

Ask HN: Do you worry that our efforts are pointless in the scheme of things? - Cherian_Abraham

In the middle of working on my pet project/startup I happened to click over to MSNBC and saw this harrowing image: http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/pb-110420-hondros-girl.photoblog900.jpg<p>The image is of Samar Hassan, who just lost both her parents in Iraq, a case of mistaken identity, covered in blood. The picture was taken by Chris Hondras, the photojournalist who was killed yesterday in Libya. And the picture overwhelmed me to the point of asking myself what value am I providing to the world around me through my startup idea. Most of what we do, will most likely have no impact on the Samar Hassan's of the world, those living in regions of turmoil, and it seems pointless to fawn over another location based startup or node.js hack or a Color wannabe. In the end, what is that you and I are giving back to the world around us?
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mtogo
No, these little tech startups (mostly, with obvious exceptions) make no
difference in the world and will die in a few years never to be remembered.
The point is that people enjoy doing them.

People play piano too. That doesn't do much for the world around them, but
they and the people listening to them get enjoyment from it.

You can't ask for everything you do to have a lot of purpose for the rest of
the world. We do things because we enjoy them, and what is life if you don't
enjoy it?

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earbitscom
I have what I affectionately call The Capitalist Hippie Complex. It means that
I have hippie ideals and want to save the world, but I enjoy the challenge of
creating wealth and having nice things; and, these two conflicting ideals
cause me great distress.

What I one day realized was, donating 10 hours a month doesn't compare to what
Bill Gates can now do for the world with his money. It's important to give
your actual time, don't get me wrong, but with millions of dollars you can
feed a substantial amount of people, pay others to help distribute that
massive food allocation, and so on. You can fund disease research. You can do
things that create lasting change.

The important part is remembering to give back when that time comes. In the
meantime, you can also help with your time, but if you truly have the skill to
create more wealth than others, your best contribution may be doing so and
then giving back generously. There is nothing wrong with that. It's a
remarkable and noble goal, even if it seems more self serving.

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veyron
At the end of the day, it is up to you how you decide to give back. I, and I
would hope a lot of HNers, give to charities.

tl;dr: makes more sense for skilled people to make money and donate to charity
than to actually focus on helping others.

Money is a powerful force. I have accepted that its impossible for me to know
what is best for the rest of the world. I have a vague idea of some of the
general higher-level goals [like health care] but I profess ignorance to the
micro-requirements.

I could learn, but it would be less efficient for me to learn and spend time
than it would for me to donate money to someone else who has already figured
out how to most efficiently use time and money to help others.

In my case, I donate enough money to subsidize at least two people's efforts
overseas. Given my lack of experience, I know its more efficient than actually
putting effort into figuring out what needs to be done.

Where things fall apart is when people dont actually know how to use time and
money to help others in the world. Surprisingly enough, this is fairly common.

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whumperjump
There is plenty of suffering in the world, and who could wish to belittle it,
but that's no reason or excuse to give in to pessimism.

The world is more peaceful today than at any time in history.

Infant mortality in Africa is decreasing, despite the complex political and
economic problems that beset many countries there.

Startups are important because they are attempts to solve complex problems and
with every failure more knowledge is created. (They are also symbols of
optimism.)

Thus, human effort _is_ important in the scheme of things. Even the
cosmological scheme of things: pretty soon we'll have the technology to
deflect asteroids and comets. We might eventually, if we want, go on to defuse
all the local supernovae (by removing matter from the relevant stars).

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teuobk
No, I don't worry, mainly for two reasons:

First, it's extremely difficult to predict how a company, product, or idea
will evolve. What seems insignificant now might be world-changing in the
future.

Second, the universe will die a heat death someday, so in some sense nothing
matters "in the scheme of things." However, that perspective is depressing and
unproductive, so I prefer to try to find the good in everything; that is,
everything matters.

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triviatise
30,000 children die in africa each day from easily preventable causes. That is
the ultimate calamity. There is no point in feeling guilty over things you
have no control over there is simply too much suffering in the world - most of
which you know nothing about. You should give back, but don't make yourself
miserable over not feeling like you are doing enough. You simply will never be
able to do enough - just give back as much as you want.

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a1a1aqaq
Yes I do worry about that. What scares me is that I hardly know very much at
all about my great grandfather or great great grandfather. They were probably
good men, looked after their families, were successful, yet I don't know much
about them. In a few generation, (perhaps just 100 years) will I be
forgotten?? What impact am I really leaving?

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rdouble
Working at the wrong startups can be a cure for this. After a failure, you no
longer worry about your efforts being pointless in the grand scheme of things.
You've already received stark confirmation your efforts are indeed pointless,
even in the smaller scheme of internet startups.

~~~
HansHonitz
Or just work for Megacorp, Inc. You'll get enough pointlessness to last a
lifetime in short order -- but there's a good chance it'll pay well for
relatively low levels of effort.

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schintan
News like these and the realization that I am powerless to do anything about
it are precisely the reasons I have stopped following these kind of news.

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avstraliitski
At age 19 I quit my burgeoning career after a similar realisation in India,
where I had been sent to present a satellite surveillance solution to their
military. Similar trips followed to other asian governments, R&D on
surveillance systems for national police, etc. I quit instead of take the
dirty money. Some people are happy to do that, but I always make sure what I
work these days on can only be used for good or is relatively harmless at
worst.

