
The World is Full of Real People - j3
http://jumpstartlab.com/news/archives/2012/01/13/the-world-is-full-of-real-people/
======
mikeash
The point that developers tend to live an extremely privileged life compared
to the human average is an excellent one. However, I must strenuously object
to the characterization of building tools for other developers as simply being
self-pleasure.

If developers really _can_ do good things for society, then by helping other
developers, am I not helping to achieve that goal? If software is useful, and
I build something that makes developing software easier/faster/cheaper/better,
why should I be criticized for wasting my time while the guy who uses my stuff
to build something else easier/faster/cheaper/better gets lauded?

To me, this is like praising a farmer for feeding the world while criticizing
the company who builds his tractors for indulging in self-pleasure. Yeah,
people can't eat tractors, but those tractors enable a vast increase in the
farmer's food output.

The economy is a vastly complex interlocking web of interactions. You can help
people enormously while still being far removed from the pointy end. People on
the pointy end deserve our respect, but people far removed from it who still
assist in some indirect way don't deserve our scorn.

User interaction isn't my strong point. Low level arcana is. Am I really going
to improve the world more by resting on my weak points that would help people
directly, rather than concentrating on my strengths and helping people
indirectly?

Computers are enabling massive changes and improvements in the collective lot
of humanity. And yet most of the innovations driving that started out as toys,
as computer people building things for other computer people, or as tools for
massive corporations and the massively wealthy. Imagine if the people working
on early cell phones had said, you know what, I don't want to build flashy
toys for 1% Wall Street types, I want to build stuff for the underprivileged
in poor countries. That approach does _not_ result in said underprivileged
people obtaining cell phones, whereas the former does.

In short: this stuff is complicated and making enablers feel guilty because
they aren't out at the front is counterproductive.

~~~
AznHisoka
You're right. However, there comes a point where we don't need yet another
framework, or productivity app, or another project management tool. I also
think the author is addressing people who build "thin value" startups as well,
not just developer tools. Like Color, or Farmville, or Diaspora.

~~~
tomhoward
People who build things that "we don't need" get the message when no-one uses
their product and they run out of money. But it's still a valuable process for
them and everyone else, as long as they learn how to build things we _do_
need.

~~~
dxbydt
I can strap on wings and jump out of a window and have a hard landing and
break a few limbs and "get the message" that I shouldn't have jumped in the
first place. To claim that jumping was a valuable process is a bit far
fetched. I could have gotten that same lesson by simply taking a course in
aerodynamics, or better yet, watching those black and white videos from the
history channel of people in the 1900s doing similar stunts before the Wright
brothers came along. Having worked at startups for a bunch of years & having
interviewed with several others & speaking with their founders in person, I
see a very distinct divide. The vast majority are building things "we don't
need", throwing stuff at the wall and hoping something will stick. Purely from
a statistical perspective, something will indeed stick. otoh the very tiny
minority that are building stuff we do need are handicapped by too many
factors to even have a remote chance of success.

~~~
mikeash
The problem is then figuring out what's valuable. But being told that building
an entire class of extremely useful tools is not valuable just gets it
completely wrong.

To take your analogy, it's like seeing some people jumping out of windows with
wings and telling them, hey, stop trying to invent stuff. No, the correct
message is, do your research.

Developer tools can be extremely useful, you just have to make sure that what
you're building _is_ useful and hasn't already been done before. This is
completely different from saying that all developer tools are useless, which
is what was said in the post.

~~~
dxbydt
> "This is completely different from saying that all developer tools are
> useless, which is what was said in the post."

That isn't what was said nor what was implied. Someday we will stop pretending
that what we do is "extremely useful". A developer tool is nice. It is neat.
It is cool. It is a bulletpoint on your resume. It is a repo in the github. It
buils your brand. It scratches your itch. It generates revenue. It has a long
tail. etc etc... But "extremely useful" ? To the real world full of real
people ? Not in a million years. Let me look at my own work, at this very
instant. I'm coding up a scala sobol sequence generator by solving a
recurrence on a primitive polynomial of the Z2 field. Why in the world would I
need this ? Well if I have a low discrepancy sobol sequence I can generate
quasirandom montecarlo variates in scala instead of importance sampling. Why
in the world would I need that ? Well with a million of those variates I can
tell you with a lot of accuracy whether a commercial loan will default & what
the expected loss would be ? Why in the world would I need that ? Well since
we have a portfolio of millions of commercial loans, like every bank on the
planet does, we need to compute the value at risk so we know how much capital
to set aside in case of defaults. Why in the world would I need that ? Well
since....I can go on and on, but at some point, I will be forced to
acknowledge the very point the post was making - that the world is full of
real people. These tools & algorithms are neat, but they are a workproduct of
privilege. Everytime we build a piece of software, we are simply resorting to
the rifleman's creed the marine core uses ( you know, the one that goes - This
scala sobol sequence is mine. There are many like it, but this one is mine! )
So f __*ing what ? It is definitely a life of privilege. It is far far removed
from the world of real people. Personally there is nothing else I would rather
do. But to pretend that what I'm doing is on the same plane of someone say
vaccinating a kid with malaria in the tropics, or providing shelter to a
homeless person etc is highly disingenuous. That would be reality. otoh coding
software is simply privileged cs guys playing games with bits and bytes so
that after the talent acquisition exit, we get to play games with vc money on
techcrunch :) Lets not kid ourselves.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_...we need to compute the value at risk so we know how much capital to set
aside in case of defaults. Why in the world would I need that ? Well
since....I can go on and on..._

And if you went one step further, you'd have realized: "to reduce the risk of
a bank failure and potentially saving thousands of jobs."

 _But to pretend that what I'm doing is on the same plane of someone say
vaccinating a kid with malaria in the tropics..._

Lets think about the guy vaccinating a kid to prevent malaria.

But lets think a few steps back. Rather than thinking about the guy with the
needle, think about the guy in the lab coat. He's currently sitting in a lab
somewhere, fucking around with gene assays in order to create antibodies. Why
does he do this? Because some other guy might use the antibodies to stimulate
an immune response to malaria parasites in rats. And the other guy might find
out the first guy was wasting his time.

The vast majority of people who are trying to do exactly what you ask
(creating a malaria vaccine) are "building things 'we don't need', throwing
stuff at the wall and hoping something will stick."

And if you back up a couple steps more, you realize all this was only possible
because someone built biologist tools (e.g. gene sequencing machines,
bioinformatics software) which are neat and cool and bullet points on a CV and
also completely useless to "real people".

~~~
dxbydt
Tremendously enjoyed your post, particularly the part about fucking around
with gene assays. My wife is a physician, and sometimes I rile her by saying
she is not helping real people because she is just a glorified hashmap. She
does a lookup on the disease and returns a drug prescription. She says that's
still better than fucking around with gene assays in a labcoat :) I'm
completely familiar with your line of reasoning. Its just that the number of
nodes needs to traverse from a styloot to a vaccine is significant. Its not
zero. Most companies get around this by simply making large philanthropic
donations from time to time. But you'll still agree that's not the same. Some
of my classmates got their math & physics PhDs and then gave it all up and
returned to India to feed the poor and work with the homeless. When I look at
that and then look at the fact that I'm messing around with sobol
sequences....it just irks me, that's all. I think that was the point of the
article - dealing directly with the real world full of real people, and not
via some long indirect causal mechanism.

------
apsec112
This is kafkatrapping (<http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122>):

"The aim of the kafkatrap is to produce a kind of free-floating guilt in the
subject, a conviction of sinfulness that can be manipulated by the operator to
make the subject say and do things that are convenient to the operator’s
personal, political, or religious goals. Ideally, the subject will then
internalize these demands, and then become complicit in the kafkatrapping of
others."

I actually agree that the software development community tends to be too
inwardly focused, but this style of argument needs to go.

~~~
nickpinkston
Great link - I think that this can be used as a mild form of coercion.
However, in this case I have to object more to the target than the method.
Developer tools, as mentioned above, can certainly be used to improve the
world by making it easier to develop - sure.

My main gripe is with startups that make something that is a net-negative to
society - which I'd argue Zynga, et al. are actually doing - just sucking
money out of society. I don't care if people use it and like those games. Why
not make educational games more addictive instead - easier said than done I
know.

I think it's wrong to sit back an tell everyone the your choice of project is
irrelevant to your social impact - it's irrefutably not!

~~~
jiggy2011
By that token you could say that any passive form of entertainment is bad ,
from movies to sports.

There's value in helping people to relax I guess.

~~~
chc
Not really. Most movies and sports aren't carefully crafted to induce
psychological addiction like many Zynga games are. Zynga will actually make
games less fun and less relaxing if there's some set of people who will be
driven to play more (even if they don't seem to be enjoying it much) because
of the changes.

~~~
jiggy2011
Is Zynga different in this regard? They design their product so that people
want to keep playing it , in the same way that a TV serial will end an episode
on a cliffhanger in order to get you to watch the next one. Sports also
encourage you to emotionally invest yourself in a particular team and create
long term stories (leagues etc) so that you will continue spending money.

------
zerostar07
What a load of crap. Everyone contributes to society according to their want
and abilities. Software and technology by design help people live happier
lives. The article starts from the valid assumption that some software is
built for the echo chamber (it's a tiny amount proportionally) and generalize
to absurd statements such as

 _you lead a life of privilege._

 _the problems of our world can’t be fixed with software_

Software helps fulfilling needs and most of us are just doing our job.

~~~
romaniv
I don't think software development always contributes to the society, but that
is true of most jobs out there. At least I can see some positive effects of
software _in general_.

------
quanticle
I want to make a small counterpoint. The reason it is so easy for developers
to make products for other developers is that well, developers are more
motivated to _learn_ and _experiment_ with new products. The old adage, "You
can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink," applies fully here.
A lot of people (maybe even the majority) simply will not invest one second
into learning or trying a new thing, even if that learning will immediately
translate into greater productivity for them.

EDIT: I should note that there are plenty of non-developers who are into
learning new tools and new technologies and there are many developers who are
extremely closed-minded regarding the tools they use. Regardless, I've noticed
that in my personal experience, someone who develops software for a living
tends to be more open to learning and using new technology than someone who
doesn't. I don't think that's a controversial point.

For example, I know of people (and not just older people) who insist upon
using only one tab in their web browsers. Keeping track of more than one tab
is just "too complicated", and they can't be bothered. When confronted by an
attitude like that, what can you do? Sometimes, it's just not possible for you
to boil down a complicated concept into a simple default option for users.
It's something that Apple and Google (with their multi-million dollar design
budgets) have trouble with. As an ordinary developer at a small-ish firm, do I
really stand a chance?

Another point is that I don't necessarily make software because I want to
change people's lives. I make software because I like making software. It's my
vocation, and my avocation. I don't always want to spend the time and research
necessary to make whatever I've built easy to use. It's okay to have one-off
projects. It's okay to build tools for yourself before building tools for
others.

------
zmj
_I want to look back and say “I worked harder than I had to. I gave up time
with my kids, with my friends, to do what needed to be done. To give back to
the rest of the world, to enable them to live just a little bit happier, a
little bit better.”_

I don't want to say that. I'm rather fond of my family and my friends. Who are
these strangers you're asking me to sacrifice for?

~~~
rpwilcox
True (and that's the one issue I had with the article).

I want to look back at my life and say something like, "I labored to make a
sustainable business, was able to see my kids grow up and be there for them.
All while working towards making the world a little bit happier, maybe
employing some people, or let people live a bit happier or a bit better".

(I don't really want to look back on my life and see nothing but crazy
deadlines and late nights)

~~~
j3
Agreed entirely. I only meant that when you choose do work harder than you
have to, the necessary trade off is that you're sacrificing time with other
people you love.

A typical dev could probably work 60% of a normal schedule and afford a
comfortable life for their family. You could go home at 1pm every day and
that'd be fun, but you can also sacrifice a bit of that and make change.

IMO, life without friends and family is wasted.

------
moocow01
“I worked harder than I had to. I gave up time with my kids, with my friends,
to do what needed to be done.”

You know what one of the absolute best ways you can give back to the world?

\- By spending time with your children and raising them to be good productive
people so they can become contributors as well.

\- Another way to give back to the world is to spend time with the people you
care about which hopefully makes them happier as well.

Thinking that you are a martyr to build software for the greater good is
somewhat laughable. In fact you may find that when you write your software
what you really have done is put some people out of jobs - that seems to be
one of the things software is really good at.

------
mattdeboard
If you want to work on technology that helps people find jobs we're looking
for another smart person to hire. We're based in the Midwest, and write
software to help people find jobs and employers find people. My email address
is in my profile if you're interested. I'm a dev here, and we have a wide
latitude, lots of input, and a lot of work to do without enough people to do
it.

edit: I'm not with the company in the OP.

------
itmag
Most programmers are not pleasuring themselves by writing cute software for
other programmers (that's merely a local HN echo chamber phenomenon). Nor are
they busy solving real problems for the masses.

No, most programmers are probably slaving away writing .NET, PHP, or Java
boilerplate for internal invoicing apps and such.

So what's needed is to free up the time and energy of programmers. Once they
do that they'll be more motivated to do more useful stuff. I think the most
realistic way there is individual empowerment through things like freelancing
and lifestyle design.

------
AznHisoka
I think most people just aren't exposed to big problems, and that's why we
build software for other techies. We also tend to solve our own problems,
which are mostly "trivial" compared to the bigger problems outside of our
lives.

One way to solve this is to encourage multi-disciplines in school. CS students
should interact and do more projects with Pre-med students, psych majors, etc.

~~~
robosox
Agreed. It's also an argument for just being a well-rounded person even after
entering adulthood. Staying on top of non-technology news & issues, taking
time to travel, spending time with (and learning from) friends outside of the
tech industry...all of it exposes you to problems outside of your normal
circle of awareness.

------
tomjen3
Bullshit. The reason we don't have to worry about getting a job is because a
computer programmer provide value and because we are good at it.

So no we don't live a life of privilege. We worked for, and earned, our
position.

~~~
akavi
I don't know the circumstances of your life, so maybe what you say is true,
but at least in my case, I had huge advantages in reaching the point where I
could provide said value:

1) I was born in a wealthy, stable country

2) to, even for said country, well-off parents

3) with a natural inclination to mathematics/logic

4) and access to computers/internet resources from a young age

All of these seem like privilege to me.

~~~
angersock
...and were you to switch places with one of the great unwashed masses, and
they were to piss all that opportunity away, they'd be fools still.

We all play the hands we're dealt in life, using whatever calculations make
sense to us. We are "graded" by the effectiveness of these calculations. The
fact that somebody else given the same inputs could still screw everything up
or make the same decisions implies, to me anyways, that we shouldn't worry
about or have guilt for our initial conditions.

You could have thrown all that wealth and opportunity away (as many do), but
you didn't. Don't undervalue your own efficacy.

------
j_baker
I'm always skeptical of this attitude. It reminds me of politicians who go to
the Midwest looking to campaign to "real" Americans, and end up campaigning to
no one. The thing is: I know what I want. I have absolutely no clue what
anyone else wants. And at the end of the day, I don't buy that I'm _that much_
of a freak. At the end of the day, I want the same thing as anyone else:
software that works and is easy to use.

 _Meanwhile, your new testing framework didn’t make any jobs._

What's your point? Neither did your blogpost.

 _But if you could say that you really changed ten, what would that feel
like?_

Ok, now I'm calling shenanigans. You really don't believe my (hypothetical)
testing framework can't make 10 peoples' lives better?

~~~
jiggy2011
Allot of software that is good and useful to people might actually destroy
jobs.

If you create a testing framework that is more robust and simpler than a
previous one then it makes testers more efficient so a company needs less of
them.

If it can be picked up easily and intuitively then it destroys the jobs of
people who sell training on testing frameworks.

Your best hope is that your testing framework makes someone else more
efficient at doing something innovative which does create jobs.

~~~
zmj
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite_fallacy>

------
ctdonath
_I want to look back and say “I worked harder than I had to. I gave up time
with my kids_

Then you gave up the greatest influence you could have.

The author fails to note the "butterfly effect" where a small but worthwhile
improvement in a development tool could be the key to doing something "really
important" ... and raising a child to not just do a single limited task but to
engage in a lifetime of helping others - even if by "just" writing marginally
improved development tools - can in turn have a huge impact.

As others note, the author's sort of guilt-trip opining serves to tear down
people who are doing good for the world. The luxury of early cell phones has
translated into a race to bringing cheap ubiquitous computing to the world,
what was then multimilliondollar building-filling supercomputers to everyone's
pockets, $25 Raspberry Pis to any student who wants one, and the laudable OLPC
practically becoming a moot point thanks to wireless low-power computing
proliferation.

And among other unexpected consequences to my "extremely privileged life", I'm
able to acquire cubic yards of artisan bread and distribute it weekly to the
underprivileged/poor/needy - in no small part thanks to me _having_ time to
spare, and to include my kids in so _they_ will grow up caring for those not
so blessed.

"Strange how much human progress and achievement comes from contemplation of
the irrelevant." - Scott Kim

------
ajkessler
While he seems well meaning, his point is a bit silly and shows a lack of
understanding as to how capitalism works.

>> _Instead of measuring ourselves by the size of our Series A or our average
profit per employee, let’s measure in lives changed._ <<

In an article that talks about the power of software to scale and effect
entire populations of people, just how does he propose to "measure lives
changed"? He doesn't, really. And how could he?

For example, if you rescue me from a burning building, you've certainly
changed my life. But by how much? Do you now get credit for every
accomplishment (or bad act) I do from that day forward? Or, if you're polite
and let me get the cab we both hail, which allows me to get to my meeting on
time, which allows me to close the sale and get the promotion... you've
actually changed my life quite a bit, and you'll almost certainly never know
about it.

The problem is, many more lives are changed by actions that are seemingly
trivial, and often even unseen, than by those that are visibly heroic.
Measurement then becomes impossible. Except we've figured out how to measure
it. We use money.

If you're getting paid a princely some to design some system that end users
will never see, you can be sure it's because the middleman thinks its
valuable. He thinks _he_ will be able to change people's lives. And, his
belief will be confirmed when the end users pay him. In exchange for money,
the end users get something that makes them better off. And that's the entire
basis of capitalism.

So, while it's sexy to say that we have a responsibility to better the world
at large because of our privilege, don't overlook the fact that by performing
some service for pay, you are already bettering the world at large. By
definition.

------
Confusion
Most developers are not writing code for other developers: they are writing
for 'real people', _because_ there are so many of them. I don't know what
audience CodeMash has, but if it's like most developer gatherings, there will
plenty of of developers from 'real' companies that are contributing to the
lives of 'real people'.

For most applications you write it's necessary to be aware of the fact that
people like yourself aren't the people mostly using the application.

------
janus
Build what you build, as long as you help one person, you are contributing to
society. You don't need to affect end users directly to sit back and think
that you are really helping the world to be a better place.

------
strait
I find it hard to believe that anyone here takes this crap seriously. If
you're making good progress as a developer, it can be very taxing on the mind
and body. Do I really need to point this out here??

------
ctdonath
The author needs to read "I, Pencil"
<http://www.fee.org/library/books/i-pencil-2/>

------
AndrewDucker
Can anyone tell me why the font there looks awful in Firefox?

~~~
Tim-Boss
Chrome isn't much better...

~~~
j3
Sorry guys, I know the typography needs works. The orange-on-grey is tough on
my color-blind eyes. We've been stretched thin getting ready for this conf
(CodeMash) and launching Hungry Academy.

~~~
GBond
Ironic that you state you have no time due to working on a Developer
Conference here...

------
taf2
lies!

------
kahawe
While the article is a nice and up-stirring read, I have to play devil's
advocate here and ask:

So how many lives have garbagemen changed in the way OP talks about? How much
impact do workers in a steel mill have? What about other simple but very
common (and very necessary) jobs like the building maintenance and cleaning?

There are a lot of jobs out there that do not really directly advance society
or change human lives on a large scale or have any other big impact but they
still exist and people make a living off off them. And I would say most jobs
are like that - (very) few people ever get the chance to actually do something
truly great, meaningful and have real, direct impact on "real people".

And despite all that, what do I contribute to society although I am quite
unimportant? I pay my taxes, my insurances and thereby contribute to not only
my own well-being. And any software I might have written or I am maintaining
is doing something useful somewhere in a very specific context and it helps
people do their job which again has some impact on others and enables a
company to exist and do something people are willing to spend money on and
thereby that company offers jobs and etc...

Nothing wrong with being "just" a small wheel in the humongous machinery that
is our world. If you ask me, it is actually (a much welcome and appreciated)
luxury of modern life that we can allow space for all those "weirdos", all the
diddling-around and all those strange new jobs that "real people" don't
understand.

Also, it is pretty megalomaniac to assume everyone working "in IT" or reading
HN is really such a rockstar and genius that they might find themselves in a
position where they suddenly change the lives of thousands of people. Just
because you know C or Javascript or Rails doesn't automatically make you a
shining beacon of advancement of the human condition. Many people who are
much, much smarter and better educated than you and me are living just as
"unimportant" lives and will very likely never have a chance to become the
next Einstein or Robert Koch. Learn to be more humble.

And countless scientists and artists who did change the way we think forever
only did so long time after they were dead because during their lifetime, they
were lucky not to get burned at the stake or starve to death in bitter
poverty.

~~~
stevenbedrick
> So how many lives have garbagemen changed in the way OP talks about?

Let's start with yours. Have you ever been in a city (e.g., New York) that was
experiencing a sanitation worker strike? Garbage-men are easily some of the
most important people in a modern society. The guys that empty my building's
dumpster change the lives of hundreds of people every day. I can think of
quite a few scientists and doctors who would love to have that level of
impact.

Ditto for building maintenance and cleaning. At one point, my university
decided that it could save money by cutting back on cleaning staff. Going
forward, they would only come by to empty the trash and vacuum our offices
once per month; the bathrooms would get cleaned every week or two, but other
than that we were to be entirely on our own. We thought that this would be
mildly inconvenient- it was worse. Oh, your office-mate had a banana with
their lunch? That peel's gonna be in the trash can for a _long_ time...

It turns out that the cleaning people had been changing our lives in numerous
significant ways, every day, and when that change _stopped_ happening, we sure
as heck noticed. After far too many months, the administration decided that
there were better places to cut back, and reinstated more regular cleaning
services. And there was much rejoicing.

Your life is the way it is because a very large number of people are doing
very unpleasant and/or difficult jobs, often for surprisingly small amounts of
money. These people are to be honored and thanked at every opportunity, IMHO,
and personally I try to as mindful as I can about the numerous and concrete
ways that they change my life.

~~~
kahawe
Yes, I realize that and was sort-of pushing for this reply... in a way you can
apply that to hackers and sysadmins too because just turn off a couple of mail
servers or routers and people's lives will get worse quickly as well. The
point is, while most of us won't be a Henry Ford, we still contribute in our
own way - OP seems to not value or count that.

And I absolutely agree with your last paragraph. Too many places they are
still being looked down upon...

