<story><title>We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today</title><url>http://www.christophmccann.com/blog/2014/6/23/we-have-the-potential-to-solve-the-biggest-problems-of-today</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pdabbadabba</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s a lot that I dislike about this article, but I&amp;#x27;ll start with this: it is probably self-refuting. Someone could just have easily written: &amp;quot;I find it difficult to see individuals who could focus their time and effort solving [problems like energy, food, water, health, education], instead put their efforts into something like a takedown of the moral priorities of the people behind Yo on a their personal blog.&amp;quot; A person could argue that the post has more value than Yo (though I&amp;#x27;m not sure this is self-evident), but it still isn&amp;#x27;t in the same ballpark as &amp;quot;energy, food, water, health, education.&amp;quot; I mean, c&amp;#x27;mon Christoph McCann, get your priorities straight!&lt;p&gt;Of course, I don&amp;#x27;t actually make that argument, because I reject its premise. As the above argument hopefully illustrates, it is not reasonable to insist that everyone spend all their time in the most socially beneficial way possible. Should we all strive to make the world a better place? Of course. But I don&amp;#x27;t know many people who think that we need to spend all our time tackling the world&amp;#x27;s biggest problems.&lt;p&gt;And, by the way, who appointed Christoph McCann arbiter of what it good and valuable in this world? Maybe an app like Yo will bring us together in a new (albeit marginal) way. That&amp;#x27;s valuable, even if it is also silly. (See, e.g., the first few paragraphs of this article: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2014/06/23/goodbye-yo-or-how-the-worlds-most-fun-and-heartwarming-app-met-its-tragic-end/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.forbes.com&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;quickerbettertech&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;23&amp;#x2F;goo...&lt;/a&gt;) Or maybe it provide a cautionary tale to remind us (as, perhaps, it already has) what is really important. Value exists in subtle forms that are not so easy to glibly list, and can be advanced in subtle and unexpected ways. While I wish we lived in a world where more people focused on problems like energy, food, water, health, education, I&amp;#x27;m not sure I want to live in a world where EVERYONE works on those problems. I want people to be free to do the unexpected, even if the results sometimes seem frivolous.&lt;p&gt;So, if McCann&amp;#x27;s only point is that we should take a moment and reconsider our priorities, point taken. But this looks suspiciously like something a bit more (with respect, and apologies) totalitarian.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jal278</author><text>&amp;quot;The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.&amp;quot; [0]&lt;p&gt;The reason why this article resonates with many readers is that it expresses frustration with the triviality of how our economy allocates resources to start-ups. The promise of tech is huge, but following the money often leads to optimizing ads, machine learning algorithms competing with each other in HFT, or other applications with little net benefit to society.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not that &lt;i&gt;EVERYONE&lt;/i&gt; should be working on the big problems -- just that the incentive systems seem to lean towards triviality over deep human benefit.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_17/b4225060960537.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.businessweek.com&amp;#x2F;magazine&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;11_17&amp;#x2F;b42250609...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today</title><url>http://www.christophmccann.com/blog/2014/6/23/we-have-the-potential-to-solve-the-biggest-problems-of-today</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pdabbadabba</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s a lot that I dislike about this article, but I&amp;#x27;ll start with this: it is probably self-refuting. Someone could just have easily written: &amp;quot;I find it difficult to see individuals who could focus their time and effort solving [problems like energy, food, water, health, education], instead put their efforts into something like a takedown of the moral priorities of the people behind Yo on a their personal blog.&amp;quot; A person could argue that the post has more value than Yo (though I&amp;#x27;m not sure this is self-evident), but it still isn&amp;#x27;t in the same ballpark as &amp;quot;energy, food, water, health, education.&amp;quot; I mean, c&amp;#x27;mon Christoph McCann, get your priorities straight!&lt;p&gt;Of course, I don&amp;#x27;t actually make that argument, because I reject its premise. As the above argument hopefully illustrates, it is not reasonable to insist that everyone spend all their time in the most socially beneficial way possible. Should we all strive to make the world a better place? Of course. But I don&amp;#x27;t know many people who think that we need to spend all our time tackling the world&amp;#x27;s biggest problems.&lt;p&gt;And, by the way, who appointed Christoph McCann arbiter of what it good and valuable in this world? Maybe an app like Yo will bring us together in a new (albeit marginal) way. That&amp;#x27;s valuable, even if it is also silly. (See, e.g., the first few paragraphs of this article: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2014/06/23/goodbye-yo-or-how-the-worlds-most-fun-and-heartwarming-app-met-its-tragic-end/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.forbes.com&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;quickerbettertech&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;23&amp;#x2F;goo...&lt;/a&gt;) Or maybe it provide a cautionary tale to remind us (as, perhaps, it already has) what is really important. Value exists in subtle forms that are not so easy to glibly list, and can be advanced in subtle and unexpected ways. While I wish we lived in a world where more people focused on problems like energy, food, water, health, education, I&amp;#x27;m not sure I want to live in a world where EVERYONE works on those problems. I want people to be free to do the unexpected, even if the results sometimes seem frivolous.&lt;p&gt;So, if McCann&amp;#x27;s only point is that we should take a moment and reconsider our priorities, point taken. But this looks suspiciously like something a bit more (with respect, and apologies) totalitarian.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gfodor</author><text>Yes, I believed you missed the point. Someone lamenting the fact that smart people are working on stupid problems is not the same thing as them saying that smart people should be forced to work on hard problems. Hamming put it best:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Over on the other side of the dining hall was a chemistry table. I had worked with one of the fellows, Dave McCall; furthermore he was courting our secretary at the time. I went over and said, ``Do you mind if I join you?&amp;#x27;&amp;#x27; They can&amp;#x27;t say no, so I started eating with them for a while. And I started asking, ``What are the important problems of your field?&amp;#x27;&amp;#x27; And after a week or so, ``What important problems are you working on?&amp;#x27;&amp;#x27; And after some more time I came in one day and said, ``If what you are doing is not important, and if you don&amp;#x27;t think it is going to lead to something important, why are you at Bell Labs working on it?&amp;#x27;&amp;#x27; I wasn&amp;#x27;t welcomed after that; I had to find somebody else to eat with! That was in the spring.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.virginia.edu&amp;#x2F;~robins&amp;#x2F;YouAndYourResearch.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yo&amp;#x27;s developers getting more than a million in funding at least makes it pretty clear at least in part &lt;i&gt;why&lt;/i&gt; this happens.</text></comment>