How do you think software developers can contribute to solving the "big problems" of the world - I'm thinking environmental collapse in particular? In other words, as I asked previously, can code save the planet?
It's obvious one of your values is giving/contribution - why is that so strong in you? What is its origin and how do had to cultivate it?
I think we spend way too much time contributing to new ways to do low-level things (new frameworks, libraries, etc. etc. etc.) and not enough time contributing and collaborating on things that are closer to the humans on the end. There are a lot of cool open source projects where folks come together to build things that impact for an obvious good.
I'm not sure what it is but I think there's more skepticism around things "meant for good" in terms of whether they'll end up succeeding in any way. It might be easier to picture the benefit of a new npm package?
2.
That's a tough one, let me try and introspect on it...
I have always been "ambitious" for one reason or another with some rebellion mixed in there. That's probably a bit nature, a bit nurture. It's pretty visible throughout my whole family in our personalities.
And then I think there's a combination of growing up poor/single mom alongside a heightened awareness of my own privilege as a smart healthy white male from Canada. Even if I felt like I got the short end of the stick in terms of always having to worry about money, it's pretty clear I'm in about the 99th percentile in my actual fortune. I think I try to see things from both sides of that lens and in the end I just want to do stuff in that regard.
I also prefer actions to words where I can help it. I'm 100% willing to get involved in vocal activism where I'm needed, but I prefer to spend my time working on solutions. But I'd never think anyone lesser for being more activist than inventor. There's a tremendously useful place for both things.
2b.
It's hard to know what the perfect thing to contribute to society is, but I think it's possible to identify things that are pretty clearly "net good". I try to find situations where the outcome is better than the alternative. In web dev I like to focus on performance as one of the most measurable UX feature. You can change the colors or button position or anything on and on and on, and there are so many variables that you may never know whether you are truly improving things. But page speed and time-to-usability are super measurable and it's very clear that going in one direction is better than the other.
So when faced with the many tradeoffs of good and bad things, I try to find areas where it's pretty clear my work offers net good in simple terms that don't have to be overly justified. (Because anything is justifiable if you're good at debate). 95% of our choices live in some kind of murky middle where you don't want to "overcorrect" in any direction. But like web performance, there are a handful of times where you're allowed to "go full steam ahead" because the parameters and outcomes are pretty clear. So I try to look for those scenarios.
I really appreciate good execution. I think a lot of the most well-meaning orgs are not necessarily great at getting stuff done. IMO ProgCode got stuff done.
I haven’t followed or been involved lately but I know they had meaningful successes in the past.
I think if we could collectively figure out how to do more human-facing stuff in open source it would go a long way no matter what.
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Hey! Love your work. Two questions:
How do you think software developers can contribute to solving the "big problems" of the world - I'm thinking environmental collapse in particular? In other words, as I asked previously, can code save the planet?
It's obvious one of your values is giving/contribution - why is that so strong in you? What is its origin and how do had to cultivate it?
Can code save the planet?
Daragh Byrne ・ Nov 22 '18 ・ 1 min read
1.
I think we spend way too much time contributing to new ways to do low-level things (new frameworks, libraries, etc. etc. etc.) and not enough time contributing and collaborating on things that are closer to the humans on the end. There are a lot of cool open source projects where folks come together to build things that impact for an obvious good.
I'm not sure what it is but I think there's more skepticism around things "meant for good" in terms of whether they'll end up succeeding in any way. It might be easier to picture the benefit of a new npm package?
2.
That's a tough one, let me try and introspect on it...
I have always been "ambitious" for one reason or another with some rebellion mixed in there. That's probably a bit nature, a bit nurture. It's pretty visible throughout my whole family in our personalities.
And then I think there's a combination of growing up poor/single mom alongside a heightened awareness of my own privilege as a smart healthy white male from Canada. Even if I felt like I got the short end of the stick in terms of always having to worry about money, it's pretty clear I'm in about the 99th percentile in my actual fortune. I think I try to see things from both sides of that lens and in the end I just want to do stuff in that regard.
I also prefer actions to words where I can help it. I'm 100% willing to get involved in vocal activism where I'm needed, but I prefer to spend my time working on solutions. But I'd never think anyone lesser for being more activist than inventor. There's a tremendously useful place for both things.
2b.
It's hard to know what the perfect thing to contribute to society is, but I think it's possible to identify things that are pretty clearly "net good". I try to find situations where the outcome is better than the alternative. In web dev I like to focus on performance as one of the most measurable UX feature. You can change the colors or button position or anything on and on and on, and there are so many variables that you may never know whether you are truly improving things. But page speed and time-to-usability are super measurable and it's very clear that going in one direction is better than the other.
So when faced with the many tradeoffs of good and bad things, I try to find areas where it's pretty clear my work offers net good in simple terms that don't have to be overly justified. (Because anything is justifiable if you're good at debate). 95% of our choices live in some kind of murky middle where you don't want to "overcorrect" in any direction. But like web performance, there are a handful of times where you're allowed to "go full steam ahead" because the parameters and outcomes are pretty clear. So I try to look for those scenarios.
Thanks for your insights! Do any of those "net good" open source projects come to mind immediately?
Net good is subjective, of course, but folks like Progressive Coders Network do pretty great stuff.
progcode.org/
I really appreciate good execution. I think a lot of the most well-meaning orgs are not necessarily great at getting stuff done. IMO ProgCode got stuff done.
I haven’t followed or been involved lately but I know they had meaningful successes in the past.
I think if we could collectively figure out how to do more human-facing stuff in open source it would go a long way no matter what.