
Your App Won't Save the World - jkoschei
http://theindustry.cc/2013/02/01/your-app-wont-save-the-world/
======
kyro
What is the point here? What actionable advice are readers supposed to glean
from reading this article? It just sounds like you're being different for the
sake of it. You're not really encouraging or discouraging, offering any advice
or your own personal beliefs of how things should be.

Might be a bit harsh, but nothing bugs me more than a hater or someone with a
dissenting opinion that offers little-to-no actionable suggestion or thought-
provoking message. I read this and think "Hm, ok".

I agree that there's an issue with grandiosity, but I'm still unsure if it's a
net positive or negative for society. Out of the millions working to change
the world, maybe one will develop a solution that will truly affect the lives
of others for the better. Or perhaps if we lower expectations and live life
only to survive, we may be happier with ourselves overall. Who knows. Perhaps
the trick is both raising the bar and lowering it and pushing ourselves to be
content with falling anywhere in the middle.

~~~
msutherl
> I agree that there's an issue with grandiosity, but I'm still unsure if it's
> a net positive or negative for society.

I believe that is a net negative for two reasons: (1) grandiosity is a sign of
people tying their self-worth to their achievements and (2) grandiosity is a
sign of a lack of healthy self-critique.

Tying your self-worth to your success, especially in a high-risk activity, is
a recipe for long-term inconsistency and increased personal risk (which in
turn impacts net productivity).

Too much optimism and self-confidence is a recipe for stagnation, and that's
what we see for the most part in the startup / app-development world.

For instance, perhaps if people were a bit more self-critical, they would
discover that historically most technical innovation has occurred in the
context of large, well-funded research programs. People might then choose to,
rather than starting that social media website that will change the world or
hacking together that 'cool' project for Maker Faire, study computer science
and take a job at Microsoft Research, PARC or SpaceX.

Or something else.

But any behavior that reduces the extent to which people think about their
actions is probably bad.

------
rndmize
> Civilization has made us docile, but we’re still the same people underneath,
> and a change in circumstance could send us back into that primitive state.
> To quote The Art of Looking Sideways: “Civilization is chaos taking a rest.”

I do grow tired of this idea of "primitive" people being a bunch of savages.
One would think with the explosion of knowledge in anthropology we've acquired
in the last century that the average person (and especially, the non-average
person) would better understand just how wrong Hobbes was with his "nasty,
brutish and short" comment.

Civilization as we know it is an attempt to adapt humans to societies at
scale, ie. beyond ~200 or so people - and so far, it has worked badly. We're
heavily optimized for tribal societies, which isn't surprising given that we
developed and improved them over tens of thousands of years, compared to a
mere four thousand for civilization.

Let me note that this isn't an indictment against civilization. As with any
new thing (say, cars vs. horses, or guns vs. bows) the new development will
initially be notably worse than the older one. Guns were around for hundreds
of years before they replaced bows, and even then it took hundreds of years
more before they made the leap to automatics that has made them so effective
today.

Civilization is little different - we've tried all sorts of things, some of
which have worked in some ways, many of which have collapsed under their own
weight of corruption, inequality or other problems. And things are getting
better. But this idea that "non-civilized" people are chaotic or savages
really needs to go.

------
callmevlad
> Your app won’t save the world.

> In fact, if the world is to be saved, it won’t be through human devices.

> Our image of primitive man is that he was a bumbling, grunting idiot.

Since the author is Christian (shown prominently anywhere his name appears),
these three sentences make me question what he means by the word 'save.' If he
means it in the 'spiritual Christian sense,' then of course no app will do
that. And the 'our image' of primitive man seems like the Christian one,
influenced by the concept of original sin.

> The world is governed much more by human nature than we’d like to admit, and
> human nature doesn’t change.

It seems to me that human nature can very much be influenced by technology.
Slavery used to be commonplace, with many people (including the strongly
religious) having no moral opposition to it. Massive atrocities throughout
history have taken place because they were outside the public eye. Hateful
words were much easier to speak in the past, before being caught by a
recording device was a possibility. The fact that knowledge can now be spread
quicker to the rest of the world (something that apps these days can sometimes
help with) keeps a lot of this 'human nature' in check.

Just looking at the world today, it's hard to say that technology has not made
a significant (and probably net positive) change in how people think and
behave.

------
bcoates
This is stunningly wrong. Human nature _is_ change, the ability to not only
adapt to our circumstances but to effect them is the hallmark of Humanity.

The changing of cultural mores isn't something that just happens, it's
something people do. And technology is just the creation of tools to do
things. It won't magically make us better, but it does make us stronger when
we choose to do good and be good.

He's also mistaken about Communism; it isn't doomed to fail because of some
supposed incapability of humans for collective action (counterexamples: every
organization ever). It's doomed because it's based on a misapprehension of the
scalability of central economic planning.

This was a lesson learned at the cost of many millions of human lives, and it
does them a disservice to not learn it.

------
paperkettle
What a strange rhetorical style. Terse certainty, unimaginative
characterization of the human possibility field (via maneuvers to things like
"human nature"), short summations of complex historical turns... plus the loud
graphic design/quotes. I feel like you've got some points in there but the
piece betrayed their communication and a richer exploration.

I do believe a lot of (most?) startup culture applies powerful minds to small
problems... which is in support of your headline...

However - why not think of capitalism (and the apps it rides in on) as a
medium, or a technology? In this way, it can be used to transform culture.
This may not change "human nature," whatever supposed boundaries that has
(fwiw, I think it will)... but capitalism&tech applied as such can absolutely
save lives, if not the world.

Whatabout an app that uses our network culture to problem solve something like
the spread of disease? That counts as "saving the world" in my book.

Of course, "saving the world" usually comes with a shadow of imperialism, but
that is another story for another day..

------
danso
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this:

 _Author: Jordan Koschei Designer, developer, writer, founder. Follower of
Christ. You can follow him on Twitter here._

No, I'm not implying religious belief means that the OP is dumb. I'm saying
that Christ-centered theology argues for a fallen world based on immutable
characteristics of mankind's nature. Given this, I can see why the OP is
inclined to think that no real change will come from "your app" or any other
man-made thing.

~~~
jacques_chester
I came here to mention this.

A common principle in Christianity is that the world is broken beyond repair.
Generalised from the principle that everyone is a sinner.

That's why signing up for redemption is such a Big Deal. Either you are on the
Christ bus or you're stuffed.

(The exact reasoning varies from church to church, sometimes a lot).

 _It might or might not be relevant_ , though. The linked article actually
(sorta[1]) suffers from another common problem, which is that the world is a
rational machine that can be "fixed" with a few architectural changes. It's
very common for intelligent people to think that way.

Complex systems don't work that way. In fact, the best we can do is
intelligent trial and error. Treating people as a physics problem or an
architecture assignment tends to end in tears.

[1] Another way to look at is that the author has restated the old observation
that technological solutions can't solve social problems.

------
bluekeybox
> Runkeeper won’t make an athlete out of someone with no desire to run

And yet today, while driving and using the Navigon North America app on my
phone, I got a nice spoken warning saying "CAUTION!" when my speed
accidentally exceeded 75 mph when going downhill on a highway.

~~~
randomdata
I would even disagree with the assertion about Runkeeper directly. I never had
a history of desiring to run. In fact, I might even say that I hated doing it.
However, the nerd in me had an interest in the data I could collect while
running. That pushed me out there to actually do it. You maybe still wouldn't
call me an athlete, but I am definitely more athletic now than I was before
the technology was in my hands.

------
javajosh
I go back and forth on this. It's true that your app won't feed people who're
starving, at least not directly. But it's kind of incredible how many problems
essentially boil down to information problems, and particularly search
problems, and your app can certainly solve those. In particular, I think
there's a very large supply of untapped goodwill, and a basically infinite
demand for goodwill, that is not connecting right now (or connecting poorly,
through inefficient charities). For some things, for some people, at some
points in time, an app can help bridge that gap. For example, you could write
a volunteer version of Exec where people in your community just, I don't know,
_ask for help_ and then someone nearby _gives them help_. Like going grocery
shopping or something, or even helping cook dinner, clean the kitchen, etc.
Particularly powerful for the elderly - and I think there's plenty of good
kids out there who'd be happy to help an elder out for free.

No, it's not "changing the world" in terms of making it a utopia in one fell
swoop, but it's adding a bit of the community connectivity, and making real
people's dreams of making the world a better place. It's not starving kids
with flies on their mouths half a world away, it's people who need help right
here.

------
PeterisP
If, as the author states:

a) Many types of major improvements in society and life in general aren't
happening because they would require change in human nature;

b) Human nature has a tendency to not change, because it's innate to human
sapiens and actions like educating "what could be best", moral "brainwashing"
etc have only limited effect;

Then you still don't need to conclude that "world will not change" - it
suggests an argument that you may need to change homo sapiens to make the
world better. There are tech fields that have potential to change that in the
near future, such as biochemistry (mind altering drugs); AI research; and
genetic engineering [of humans].

These directions do seem disturbing, but that alone won't prevent them from
happening. I mean, gulags and genocide are also disturbing but they happen
anyway all over the world every decade. So ignoring ways to change homo
sapiens won't help, but we have to discuss on how to manage it so that the
result is morally/socially good.

------
31reasons
How can you explain the fact that we are living in the most peaceful time in
the human history? Surely we are not able to change the human mind to control
the desires of wanting more and more but we have definitely improved the
fundamental definition of what it means to be human. We are not barbarians
anymore, we don't enslave other human being for fun and profit anymore. These
things matter and matter a lot. We are still in the development stage in-terms
of society. We still treat people differently depending upon their skills,
knowledge, power and still have notion of national borders and military to
protect those borders. I have a feeling that technology will take us to the
level of such abundance that future generations will find it hard to believe
that we killed each other for resources and honored artificial geological
boundaries.

------
nanch
Oh, your app can save the world; it just depends on the app. I was trying to
save the world with my pet-project <http://theboycottapp.com/> but the
execution has been poor.

~~~
thoughtcriminal
Great idea (if I understand it correctly) but yeah, not much in the way of
communicating what it's purpose is.

Did you just run out of steam?

~~~
nanch
Thanks, just trying to save the world. I made theboycottapp during the
SOPA/PIPA resistance. I ran out of steam and was bummed out that the UPC
scanner wouldn't work on the iPod touch that I bought to test the app out on -
not a good enough focus to resolve the UPC.

I'm working on other things now with any available time; all of them are free.
I keep track of them here: <http://www.nanch.com>

------
orangethirty
Have you ever heard of watsi(<https://watsi.org/>)? Its not _my_ app, but its
evidence enough that apps can and will save worlds.

------
spoiledtechie
My one line response.

I am a crazy person and I push the human race forward.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXzimTThnPM>

~~~
msutherl
All of the people in that ad were intensely self-critical and none of them
changed the world by building apps.

~~~
spoiledtechie
Your wrong. Richard Branson first business was an App. An App for selling
Audio Records in 1970.

~~~
jacques_chester
This is the sort of thing that makes me wish I had the login details for
shit_hn_says.

------
azov
There was about 1.5 million apps and just one world the last time I checked.
Not every app _needs_ to save the world. Making it a little better is a noble
goal.

------
stcredzero
_> Our image of primitive man is that he was a bumbling, grunting idiot. In
truth, he probably wasn’t much different than we are now. Time hasn’t made us
smarter, nobler, or more compassionate._

Amen. Actually, if you start thinking you are better, note that a good
proportion of the world's villains thought they were somehow better.

------
einhverfr
I have said this more than a few times.

The world is unlikely to be saved through technological or governmental
machinery. If it is to be saved it will be through the revolutionary actions
of neighbors helping neighbors, in opposition to our technology-induced, and
urbanization-induced, isolation.

------
mahyarm
Technology changes the world by changing the environment human nature can work
within. The birth control pill, telecommunications, the internal combustion
engine, and antibotics has changed the world greatly by changing what is
possible.

------
johnny22
i was under the impression that app dev and other web consumer related startup
stuff was just the infancy stage of learning ways of organizing and
bootstrapping ideas.

I don't consider it to be the end of it. I doubt most people here do either.
In that sense, i find the article (and many others like it) to be quite short
sighted.

