corruptible actors, i.e. the state). It's the
distribution of resources that's the problem, and that's a policy issue.

~~~
dangerface
True but the people that hold the resources usually hold the political power
with it.

I think it's easier to fix the monetary system than to fix the political one.

------
orian
Yeah, thought about the same. Many software jobs are just bullshit. They pay
super well, but the sense is nowhere there.

I'm super curious what will be the answers.

Let's say:

<impact> = <number of people> * <size of change in their life>

Now, sometimes it's easiest to work on local scale, especially as this often
gives you instant and materialized feedback. I would search for some kind of
foundation or open source community. They often have massive outreach.

Personally, I found that technology people (like Silicon Valley or investors)
have technology fixation, e.g. they believe (like in god) that technology will
solve all problems. The most real, broad problems in the world need a
political will to make a change. In this context the question is: can you
influence the politics to be good?

~~~
byko3y
>Many software jobs are just bullshit. They pay super well, but the sense is
nowhere there

I'm glad someone has the same sense of meaning in software development.
However I'm dissapointed at the same time. In the end it's all about selling
some crap to people. I'm talking about advertisment, shops, datamining of
preferences, handling of orders, etc - nothing that really helped anybody.
Countrary, the main goal of this process is to make you more unsatisfied and
miserable, and give you a false expectation that a newly purchased crap will
help you to overcome your misery.

>I found that technology people (like Silicon Valley or investors) have
technology fixation, e.g. they believe (like in god) that technology will
solve all problems

It's not about believing, it's about making investors believe so the investors
will bring money into another unprofitable bauble.

------
jppope
Reproduce a lot.

The sex is a bonus, the problem it solves: we don't have enough smart,
talented people having kids. Everyone that is smart/talented seems to only
want to have one or two kids, or none at all.

------
thiago_fm
Maybe forget the "I'm software dev" part. Go out and give attention to people
in need, may the be the ones who need food, or are old and have no family etc.

The most needed things in the society of Today isn't material, or something
that you can automate with software -- it is time. It is a resource that is
very scarce as everybody is busy with their wifes, sisters, brothers, making
money, building shit etc.

Talking people on the web isn't anywhere the effect of talking with them in
person. The human brain needs human time.

~~~
byko3y
>The most needed things in the society of Today isn't material, or something
that you can automate with software -- it is time. It is a resource that is
very scarce as everybody is busy with their wifes, sisters, brothers, making
money, building shit etc.

And the most demanded things in the society are the ones helping to waste your
time, so you can have the feeling your time is precious and you have no time
to just sit doing nothing. In the end you would not be so "busy" with your job
if you really needed that time.

------
Ice_cream_suit
[https://www.effectivealtruism.org/](https://www.effectivealtruism.org/)

"Effective altruism is about answering one simple question: how can we use our
resources to help others the most?

Rather than just doing what feels right, we use evidence and careful analysis
to find the very best causes to work on."

~~~
vladojsem
I was thinking exactly about effective altruism! I really like the approach.

------
ReD_CoDE
I think focus on sustainability matter and even circular economy.

Find how your skills and your passion can help a startup or a community, or
social movements

3-4 years ago I had the same feeling, and finally decided to work on an idea
which soon will become a startup which will help societies all around the
world manage their buildings, especially in building Operation & Maintenance -
O&M area which will help global warming and sustainability (SDGs) movements

------
shylands
Hey, I felt the same which led me to create Impact Makers earlier this year.
There are various projects there aiming to help fight climate change which you
can contribute to.
[https://techimpactmakers.com/](https://techimpactmakers.com/)

Also checkout [https://fixathon.io](https://fixathon.io) \- an online
hackathon to help fix the climate.

------
theworld572
How about volunteering to teach disadvantaged people how to code and help them
get a job? For example
[https://www.hackyourfuture.net](https://www.hackyourfuture.net) is in a few
European cities, might not be in your city but perhaps you could try starting
one where you are?

------
gitgud
That's a good question, reminds me of a good quote:

 _" What is the most important thing I could be working on in the world right
now? And if you're not working on that, why aren't you?"_ \- Aaron Swartz

All I can say is look for injustice and pain, that's where humanity needs
help...

~~~
jimmyvalmer
No, the task selection function is dominated by the one's efficacy, not the
task's importance. Or to quote Michael Bolton in Office Space (1999), the
"question is bullshit to begin with. If that quiz worked, there would be no
janitors..."

~~~
gitgud
So how would you go about this? Are you saying trying to find an important
problem to help humanity is bullshit to begin with?

~~~
jimmyvalmer
Sensibly. I am opposed to the quote. For those of us without Aaron Swartz's
talents, saving the world is paying taxes and keeping our kids fed and out of
trouble.

~~~
gitgud
> saving the world is paying taxes and keeping our kids fed and out of trouble

That's a reasonable approach I suppose, although rather localised. Is there
any merit in thinking what's the biggest problem I can help with humanity?

I would think, even without talents like Aaron Swartz, it's worth trying...
but I can understand your point...

 _I 'm perfectly happy with all the people who are walking around and just
staring at the clouds and looking at the stars and saying, "I want to go
there."But I'm looking at the ground, and I want to fix the pothole that's
right in front of me before I fall in. This is the kind of person I am._ \-
Linus Torvalds

------
stevenwliao
[https://80000hours.org/](https://80000hours.org/) has a list of most
important priorities and an explanation of why they chose those priorities.

------
segmondy
Make money and use it as a leverage.

Solve very difficult problems that's good for humanity using computing.

Teach and enable others to be able to do any of the above.

------
lijogdfljk
I've had similar thoughts in the past. My conclusion was that education and
misinformation is a _huge_ problem these days, so part of my mental/time
resources are being spent trying to improve general "information" handling to
people. Bad actors are doing too much, and the common person doesn't have
tooling to aid them against this endless stream of information.

I'm working on this through implementation(s) that are centered around:

\- A UX that focuses on small information _(the goal of being easy to consume,
while linking back to source material to not lose context)_

\- distributed / federated _(naturally sharable, not platform locked)_

\- immutable _(aspects of it can be immutable and source material from the
internet should be archived into the system for permanent reference)_

Point 2 and 3 are largely implementation details that I feel are important for
a system. The first point, the UX of "small" information is an attempt at
reducing the data load on humans these days. To expand:

We've got a world of information at our finger tips. I can spend hours
digesting information and forming conclusions but not only do I need to
mentally retain my work, but I have to mentally retain the components of my
work to back up how I came to those conclusions. I find this extremely
difficult. I believe it would be beneficial to promote people recording these
conclusions, and conclusions from conclusions _(and so forth)_ , in such a way
that it can be easily shared, digested, debated further and improved upon.

While I've been slowly planning this for ages, recently I bumped into Kialo[1]
and found their UI to be quite similar to what I had envisioned. notably how
in the debate, statements are linked to other statements to breakdown
conclusions into smaller, digestible components. This is tailored towards
debates not specifically generic information, but I think it's all
meaningfully related.

My implementation is too early to share, but I'm speaking about this because I
believe the information tooling is important to humans. If this interests you
I look forward to your contributions in this space :)

I appreciate your desire to help humanity.

 _note_ : I should note that my implementation has a bunch of technical
aspects that may or may not be worth while to the overall goal. The
distributed and immutable nature of the implementation might detract from the
overall goal. I believe point 2 and 3 have merit though, but that debate is
out of scope haha.

[1]: [https://www.kialo.com](https://www.kialo.com)

------
billconan
I would research on uncensorable internet to help people who are blinded by
evil governments.

------
jyu
You're young, hard working, and have a lot of life to look forward to. You're
seeking to make a difference. All really great things.

I relate to your disdain of capitalism and materialism, but those operating
conditions aren't going away no matter what you do. Collectively people will
continue to seek wealth, fame, and power even if you as an individual do not.
While capitalism sucks at valuation of human life that is not currently
economically productive, it has outlived other economic systems for a reason.

Something the resonated with me a lot is "Elon Musk's Secret Sauce." It's a
long blog post but goes through how Musk operates differently from most
people, and seems to have pushed many positive changes forward several years /
decades through his companies.

[https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/11/the-cook-and-the-chef-
musks-s...](https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/11/the-cook-and-the-chef-musks-secret-
sauce.html)

------
twoquestions
Keep in mind that most of the problems in the world exist because it's somehow
profitable for someone more powerful than you for things to be bad. Be
prepared for your do-gooding to make you enemies.

------
dev_north_east
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

~~~
kleer001
Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.

------
LoSpietato
it is an utopic question

------
bjourne
I think politics is where it's at. Americans can join the Democratic party and
help get Trump not re-elected. Not just because he is a right-wing bigot but
because leaving the Paris agreement was and is an ongoing ecological disaster.
People in other parts of the world can of course also join parties they
believe in.

------
bristleworm
Maybe this could be interesting for you:
[https://climateaction.tech/](https://climateaction.tech/)

