In the meantime, I look around and see a lot of 'real' problems that need solving. And it occurs to me that the skills I've chosen to develop, while lucrative, aren't positioning me to make the kind of impacts I'm itching to make.
(As I write this I see this post bubbling upwards https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29757049 so perhaps I'm not alone in this sentiment)
I'm not ready to leave my job, or perhaps I just don't know where I'd go if I did, so I make a point of donating extra income. In the process I've learned there are organizations like givewell that provide guidance on how to maximize the impact of a donation.
And it got me wondering, have there have been similar attempts at providing guidance for people who would like to maximize the impact of their time? This is probably an orders of magnitude harder challenge, because money is fungible and skilled labor is not, but if such a service was available it would be exactly what I'm looking for.
If there is no such thing, I'd love to hear what ideas HN'ers have on ways to spend spare labor in ways that makes them feel like they're contributing to important problems. (Improving their community, fighting climate change, supporting the underprivileged, ect)
Givewell has a feature where some of its suggested donation targets list approximately how much money they need to save a human life. Wouldn't it be fascinating if there was a volunteer opportunity, that anyone could participate in, that could promise a human life saved after a certain number of hours of labor?
For those that don't feel this itch, I'm curious what skillsets you've developed and where you've taken your career?
Lack of affordable housing in the US is a huge issue. We have underbuilt for decades while tearing down SROs and it is a root cause of homelessness.
/2¢
By contrast, most of the communications technology out there right now is social media that has algorithms which encourage outrage over action, and division over community building.
I personally would love a not-for-profit tool to connect with like-minded folks and organize for social change, by region and by subject area, without all of the manipulation inherent in social media today.
What do you consider improvement?
In my case I put extra time into helping the land I live on become more biodiverse, towards resilience as climate changes. I don’t have much spare money, so in my main work (parent/homemaker) I focus on helping my child grow up emotionally stable, physically active, intellectually engaged, and respectful of other life. Destruction is easier than synthesis. There’s no magic button to fix our challenges. Lobbying for fair regulation of energy, transport, and agriculture might be a good use of your resources. We seem to be consuming too much when there are ways to live healthy, engaged lives using far less energy.
Something like Kahn academy!
If you are interested contact me!