This is a great example of why a good hacker should work in public service.
Why bother working for an environmental non-profit when you can make many orders of magnitude more difference by founding Tesla Motors or Nanosolar
Because an environmental non-profit might make immediate changes that save people's lives. A non-profit might put enough pressure on a company to stop polluting groundwater or destroying fragile ecosystems. With Tesla you'll help rich people use less gas.
Why campaign for privacy when you can write PGP or Tor
Because PGP and Tor are used by computer nerds and edge cases, but privacy legislation is used by everyone.
Why work as a fundraiser when you could build Kiva or Watsi
Either way you're fundraising. You could work as a fundraiser for a political appointee, and they could get elected to office and change how the entire country works. Or you could fund a lot of tiny things.
None of these things are a waste. There's no reason to do one over another other than personal preference. And nobody said a 'good hacker' was obliged to save the world (and oh, the hubris of thinking they could!).
Sometimes being the one guy who does want to do public service makes the difference, because all the other 'good hackers' are more concerned with one solution that will solve all the world's problems (which never happens) and making a quick buck.
> A non-profit might put enough pressure on a company to stop polluting groundwater or destroying fragile ecosystems.
The most fulfilling thing I've done in my life so far (other than starting a family) was helping to represent an Illinois village devastated by water pollution from a former industrial site. It would be amazing if some hacker would come along and figure out a cheap way to keep heavy metals from leaching out of industrial sites into water supplies. But in the meantime, maybe we could use some hackers that used their skills to help raise public awareness of the issue, put pressure on governments to stop cutting their environmental disaster cleanup budgets, etc?
I agree with jdietrich on this point: hacker skills are an incredibly big lever. The skills that programmers have: being able to decompose problems into constituent parts, apply reasoning to solve those sub-problems, and combine the solutions into a working whole, are skills that can be leveraged in any facet of life. Combine that with the ability to pitch (a skill which hackers turned entrepreneurs must develop), and you have someone that can contribute meaningfully in lots of different domains, even if they don't end up making a world-changing invention.
While I can appreciate what you are saying, it's unfortunate that by saying so you're also contributing to the noise that hackers aren't already doing these things, which they are.
I'm not saying that hackers aren't doing those things. But the article tries to paint them out to be morally superior, and in my experience, my hacker buddies are the least likely out of all of my friends to be involved in that sort of thing.
In Government / from within, hackers generally don´t have the skills to be able to change the system - Government is run by politicians - the effect of a good hacker is about as small as in your typical old-world corporate run by finance guys…
Compare that to companies where hackers are the CEOs…
We're not talking about being filing clerk #4325 in the bowels of the Veterans Affairs administration. There are many parts of the government where a good hacker could have a major impact.
>Sometimes being the one guy who does want to do public service makes the difference, because all the other 'good hackers' are more concerned with one solution that will solve all the world's problems (which never happens) and making a quick buck.
With Tesla, you slowly eliminate gas and help the environment. Imagine in 20 years a world where Tesla cars are the norm, all electric, travelling forever, no payment for gas, free charging. That is an incredible world change and shift.
It is so much more than helping people use less gas.
Exactly this. It may start with "rich" people, but eventually can become the norm. There are so many examples to support this, I think it should be enough to just mention the personal computer.
Yes, i'm sorry for being dismissive. The industry push toward hybrid and electric cars will definitely be benefited by Tesla's sole engineering prowess, and we will all benefit in at least 20 years. But you bring up another great example! The personal computer.
From more efficient personal entertainment to not having to retain information, the personal computer has enriched our lives in countless ways. We would all be much worse off without the novel inventions that made it such a success. (Please excuse my snark, I know the PC has had positive impacts, though I believe many are overblown)
Unfortunately, the pollution caused by the production and disposal of personal computers has not only become an ecological disaster, it's destroying the health and habitat of human beings around the globe. The biggest challenge today is not in creating a new gadget, it is how to clean up the damage done by the industry and prevent it from continuing.
I'm not saying you should stop focusing on your start-up and flipping it for cash in the Silicon Valley Gold Rush. I'm saying, if no good hackers focus on solving the problems that affect the general public, the cash you make will be invested in purchasing a habitable plastic bubble to live in.
> Unfortunately, the pollution caused by the production and disposal of personal computers has not only become an ecological disaster, it's destroying the health and habitat of human beings around the globe. The biggest challenge today is not in creating a new gadget, it is how to clean up the damage done by the industry and prevent it from continuing.
I am not a fan of the guy, and they don't focus on ecological damage, but I would assert that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation alone has more than offset that. You don't even need to get into how computers themselves have improved the world.
I agree the BMGF has done wonderful things. But what specifically are you saying they have offset, and how? I am not very aware of anything they do other than working on malaria and perhaps food/aid assistance. The PC industry has kids living in toxic waste dumps and farms are growing crops and animals with high levels of toxic substances, to say nothing of cancer killing off families in droves.
Malaria killed 660,000 people last year alone, with 219,000,000 cases. From the WHO 2012 Malaria Report:
> Between 2000 and 2010, malaria mortality rates fell by 26% around the world. In the WHO African Region the decrease was 33%. During this period, an estimated 1.1 million malaria deaths were averted globally, primarily as a result of a scale-up of interventions. [1]
Malaria is a far bigger problem than e-waste. I'd suggest that you are the one with the backwards priorities, not the BMGF (though I disagree with some of their methodology, their goal makes a lot more sense than "eliminating e-waste" would).
Clearly, then, malaria is a much bigger problem than e-waste. Kudos to BMGF for tackling this deadly issue.
So there are many issues, such as malaria, that would benefit greatly from good hackers working on them for the public good instead of for private wealth. BMGF is unfortunately a very rare case of a technologist doing good for humanity's sake instead of his own.
Yeah - I do agree with your main point, it was just the malaria thing that bugged me. Saying that hackers can't be effective in the public sector, whether as hackers or jut as people, seems myopic to me, which we appear to agree on.
If I were given the option: "1) Have the BMGF and an extensive e-waste problem, or 2) Have neither", I would choose 1) without any hesitation. Wouldn't you?
(Of course Bill Gates cannot possibly be held responsible for all e-waste, but suppose that we do for the purposes of this discussion.)
The computer begat large scale information systems. Eventually, it brought open large scale information systems. What's more important, having people volunteer to go to a village in Africa and build some wind turbines in a poor energy deficient village, or providing free plans for villagers to do it themselves using local or very low cost materials?
That's a complex question in its abstract form, and I don't believe it always yields the same answer when applied specifically.
Tesla exists because environmental groups managed to get subsidies, tax credits, green-grants and (as terrible a feather in cap as they are) trade-able carbon credits.
Also in 20 years electric cars might be the norm for new cars, but people are still driving >50 year old cars today, unless some one manages to pass a bill where the government buys everybody's ICE cars for some ludicrous multiple of their value most cars on the road will still be running on petrochemicals.
Most? I agree with you there will always be some but it definitely won't be the majority. I doubt the average lifetime of use for a car would be more than 10/15 years?
Elon Musk wants to cover the country with charging stations that are free to use so that you can travel forever, for free. No more gas refills. Nine stations now provide free electricity for Model S owners, and the company has said it wants 100 along U.S. and Canadian highways by 2015.
All existing Tesla vehicles that can use the superchargers can use them for free. Unfortunately that means no Roadsters, for reasons involving AC-vs-DC charging (c.f. Q&A at the 2013 shareholder's meeting). You also only get the supercharger gear for free with your car if you buy one 85kWh models (which does necessarily not mean the most-expensive... 85kWh models start at $72.4k but go up from there, into six-figure territory). If you buy the cheapest Model S, at $63k, you can pay an additional $2k to buy the equipment necessary to use the superchargers.
Model Xs will have a similar situation, I think.
I haven't yet seen a commitment that the "third-gen" cars (currently touted as aiming for a $30k price-point, though we shall see in a few years), but it's certainly how Elon talks about it. He's also said that OpEx on the supercharger stations is very very low: little or no rent, little or no power costs. And it's obvious that a major goal for him is moving personal transport off of fossil-fuel; charging at home off the grid doesn't _actually_ achieve that, but giving away solar-powered juice at stations does. So we'll see.
<snark>
If only there were a way, on the internet, to spend half a minute researching one's uncertain theories, before posting comments on HN. Yes, half a minute is all it would have taken to learn that your claim was mistaken.
</snark>
Why bother working for an environmental non-profit when you can make many orders of magnitude more difference by founding Tesla Motors or Nanosolar
Because an environmental non-profit might make immediate changes that save people's lives. A non-profit might put enough pressure on a company to stop polluting groundwater or destroying fragile ecosystems. With Tesla you'll help rich people use less gas.
Why campaign for privacy when you can write PGP or Tor
Because PGP and Tor are used by computer nerds and edge cases, but privacy legislation is used by everyone.
Why work as a fundraiser when you could build Kiva or Watsi
Either way you're fundraising. You could work as a fundraiser for a political appointee, and they could get elected to office and change how the entire country works. Or you could fund a lot of tiny things.
None of these things are a waste. There's no reason to do one over another other than personal preference. And nobody said a 'good hacker' was obliged to save the world (and oh, the hubris of thinking they could!).
Sometimes being the one guy who does want to do public service makes the difference, because all the other 'good hackers' are more concerned with one solution that will solve all the world's problems (which never happens) and making a quick buck.