Ask HN: Do you ever want to work on something greater than your job?
There are lots of hard problems in the health field and I think technology can help but I find most jobs are about building web and mobile apps. At the end of the day, they add value by making our lives marginally better but there are so many harder challenges that sometimes I feel like I should be working on. Is this the same for you? What do you do about it?
Not me.
And disagree if you like, but I've come to realize it's not my path. I understand that there are tons of clever, educated, privileged, and young people working on the problems that plague us. I have no plan of sacrificing the little bit of comfort and pleasure I've carved out in this world for the tiniest chance that one day something I did might add value to human kind.
I feel the same. I live in Africa and I have a deep intuition that technology can help improve people lives here, in particular in health and education fields. I really want to work on it but unfortunately I do nothing about it for the moment. I always have excuses to not try (for example: lack of basic infrastructure will make my ideas irrelevant, my ideas are dumb anyways, even if I build my ideas, there is no way somebody will use it, ...).
sad part is that some of us went to school thinking we would change the world for the best and what we do is actually hep companies sell more advertising, get more bullshit valuations, help them send dick picks that delete themselves.
I don't know what to do, i still have to feed my family, I can't imagine that i am the only one feeling this way.
Well, I am taking some time off to work on my education startup magako (www.magako.com) in the field of maths education. It's something I am passionate about, both in the making of the product and the goal - improving maths education; but I am having troubles getting users :(
Founded a health tech startup, so I've made my job that "something greater".
I think the best view to have is that you CAN change the world. Simply put, you can do it by doing your part. Every little bit counts. Maybe volunteer or help at a local hospital, or better yet tackle some problems that are arising in local healthcare or NGO centres and try pitching them ideas to make their work more efficient, better ETC... I think no matter what skill set one has, we can make a difference if we want to, and you don't have to drop your job, or start a new business to do so.
Just get involved, and go from there.