How can tech save the world?

[AstonJ]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Dimi

It’s great to see that you’ve given so many of these things thought too and I think the thing I want to comment about most is on this:

@dimitarvp

But us the regular citizens really can’t do much.

Please don’t underestimate what you can achieve - you could create a piece of technology that could change the course of humanity I really do believe it is within us all (and people before us have shown this to be the case - where would we be without Alan Turing and computers for instance?).

@dimitarvp

This is demonstrably false…

It’s not that it’s true (or false) just something I personally feel. Sometimes I feel like I (/we’re) a cancer on this planet - taking far more than we ever give. Particularly when we weigh up the net positive/negative. It’s ok if you feel otherwise

@dimitarvp

A sweet but an ultimately doomed effort.

It’s not a doomed or wasted effort for me some of it definitely brings me some comfort.

@dimitarvp

Ego and greed are innate engines of evolution; without them systems get stuck and eventually looted and pillaged by the more savage and unscrupulous elements in the system.

It doesn’t always have to be that way The past is a look into what’s been for sure, but it’s also a look at what could be - if we don’t like the past we can always use it to shape the future and make it a better future. In fact, some of the most negative stuff often acts as a catalyst for some of the most positive.

@dimitarvp

You already were that in my life and we haven’t even met.

Awwww thank you for saying that

@dimitarvp

ABSOLUTELY NOT . Please. For years now we have regulations that dog owners have to pick their dog’s poop after them. Why? One of the main reasons was that there are now so many dogs in the cities that the soil in the parks literally cannot handle all the poop!

It’s okay to love animals. I’d probably get physically violent if somebody harms a parrot or a cat in front of me. But animals in inner cities that litter outside – which means dogs in particular! – are becoming more and more of a problem. Plus, irresponsible owners figure they don’t want to care for their dog anymore and they just drive several blocks away and let the dog out and go back. And then you have non-neutered dog procreating with the other street dogs. Then people get attacked by the increasing number of stray dogs as well.

Haha, you just helped prove my point Dimi; there’s so much wrong in the pet world that more needs to be done. More education, more campaigning to stop puppy farmers, better registration systems, better pet-food standards, etc.

I would really enjoy doing that project - it would definitely feel worthwhile (for me anyway).

Btw, Germany are currently considering some tough laws on dog ownership which I think is a great idea. Sweden already has some brilliant laws on dog-breeding, which I would love to see more countries adopt - these are the sort of things the money we’d raise would help campaign towards. The funny thing is Phoenix would be a good fit for this project - hopefully it will be the first Phoenix project I do!

@dimitarvp

Finally, the whole “be ecological citizens” thing I always found to be very hypocritical and very often an empty virtue signalling activity. I think I shared that with you once but it bears repeating – once I drew out a calculator to prove to a teacher that 50,000 people stopping their usage of electric kettles is but a drop in the ocean for less electricity usage and if that just ONE local factory switches to a more eco-friendly manufacturing process they can very easily outweigh what 250,000 to 500,000 citizens can do.

I agree that we may need to focus on the big polluters and causes. I think the largest difference I think we can make, or at least I can make, isn’t what I can personally do as a ‘citizen’ (eg recycling my plastic bottles) but through work such as the projects I mentioned… and that’s where I think most of us can make a difference too, because we’re fortunate to be able to almost single-handedly create projects that can have huge impact.

The important thing, at least in my view, is not that we share the same ideas or go down the same path - is that we act on what we think can make a difference - because who knows, your ideas could be a million times better than those of others.

As the famous French essayist Joseph Joubert said “The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.” I feel the same is true of our actions - it doesn’t really matter who’s right or where the best ideas come from, those that can do humanity and planet the most good, is what truly matters

I’d like to leave you with a question Dimi - how do you think you can use your developer skills to ‘save’ the planet or make the world a better place in the most impactful way?