
Ask HN: How can a programmer help with current events? - _hplx
I&#x27;ll preface with: I&#x27;m not interested in supporting violence or doing anything illegal. No hacking, for example.<p>With that established I&#x27;m looking for ways I can use my skillset to help people protest effectively and avoid danger. Examples of the kind of thing I&#x27;m talking about:<p>- During the Hong Kong protests there was an app that helped people avoid known police outposts<p>- Combatting disinformation and&#x2F;or processing data, about police abuse for example<p>- Helping people (peacefully) coordinate and make things less chaotic<p>- Mobile panic button?<p>- Mindfulness&#x2F;mental health assistance for people trying to cope<p>Anyone have ideas&#x2F;specific needs or initiatives they know about? I saw a data initiative the other day but some commenters made it sound like it shouldn&#x27;t be trusted.
======
machinehermit
The problem is these protest are not effective, period.

All this is ultimately doing is making racist people more racist.

I am a white guy and my girl is black. You know how much we talk about race?
None, zero, never. It only ever comes up when racist people point out we are
not of the same race. Our values, taste and upbringings are literally the
same. If you think black people can't be racist try dating a black woman as a
white guy, lol.

The way to get past racism is not to be a racist and divide people on the
basis of race. That is it.

What is happening right now is going in the wrong direction.

You would have a hard time helping the cause of racist assholes more than
these protest.

~~~
_hplx
For what it's worth I personally do think that the focus on race is missing
the bigger point, which is police brutality and impunity. They've been beating
up white people too.

~~~
ng12
I think about the shooting of Daniel Shaver very often. A cold-blooded
execution of a middle class white man caught on video and the officer was
acquitted. We need to address both police brutality as well as racial
inequality, and I wonder if it's more difficult to do both at the same time.

~~~
thephyber
> We need to address both police brutality

There's a bigger legal+cultural problem if people are cold-blooded executed by
police and the officer is tried and acquitted. The investigators, prosecutor,
and jury are complicit.

------
easterncalculus
One big thing that I think people can do is start saving police footage. It's
pretty easy to do but can be especially helpful. Even just seeding a torrent
of that is a way to passively help, I think.

I was also wondering about this question, so I hope that people might have
some good ideas.

One that I haven't thought my way through completely (as it's not my domain
whatsoever) is a generic way to round up online sales totals. Maybe a browser
extension that lets users round up what they're set to spend to the nearest
dollar, and donate what's rounded to a relevant charity or fund? Charities
could maybe partner with the developers of that open source app (or write
their own extensions) to plug into it, and it would allow for people shopping
online to choose where the money goes. As we've moved to online shopping being
asked at the counter to round up for (possibly out of date/favor) charities
has left a lot of people's lives, so an open source team that works to put
that on major sites as an extension could be very beneficial. The ability to
add charities with software and without waiting on large corporate
partnerships could really benefit this system.

I figured it'd use PayPal for the actual payment maybe. There might be serious
holes in that, but it's something that came to my mind earlier today.

I think ideas that could incorporate protesting while being mindful of
coronavirus could also be interesting.

~~~
Jarwain
So basically Acorns, but the money goes to charity instead of your own
investments

~~~
easterncalculus
I guess, I hadn't heard of Acorns before. Thanks for the tip.

------
badrabbit
If there was an app that can be used to identify the DA, mayor, chief of
police, congressman and senator(state and federal) of a police abuse of power
incident and pester them with complaints, that would be useful.

Or help people vote by sending them alerts for their area to vote out
politicians that took no or little action when such an event occured.

A harder challenge would be to counter-monitor police including stingrays and
aerial attacks. Both offensive and defensive tools would be useful.

------
rmrfstar
Don't build, operate, or maintain the infrastructure of the surveillance
state. That's a big one.

For what it's worth, here is a story from WW2.

A B-17 came back from a run over Germany with a dud shell lodged in its fuel
tank. When the intelligence units opened the shell, they found it completely
empty apart from a note written in Czech saying, "this is all we can do for
you, for now."

~~~
richajak
At least, that's we can do. Most of us in HN are blessed with brain, not
muscle. We should not help governments or entities who oppress the weak ones,
discriminate the minorities, bully one another. However, we should not help
the rioters, incite futher hate, provoke the society, destroy small business,
etc.

I read news, however I do not forward any of photos, videos from those media
to my friends and family members. I wish there's a modern day Gandhi or MLK
who promote peace and forgiveness. All of us should be kind to another. We
should not help any side to start a civil war, government instability, etc.

------
DoreenMichele
You are going to do what you are going to do, but you might try looking up The
Shirky Principle first (organizations tend to keep alive the problem they are
designed to combat).

Years ago, I used to say on some email list I was on that "fighting against
the fighting is still fighting."

People don't really want to be protesting. What they want is justice and they
don't know how to get it.

If you really want solutions, look for things that already exist that
genuinely help promote justice and better treatment for disempowered peoples
or build something which does so.

/2 cents

------
airza
It's money. Give money.

We as developers and engineers have a lot of extra spare cash around. Donate
to mutual aid funds or bail funds.

~~~
2020throwaway
I want to bail out peaceful protestors but not looters. Is there an
organization that is doing some vetting?

~~~
horsemessiah
Police aren't really distinguishing between the two. Besides, even looters
don't deserve to stay in jail if they can't afford bail - they'll still see
their day in court.

------
austincheney
Build websites, databases, and automation for charities and community
organizations.

* Find what community organizations and support groups exist in your local area. Your local police department and food banks can help point you to some. See if national organizations that interest you have local chapters.

* Go to city counsel meetings to see some real problems and also some of the insanity your local leaders have to deal with.

What I think everybody would like to see is a dishonesty database containing
police brutality, false criminal complaints, false accusations of misconduct,
resisting arrest, ethics violations, so forth. Data can be a positive tool to
keep everyone honest and embarrass liars.

~~~
_hplx
> Your local police department...can help point you to some

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but to put it lightly, I do not plan on asking the
police for suggestions.

That said I think the rest of the ideas are valid.

> Data can be a positive tool to keep everyone

I agree, but data solutions are tricky because there's so much misinformation
going on right now. It's really easy for data to be fabricated (other than
video (kind of)), and even if it's not, people would (rightly) be cautious to
trust it. Data _validation_ might be an interesting problem to tackle but I
don't know how you solve that with tech.

~~~
austincheney
> I do not plan on asking the police for suggestions.

If you want this to work be up front about your intentions, partiality, and
biases; or else you are just contributing to that misinformation you spoke of
and that’s all people will see (even if/when they agree with you).

> I agree, but data solutions are tricky because there's so much
> misinformation going on right now.

Limit your data to reliable sources.

~~~
_hplx
It's an enormous stretch to call delicate speech about my personal convictions
"misinformation". Anyway, my only intent is to help people, not add to the
conflict. It's just that I believe the police have dropped all pretense of
sharing that goal of helping people.

~~~
austincheney
Not at all, and that’s not how other people will see it. It all comes down to
intention and objectivity.

Misinformation is the resultant product of people putting their personal
opinions ahead of ethics and evidence regardless of what those opinions are.

~~~
_hplx
I have no interest in _sowing_ misinformation to support my beliefs, if that's
what you're worried about. Otherwise I still don't really understand your
point.

~~~
austincheney
I don’t doubt that your goals are noble, but a lot (most) of misinformation is
from well intentioned people positing their biases over objectivity. You will
be contributing to misinformation if your goal is to induce a personal bias
and you wish to suppress disclosure of your goals.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivity_(science)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivity_\(science\))

------
babycake
You can't fight politics with tech, because politics win every time. Some of
the things you listed don't make much sense when people are angry enough to
spill into the streets to protest.

For example,

> \- Combatting disinformation and/or processing data, about police abuse for
> example

There's already a lot of transparency on police brutality; we even have
civilian oversight groups dedicated to this, but they have either been taken
over by cop-friendly leaderships or they have no power to do anything.

> \- Mobile panic button?

And who will come to help? Police? No, they will beat your ass for revealing
your location. Protestors? No, they are too busy protesting to check their
phones 24/7\. Just look all the people with their hands up and chanting; their
eyes are all on the police who may beat them at any time.

> \- Mindfulness/mental health assistance for people trying to cope

There may be people who are depressed, but people are angry enough to be
outside and protesting. Those who are clinically depressed need actual
professional help, an app will not do that. Plus there are already a lot of
these types of apps in the stores already, none of which replaces an actual
professional

... and in any case, the government can shut any of these solutions down if
they truly wanted. I think the most direct, practical way to helping with
current events is to either, or all:

\- Join the protestors in the streets, see the issues at hand with your own
eyes instead of from media spin.

\- Get in touch with your coworkers, an existing union, or start a tech union
underground. Organize a walk-out, to join the protestors. White collar jobs
can cause some real financial pressure and bring politicians to their knees
for the cause (like how some workers at fast food restaurants refused to cook
for cops during the protests).

They (literally) fight for our rights, we should get serious about what we can
do too.

------
truth_be_told
>not interested in supporting violence or doing anything illegal

Who defines what is illegal? When the System and its laws are completely
stacked against you, any change can only be brought about by going outside the
System i.e. by engaging in "illegal acts". You are allowed to use anything and
everything to bring about real Societal change. Racism and Police Brutality
need to be stamped out once and for all in the US.

------
giantg2
There have been several threads covering this in the past week or so.

~~~
brundolf
I saw one for a site aggregating videos of police violence, and then the data
one I mentioned. Do you have links to others?

~~~
DoreenMichele
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23382330](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23382330)

------
readme
Here are some of my ideas:

"Who's got the loot?"

This app could be used to keep track of which stores have and haven't been
looted yet. No one wants to loot a store that has already run out of stuff.

"Children Inside"

This app could help rioters decide whether to burn down a building, if there's
kids inside they can pick another one.

"Bail Me"

This app would be just like gofundme or kickstarter, except it would be for
posting bond.

~~~
ManlyBread
>This app could help rioters decide whether to burn down a building, if
there's kids inside they can pick another one.

I've seen the phrase "this is like a Black Mirror episode" getting tossed a
lot but this is the first time I feel like it genuinely is. Not to mention you
didn't even consider a case where someone would lie or list your own house.

