You may not realize it, but you are often contributing to the greater good on a daily basis simply by doing your job. It's sometimes hard to visualize this because we are often many degrees of separation away from the "end user".

You don't actually have to be physically building that home for the homeless or providing food for the hungry; the work you're already doing may be helping someone to help someone else to do that.

I've even thought that the best way to put your technical skills to the greater good is through your day job, not instead of it.

Some of my days jobs have been to write software to ensure that:

  - people get the right prescription medication on time
  - firetrucks and ambulances get to where they're supposed to be
  - parts that go into cars and planes are properly certified
  - prisoners are kept in jail
  - those same prisoners get proper medical care
  - electronic equipment gets assembled properly and on time
  - medical supplies get dispatched to where they're supposed to
  - insurance claims are processed properly
  - quality data is properly maintained for food items
  

On the other hand, if you don't think that the work you do during the day contributes to the greater good, then maybe you should consider doing something else with your valuable time.

Do good and get paid. You can do both at the same time.

    - Make sure Visual Studio 2005 doesn't look like shit.
    - Make sure Visual Studio 2008 doesn't look like shit.
    - 'Something something, dead Microsoft product.'
    - Make sure we can ship this product in order to get a 'B' round of funding.
    - 'Something, something dead startup.'

    On the other hand, if you don't think that the work you do during the day contributes to the greater good, then maybe you should consider doing something else with your valuable time.
    Do good and get paid. You can do both at the same time.

[1] Although I have never directly contributed to a reduction in human misery, I still take a great deal of pride in things like http://cocoacontrols.com, which have, hopefully, made many iOS developers happier and richer, and many end-users generally happier.

a great talk about it

TEDxWarwick - Noam Kostucki - Making Money From Doing Good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gRaHyHJjrg

"Just as there is only one best charity, there is only one best way to donate to that charity. Whether you volunteer versus donate money versus raise awareness is your own choice, but that choice has consequences. If a high-powered lawyer who makes $1,000 an hour chooses to take an hour off to help clean up litter on the beach, he's wasted the opportunity to work overtime that day, make $1,000, donate to a charity that will hire a hundred poor people for $10/hour to clean up litter, and end up with a hundred times more litter removed. If he went to the beach because he wanted the sunlight and the fresh air and the warm feeling of personally contributing to something, that's fine. If he actually wanted to help people by beautifying the beach, he's chosen an objectively wrong way to go about it. And if he wanted to help people, period, he's chosen a very wrong way to go about it, since that $1,000 could save two people from malaria. Unless the litter he removed is really worth more than two people's lives to him, he's erring even according to his own value system.

...and the same is true if his philanthropy leads him to work full-time at a nonprofit instead of going to law school to become a lawyer who makes $1,000 / hour in the first place. Unless it's one HELL of a nonprofit."

(and the comments)

Sure, that's a selfish choice to some extent, but I think it's a reasonable one. Some people choose to live in one city over another just because they like it, or to work at Google rather than Wall Street because they like what they're building there more. Some people will pass up a job for one that pays 20% less, because it's building an exciting new app they want to help succeed. Wanting to work on a social-justice project just seems like a variation of that; it's quite common and natural for people to want their day job to be something they care about, if they have the option.

I think the argument as given also assumes that charities are currently operating optimally, and there's no room for improvement or disruption. If you applied the efficiency argument to startups in general, it would argue that you should work a well-paying job and pay other people to do startups. When would it ever be beneficial to do one yourself? Only if you think the market is not already efficient, and your personal intervention as a founder could change things more than working your current job and just funding startups would.

At the big dollar amounts, are you going to be able to make the ethical choices to only choose cases that do not do net harm? Perhaps, but not guaranteed, and one "no" to one client can lose you a big client and cause trouble getting the next.

It's all well and good to plan to work in a high paying job so that you can do good by donating some of the surplus you earn.

But being immersed in corporate culture and being surrounded by people who's aim is largely to make money, to look out for #1, and to value consumerism has a way of corrupting people with the best intentions.

Many start out wanting to make a difference, and wind up fretting over whether their next bonus will be enough to buy a timeshare in Cancun.

Another thing to consider is consumer choice. Very few people donate as much as they can to charity.

I also think that "good" startups create a lot of social value by improving wealth - the bigger the pie the more to distribute.

One could get wrapped up in logic games all day. For my life, I prefer the general heuristic of "ABC" - "Alway Be Creating" as opposed to destroying or fighting over my share of the pie (which from an opportunity cost POV is actually destructive). This is just a personal preference of mine (and probably most people who read HN), BUT I also think it's prudent economics as someone who is generally creating useful stuff for those around them will be guaranteed compensation of one form or another (hourly wage, salary, startup equity, etc). The obvious exception to this is those who help the disadvantaged since they can't compensate you. And that's where donations (and for non-right-wing-libertarians, tax dollars) come into play.

The Roman historian Sallust said of Cato "He preferred to be good, rather than to seem so". The lawyer who quits a high-powered law firm to work at a nonprofit organization certainly seems like a good person. But if we define "good" as helping people, then the lawyer who stays at his law firm but donates the profit to charity is taking Cato's path of maximizing how much good he does, rather than how good he looks.

In which case, I FEEL YOU. I'm infinitely more interested in SwipeGood than I am in Zynga. But everyone makes their own choices. Some people just aren't that concerned with injustice. Some people may have the same goals you do, and try a different path; nonprofits/NGOs always have good intentions, but not always good results (have you ever tried fundraising? it's not any easier than just making money.) And finally, it's a heck of a lot harder to fix injustices than add happiness. It's harder to scale, too. Much easier to build that photo sharing startup and be happy. :)

You should figure out what exactly you want to do. Injustice is too broad. Pick something and start there. You can try to pick something where you think you'll have "the greatest impact", but it's a) impossible to predict, and b) it's better long-term if it's something you're passionate about and won't burn out on.

Khan Academy, Kiva, DonorsChoose, and Samasource are nonprofits that are popular/well-known in the tech/startup world. Do any of those interest you? What about them interests you?

Where are you located? If you're in the Bay Area, there's a lot of people working in/on nonprofits/foundations, social enterprises, and other innovative social change efforts. But there are so many problems to solve; figure out what motivates you first. (There's also a lot of crap, just like in tech, and it's probably harder to tell the difference because everyone is just "trying to do good" and there are no easy success metrics like revenue or profitability.)

Good luck! I hope you find something that's meaningful for you and makes an impact on those less fortunate than you.

"Happiness" is a real stretch to describe the thing that a lot of these startups are "adding". "Pleasant distraction" might be a more apt phrase, or even just "pleasure". Or "yet one more goddamn reason to start vacantly at my smartphone, ignoring everything around me", if you're of a cynical bent.

Also, before you embark on saving the world, you might want to study a little Austrian economics. A lot of charity work and government programs are inefficient or actually contributing to poverty because they are contrary to economic law. You don't want spend few years of your life trying to solve poverty only to realize that you've been part of the problem.

In general, societies become wealthy when they are virtuous and economically free. Virtue causes them to generate and keep wealth. Economic freedom helps them build wealth efficiently. If you want to make any society richer from a macro level, you might focus on improving one or both of these: help that society become more virtuous and more free.

Regarding virtue, you might work to decrease drunkenness (Alcoholics Annonymous), drug use, and other vices. These activities harm individuals and their families and contribute to poverty.

Regarding freedom, you might work in politics to protect property rights, to have sound money and market prices, to allow people to work without licensing and other artificial restrictions, to reduce taxes. You can also work to spread price information and make markets more efficient (Craigslist, EBay and AirBnB do this.)

On a lower abstract level, you can work to produce some good or service which people value but is in short supply. That is, find a popular, over-priced good or service, and offer it at a lower price and better quality. Khan Academy is doing this for K-12 education.

This is, incidentally, the classical economic case for both governmental provision of public goods, taxation, and regulation.

Also people are naturally motivated by more than commercial self-interest. This is why charities exist.

1-http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/ethics.asp

An economically-naive do-gooder, considering that a minimum wage helps poor people, might work hard for its passage, not understanding that the minimum wage actually hurts poor people.

[1] Peter Schiff gives an excellent explanation of the result of the minimum-wage on American Samoa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X25U_7mx9jU

Nonprofits are ultimately financially unustainable; they survive on donations and government grants (tax) rather than direct contributions from customers. As such they usually can't scale to employ many people or make a worldwide impact.

There are exceptions in the information age; Wikipedia, Khan Academy, and perhaps over time Document Cloud. But these too are only useful for people who have computers, not people who lack food.

In general countries only drag themselves out of poverty through capitalism and industry. India and China had decades of foreign aid before they turned to capitalism; now there are many industries in which they are net exporters.

It's certainly not an unpopular opinion on HN, home to hordes of corporation-loving, free-market worshiping libertarians.

If you disagree with his, in my opinion correct, assumption then please argue such so that we can all be smarter.

Thank you.

I don't think that the parent post is supposed to be an attack on the opinion, but pointing out that it's actually popular.

Paul pollack , and his non-profit IDE, got 20 million people out poverty by offering radically affordable irrigation technology and building private markets for such products.

There have been new kinds of non-profits that combine a non-profit goal + financial sustainability. They appear to work better in some cases.

For those who are interested in sucssesful non-profit business models and organizations, nextbillion.net is a good site.

It is still necessary to think about "morals" (I don't like morals, because I think they are only necessary if you don't understand what is really going on). Otherwise, why not join the Mafia and make millions selling drugs?

For corporations, there's often a gap between financial performance (particularly short-term) and real shareholder/owner value.

It's ethically important to see not just private gain (compensation) but also try to honestly assess one's positive impact on the world (though this does not discount, for example, donations to charitable causes, or the contribution to public goods through taxation).

Different domains of problems: a NFP (not for profit) org may not be as _efficient_ as a FP org pursuing the same goal, but you are ignoring that many goals will never be pursued by a profit-seeking entity.

Provision of many "social goods" like shelter for the homeless, health care for poor children, or help for people with severe disabilities (components of the "safety net") will simply never yield a profit margin by virtue of the nature of the underlying problem. This is precisely because if we want to provide such services for people who lack the _ability_ to pay for it, there will be no demand for it.

So, instead, NFPs make a value proposition to _philanthropists_ who want to provide the goods there is no market incentive to provide.

In the public sector corollary, politicians make value propositions to voters, and whichever programs they like (through the mucky, revealed-preference process we call democracy), and the social goods demanded via that process are then implemented through public financing (spreading costs among everyone).

It is the underlying problem -- not the organization type -- that governs whether a venture can be profitable, or even sustainable.

I design database software. I do it because I think it's cool, and I think it's important to have easy to use software that solves IT problems. My software is now being used in rural hospitals in Africa to update patient records, and in disaster areas to help reunite lost children and parents. I had nothing to do with those things, I just design and write database software, but they built on my work, because I did my job well.

Doing your job well can inspire, make people happy, provide a base, provide stability, etc. It can help others do those things that put a happy tear in your eye, that you know made a profound difference in someones life, you don't need to be the actual hero to do good in the world, to make a real difference.

http://www.khanacademy.org/jobs

To me, your method relied on a)having kids learning a lesson at home b)drilling exercises.

On a), I must say that it surprised me much. It means that kids must all have computer available at home (which is clearly not the case, even in western countries) and it also means that their home is sufficiently stable so that they can listen to a lesson (which is probably not doable if mom & dad fight each other every night, whereas doing small exercises is doable in between fights?).

Then, there's this part about creating a school, costing upwards of 10k$ a year. Call me a socialist or whatever, but seriously, paying 10k$ a year to get primary education, wtf?? Shouldn't a not for profit org seek to open such a school for free?

Please do not see this msg as completely negative: you're doing stuff to find other/better ways to teach kids, which is definitely awesome.

1) We do want kids to learn lessons at home so that teachers are freed up to do more project-based learning and...well...teaching (instead of lecturing). This doesn't mean the world falls apart if kids aren't watching videos at home. As @rubergly says, computers in the classroom allow for individualized instruction and solid data, which humanizes the kids' experience by helping teachers address individual needs.

2) On the school front -- there are lots of ideas floating around when thinking about the future, but I can assure you that our primary focus is exactly what it says on the website: "providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere."

Indeed, I used the word drill in precisely that meaning.

I think I might have been biased by wired's piece. Maybe it's just me or maybe they failed to render correctly what your org really is.

Personally, I believe that the act of working through problems is often more important to learning and development than watching or listening to lectures explaining how to work through problems. If a student's conditions at home are so unstable that they cannot concentrate on watching a single video, then they are clearly never going to be able to put a reasonable amount of effort into homework assignments in the normal education system. I would rather they fail to watch Khan videos at home and interact and explore exercises in class than listen to lectures in class every day but never put those skills into practice because they fail to do homework at home. However, yes, availability of computers at home is an issue. It would be great if Khan Academy were the cure-all for education and would be perfect for everyone, but this is never what has been claimed; unfortunately, for the time being, Khan Academy is not a viable solution for those without computer access.

I'm not sure if the phrasing of drilling exercises was supposed to imply something negative, but the goal of KA's exercises is not to drill students on a question until they can answer it as quickly as possible (this is what I think of when I think of a drill). The goal is to allow students to explore and advance at their own pace, proving mastery of a concept covered in a video and then feeling confident to move onto a more advanced topic. We try to make the exercises as modular as possible (which may make them outwardly resemble drills), but we do this so a complex problem can be broken down into many smaller and easier problems. Instead of making a staircase with huge steps that would take a giant to leap, we're making a staircase with small steps; that way, everyone can advance at their own pace.

It doesn't matter if the company makes frivolous garbage, as long as it employs 30,000 people in Detroit. People in Africa are not starving because you don't have a charity that gives them free medicine. They are starving because there is no one in Africa starting a company that employs 30,000. It doesn't matter what that company does, as long as it does something other people want to pay for, and it is able to provide employment for people.

Innovation feeds the economy. Even if that innovation sounds as frivolous as web advertising. That frivolous company may be the next Google, they may employ 30,000, and they may even help people who don't have clean drinking water.

I started in 2002, and went through years of working with shelter charities, the US military and various other groups to get the technology into the field. There are experimental units in Haiti and Sri Lanka right now!

On the way I learned a hell of a lot about how the entire mess works, and why humanitarian innovation is so slow. There's a couple of talks on the hexayurt web site which might give you useful context: "Ending Poverty with Open Hardware" and "Enabling Humanitarian Innovation."

Please feel free to drop me a line if you have specific questions, and do check out Google Image Search on hexayurts to get an idea of where they're being used most right now!

Vinay

idealist.org is a good place to look for tech or design work with non-profits. I also got my start just cold-calling groups I respected. Most didn't know what to do with me, but all it took was one or two projects before word-of-mouth referrals started to spread.

If you are serious about starting a non-profit, the NOLO books are a good mix of legal and practical advice and often include the forms you need. Check nolo.com. But I recommend volunteering as a board member or advisor, or working with an existing non-profit so you can get a closer look at the mechanics before you dive in. If you have a very specific idea for a charity or project, perhaps get an hour consultation with a lawyer who specializes in non-profit corporations.

Feel free to drop me an email if you have more specific questions.

Find someone to help. Help them. You have then changed the world for the better. Now do it again.

Someone needs to take care of these problems in the short term of course, since there are people suffering today, but it is also important to focus on how to reduce their needs.

There's no technological magic bullet to solving political and social issues, but there are ways to reduce them. One major problem in some parts of the world is corruption. I'm not thinking of the white collar corruption that can be found in the western world, but basic corruption such as having to bribe your child's teacher so that he will let your child in. In some cases you even have to bribe health personnel for the right to "free" health care or other forms of aid. In some countries the corruption is everywhere and is hurting the society.

If someone could find a cheap and reliable way of reducing corruption you would do a lot of good.

Does anyone know of something like this out in the wild already? Seems like an obvious idea.

"Random Hacks of Kindness is a community of innovation focused on developing practical open source solutions to disaster risk management and climate change adaptation challenges. Random Hacks of Kindness was founded in 2009 in partnership between Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, NASA and the World Bank."

Johnny Long founded Hackers for Charity in 2008: http://www.hackersforcharity.org/ - see announcement talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CWrzVJYLWw

Hack for Change (http://hackforchange.com/) might be interesting as well.

Not sure if the group is still active though.

I would be very interested if someone knows of something more along the OP's lines.

"Well, I am going to do this thing that makes money and then when I am rich I will give back"

Is bullshit. You either give back or you don't. It's not a question of time and money.

I try and do as much local charity work as I can, I try to be present when listening to friends and family. I try and treat my wife and my family as the most important people in the world so that they can bring that love to other places, but I hear what you saying.

I want to be working on things that change the world. I think at some level, we all want to be.

Thank you for asking / sharing.

Kent

Apart from the forces that directly increase productivity (science, markets, entrepreneurship, etc), I think, the most important factor for creating broad based wealth is transparent, evidence based, predictable governance and a functioning legal system. It's not about low taxes or high taxes or small or big government. There are very low tax countries that work and very high tax countries that work and everything in between.

So if I was going to do non profit work, I would look into ways of creating transparency, shedding light on areas that affect many people but suffer from lack of good data. Try to connect new sources of data related to poverty and make it available to the public, to economists, social scientists and governments. Or try to make money flows visible to fight corruption or misinformation. Things like that.

There are plenty of NGOs who could use your skills. Governments are coming to expect computer work, GIS maps, survey data etc. This puts NGOs who are behind the times at a real disadvantage for getting funding and getting on with their projects.

There are plenty of things you could do outside your field aswell. Some research and finding some people in the know is all it would take. Have a look at Engineers without borders.

The solution is to create a successful business. It doesn't matter what the business does, as long as it makes money you're guaranteed to be making a positive difference. Not only are you creating enough value somewhere in the world to make that kind of profit on your work, but you're also providing a sustainable income for yourself and all your employees.

My favorite way to justify my work is that I'm interested in making things and events that make life worth living.

While I do this, I try to minimize the extent tow which my actions are connected to the exploitation of others. When it comes to computers and other complex technologies, I try to "concentrate firepower", which means to use high-tech tools only in situations when it will have a significant effect. Otherwise I use simple tools.

www.smallact.com

Also, I work for Etsy, which is providing a way for people to become more self-reliant and giving consumers a way to form a more human connection with the people they purchase goods from. We're in NYC.

www.etsy.com

Kiva - http://www.kiva.org/jobs DonorsChoose - http://www.donorschoose.org/docs/software-engineer.htm GlobalGiving - http://www.globalgiving.org/aboutus/jobs/software-engineer-f...

You have mentioned that you would like to start a nonprofit of your own. So do I and most of our friends here. The question again is where do I start? Then, there are innumerable ways that help can be passed. We have to start digging as to what, when existent now, can do the delta the world needs.The simple answer here is to start helping in all ways you can - volunteer and meet people. Charity Water also didn't start within a week. The man left his life and joined a charity organization(Mercy Ships), met people and got to know their problems - It all fit in a line, but took several years of hardship to him, but at the end lies all the satisfaction, right?. Then he has seen a solution and found the best ways to fill it.

One wise man said that "Every great idea is the result of a moment's inspiration". True and in addition I feel that every great organization is the result of hours of hard work on that idea. So, what you have felt is inspiration and what you need is time to find your great idea and then start working on it. Good Luck!

I hate to say it but i think in more cases then not the kind of startups that most of us imagine doing (ie web startups) have a hard time doing anything to solve the worlds problems directly (the worlds problems that you mentioned more specifically). Not saying there isnt (i seen a few that raise money and help schools execute projects for instance but there are only a handful) but for the most part they do not tackle for example educational problems DIRECTLY such as say OLPC does.

I really love sal khans khanacademy stuff, its truly awesome but it isnt getting to the kids that dont have a roof over their school let alone an internet connection and many of these schools could really use his material.

This material might one day with the help of a very rich successful individual who is willing to purchase computers for the less fortunate parts of the world to then be able to view khans stuff. I think this applies to ALL web startups that isnt directly raising money for the problem parts of the world.

BUT what can be done is, the success (monetary or influential) we get from allowing people to find restaurants that are near them, or allows people to search for data easier <insert startup goal here> can be put to good use.

Maybe even purchase those computers for some unfortunate part of the world that will then allow them to view sal's, standfords or any similar educational content that will actually change the lives of those kids.

And I'll start with my old answer here.

I'm suspicious of attempts to solve problems in the developing world that aren't part of an all around solution. Making it easier to grow food, get water without a simultaneous plan to lower population size is a dangerous game. I think the old school approaches to charity are very wrong and if you want to do something useful for humanity, they are the last place to do it.

Yes the responses about making it easier to market crap being useful to humanity are funny and cruel. But they hint that we in the developed world don't care about poverty. We've seen many shocking ads with starving children asking for money and now we are disillusioned because charities haven't delivered after decades. In the US, well intentioned programs implemented in the 70's made the problem much worse.

Poverty in poor countries won't end until developed countries let them into the global economy on fair terms. That's how China got where it is and now we market their crap on iPhones. Is that a better world? Not exactly.

I really like the question in this thread and look forward to see insightful suggestions in the comments.

Also, there's always that snarky little angle when seeking for something meaningful to do: you're in effect seeking a meaningful life, or just a meaning, for yourself. So there's that selfish aspect there as well. And that sort of implies judgment: you decide it's wrong that other people are wronged; however, the world is often a bit gray and it is gray on that, too. You don't know what these people are going through by living their poor lives and great suffering. And you don't know why. And no matter who it is you can't just go out and decide some people need help: these people need to ask for help themselves, only then they can receive.

That's what I think the starting quote means: you can ask for being a helper yourself and then wait how that unfolds in your case. Most likely it's something that comes up in your everyday life, hence the little things with great love. That's where you have the greatest possible leverage to do good because it's your everyday life and you're invested in it yourself as well.

I'm glad that someone is thinking about this instead of a new way to sell ads.

It's a cumulative thing, and without all the little niceties, the important stuff doesn't get done.

Don't knock the little people. They're helping, too.

The "giant's" primary school teacher, sure. The guy that funded his first crackpot-sounding business. His admin assistant, etc. That forgotten 5th employee who wrote half the code... or all those other companies that the "giant" first bought and sold stuff to/from. But no - not generally a bunch of random 'lifestyle' startup guys peddling restaurant finders and photo organizers and casual games.

http://mib.sidlabs.com

It is not necessary you get involved in something big. Start from small thing and then try something big.

My 2 Cents

I keep a small, out of date parenting and homeschooling site. It rarely gets updated. I still hope this will change someday. I also keep my toe in on a list or two. I believe firmly that if you want to see less crime, fewer people in prison and so on, you should put more societal resources into supporting families and helping people be good parents and helping kids get raised right. I think every little bit helps in this regard. So I continue to be a resource, on a small scale, for folks who have very challenging children.

I also run a health site. I have a form of cystic fibrosis, as does my oldest son. I have figured out how to get us well. I share that info to the best of my ability, in spite of huge negative reactions from the CF community. My thought is that I would like to write a game (aka simulation) to better share my understanding of what works. My approach is a diet and lifestyle approach which flies in the face of what most people know to be true about this deadly condition. I do not want to do this as a charity. Yet I can't do it as a traditional business model. Maybe something like a freemium model will work. I'm not sure.

I'm pretty disillusioned and disenchanted with the charity model. It tends to fundamentally assume that people cannot help themselves. I think this tends to cause big problems and you need to be very, very careful about such underlying assumptions. I have overcome some very serious personal problems. In the course of doing so, I have routinely run into "helpers" who had to be ditched at some point -- even if they were professionals. It is standard modus operandi of most such people to want to help you walk better but not want you to stand entirely on your own two feet because then they have no role in life as someone's crutch. My experience has been that such people have an enormous need to be needed and can't imagine anyone would genuinely "love" them or befriend them as an equal. It speaks simultaneously of both phenomenal arrogance (often rooted in being much more competent than average) and phenomenal insecurity (often rooted in having been given hell socially for most of their lives, in part for the crime of being too competent).

I would like to see the world be a better place. I consider that to be a form of selfishness: If the world is a better place, I get to live in a better place. I see no reason why a charity model is fundamentally superior to a business model for achieving such a goal. I see lots of cases where a charity model is part of the problem. One notable "exception" is Habitat for Humanity. Please note they are not really a charity per se: They do not give away houses for nothing. They sell the houses and recipients have to also provide labor beforehand. They just a) don't sell at a profit b) due to volunteer labor and donated supplies, not selling at a profit means selling a house for substantially less than it is typically worth on the open market and c) they don't charge interest on the loan. This combo makes the loan payments dramatically less than house payments typically are.

Anyway, those are my rambling thoughts while exhausted and foolishly posting anyway.

Peace.

There is a long history of selling dietary advice in book and newsletter form. Hard to say without knowing the details but if you feel like you have something to share it's worth seeing if anyone cares to find out about it. I'd be willing to try just about anything if one of my daughters had CF. Price isn't really a factor to people in that frame of mind.

A blog, forum, and one on one advice site for this seems like it could work assuming your results are real and repeatable (not saying they are or aren't just saying really). Seems like that'd be worth a monthly subscription.

The fundamental problem appears to be that people define CF in the following manner (quote from a doctor): "People like you don't get well." Since I got well, I must be lying. I can't really have CF.

I have no plans to charge money for information. I have no idea how it would be monetized. I generally assume I am better off pursuing other things for money and keeping this fairly low on the radar. Attempts to shout it from the rooftops has only served to convince people in the CF that I am a liar, a charlatan and a snake oil salesman -- that I suffer from Munchhausen Syndrome and am doing this out of a sick need for attention rather than a sincere desire to help other people like me.

Anyway, there is a link to my site in my profile. It's the one with the word "health" in the URL. :-) I have no idea how that $3 billion could be tapped into to support a saner, more humane and cheaper treatment approach. God knows I would be on it in a heartbeat if I could figure that out as I have a pile of debts from getting myself well.

Peace.

Beyond this, the major health effects of CF are not directly due to these genetic defects. The main symptom of CF is the build up of thick mucous in the lungs, however the battle against CF is a battle against infection, not against mucous. It's only recently that the role of the immune system has started to be understood. Needless to say, CF is a manifestation of a large, complex system of things, all of which vary from patient to patient, and change dramatically as the patient goes through life.

It's taken decades to unravel the puzzle thusfar, with many roads leading to dead ends. As you surely know, CF was a disease that was supposed to be cured 10-15 years ago. But, it's proven difficult.

There are reasons for hope. The truth is that your particular struggle with CF may have made it possible for you to get well through certain dietary changes, but the fact is this is a complex, ever-changing disease and dietary changes, while helpful, certainly are insufficient for most CF sufferers to feel well.

Decades of medical research have brought about drugs that, after years of study, have proven reliability in increasing FEV1. (I was one of the patients in the Phase II trial of Pulmozyme many years ago.) These have been a godsend for myself and other CF sufferers.

Your blog seems to make many claims unsupported by medical research, and has a long series of hypotheses and theories about how certain things affect yourself and your child. There are a few things that I see in your writing that I suggest you reflect on as part of the reason you are having a time being accepted by the CF community:

- You seem to have an attitude that your solution is so simple, "boring", and hard work, that you've managed to figure out the solution when all these foolish doctors and researchers have had their heads up their asses. It's not easy, and they haven't. This attitude manages to tell CF sufferers that its their laziness keeping them sick. I can assure you all of us work hard and would gladly do what we need to get well if we knew it was possible.

- You play the victim card, alienating anyone who hasn't heard of your blog before.

- You make logical fallacies. You claim that nobody telling you your technique failed is proof-positive that it probably works. You claim that people tell you that they have had success as proof as well. These are classic fallacies in medical research, and is part of the reason medical research is so hard to do correctly.

In order to make a positive impact on the CF community, I'd encourage you to attempt to reach out to researchers and collaborate with them in a constructive fashion. I'd suggest you do the research on what has been learned so far about CF. I'd suggest you educate yourself on biology, genetics, immunology, and basic medicine as much as you can. I hope you can channel your energy into organizing information in an honest, informative manner without having it be tarnished by the various things I mentioned above. Good luck, and I hope you and your son continue to see good health.

Edit: for those interested, I'd encourage you to check out the CF foundation's drug pipeline:

http://www.cff.org/research/DrugDevelopmentPipeline/

The CF foundation has done some good and some not so good things in the past, but this page at least is accurate and up-to-date. VX770 right now stands to be the most promising path to alleviating the symptoms of CF sufferers in a large way.

I am guilty as charged of thinking that the whole thing is rather stupid. When I discovered that addressing excess acidity was effective in helping me need less medication, I thought this was some major revelation. It turns out it is rather well established in the CF community that CF leads to very extreme excess acidity. Yet it goes largely untreated, in spite of acidosis being a known serious medical problem. Additionally, the salt issue is so well established as an issue for CF that a sweat chloride test is the single most common initial test for CF, yet nothing is really done to address that issue. Both seem very obvious for anyone in the know yet both go largely ignored in treatment modalities.

As for victim card, I've really had the crap kicked out of me for trying to share info. I have no doubt that at this point that negatively impacts the way I come across when discussing the issue. I don't have some magic wand for how to make that go away. I think the ugliest thing said to me publicly was that someone implied that my son was the product of an incestuous relationship. Moderators routinely side with my attackers and act like I have some unreasonable expectation for thinking I should be able to participate in conversation on the same footing as other members where such attacks would not be tolerated. I have left lists over such incidents.

Researchers and doctors have expressed no interest in what I am doing. My doctor's response to my dramatic improvements in health was to schedule me fewer and fewer appointments and express zero curiosity as to how I was doing so much better. For the most part, people on CF lists are also not really interested. Their primary response is to be very defensive and default to accusations that I am a charlatan and a snake oil salesman. I find this personally very difficult to comprehend or deal with. I have CF. Why on earth would make any of this up? People are suffering and dying and begging for a cure. One would think that my testimony about my experiences would be warmly welcomed rather than viciously attacked. I am both baffled and hurt by this consistent response over the past five years.

I didn't get myself well in order to impress anyone. I am willing to help if I am able, but I am not interested in martyring myself. I got well to get my life back, not to find new ways to be tormented by life. If getting my life back is all it accomplishes, that is enough in my book. (I have heard similar stories of health improvement due to diet/lifestyle changes about other people. I am apparently not the only one who made significant changes to diet and lifestyle and saw major improvements. Most people apparently just go on living quietly rather than fight with other people about it, an approach I continue to work on in spite of my big mouth.) The degree to which the CF community plays the victim card and expects other people to pay for their survival and very high on-going medical expenses is something that looks to me like a big part of the problem, both in terms of mental models and logistically.

As for the "excess mucus" theory, I do not buy it. I have seen more than one public discussion about women with CF suffering vaginal dryness, in some cases so severe it ruined their sex life. I see no reason why one set of mucus membranes in the body would work the opposite of the rest for a genetic disorder that impacts all cells in the same manner. One study I ran across indicated that it was not excess mucus clogging up the lungs of people with CF, it was phlegm -- ie infection -- and that, in fact, people with CF produce too little mucus, not too much. This fits with my experience that when my sinuses are too dry, that's when I have more lung issues and sinus issues. I have seen women with CF complain of "goopiness" (vaginally). I see no reason to believe that isn't also a form of drainage from infection, similar to phlegm build up in the lungs. It seems to me if it were mucus, then women with CF shouldn't have any of the difficulties with sex which they report.

I am not claiming that lack of reports of egregious problems is proof positive that it works, much less that it would work equally well for all people with CF. I am claiming that people who have tried some of my suggestions and also reported back have indicated surprisingly good results, often in quite a short period of time (for example, one parent whose teenaged child was supposed to be listed for lung transplant put them on supplements I suggested and in a very short period of time -- something like two weeks -- saw such dramatic improvement in lung function that listing for transplant stopped being a consideration). I am also indicating that while people in the CF community are very critical, often in a very ugly fashion, none of the criticism I have received so far has come from someone who tried my ideas and got sick from it. It seems to come from people who reject all of it out of hand as "too good to be true" without further investigation.

Peace.

Folks who are genuinely interested in my experiences and my understanding of the problem space are few and far between. I leave the site up for the benefit of the small number of people who are interested in the information. These days, I spend a great deal less time posting on health lists than I used to. It accomplishes very little and gets me loads of very negative attention. So I see little point in pursuing such activities. Having gotten myself basically well, my main focus is on other things these days.

Take care.

The history of CF is full of stories like yours where people seem to be onto something only to find out that it was circumstantial or not scalable to the rest of the CF population. This is still a very mysterious disease. My point is that a large part of the reason you might not be taken seriously is due to your tone, your apparent skepticism of western medicine, and your lack of expertise on the fields you are making claims about.

If you do not want to try to use the information you have to help others, so be it. But if you do, posting on health lists and arguing over the internet is not the way to do it. The way to do it is to educate yourself enough that you can hold a real discussion with medical researchers, and find medical researchers (or become one yourself) who would be willing to test your claims empirically. You've positioned yourself as a champion against the establishment, and this is not the way to actually get anything meaningful accomplished. Posting anecdotal evidence, contradictory claims, and lots of random speculations about the effects of various foods and dietary changes without accurate measurement and study does little good towards this end, if the goal is to help the wider CF community, despite your intentions to be helpful.

Take care.

Just spoke to Gabriel Weinberg about his open source tithing effort this morning (http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/11/help-me-start-a-...).

We are working on our own new initiative which will allow mature startups and tech companies to let their employees donate a little bit of their paycheck to charity. I'd be happy to talk about that over email...

(We don't take any money for ourselves - we do it pro bono and all work in tech. We raise money for other charities).

In my immediate memory, we've been working with electrification projects for two different Third World countries. Our technology has helped bring electricity to places that never had it before.

I'm proud to be a part of that.

Some friends and I have been going through these issues lately, and we're desperately trying to find out how we can change the world. Here's what we've come up with:

* Do what you can now. Start small. eg Don't put it off until "one day when i'm rich". * Work with what's in your hands, in your sphere of influence. If nothing is in your hands right now, you can change yourself. * Find friends who are of the same mind, and spur each other on. * Read LOTS. Grow yourself. Read about leadership. That's the starting point. Start by reading seth godin, i'd recommend. * Change the world for the better in one small way every day. * Learn how to take initiative, start things, and complete them.

While I do appreciate the sentiments expressed below (that we're doing good by doing our daily work) I do think that we can take an extra effort to make a positive contribution to the world. Yes, doing your daily work and doing good aren't mutually exclusive, but dedicating yourself to doing good explicitly is better than plugging away at something that coincidentally creates social value along with the main goal of corporate benefit. And yes, that does matter.

It's definitely difficult to fix injustices. It's definitely not as easy as creating the next iPhone game or daily deals site. Nevertheless, it needs to get done, by someone, and I think it's wonderful that you want to be that person. Step up to the challenge, you're one of the few.

I can't give that much tangible advice-I'm trying to do the same thing and am fairly clueless. Nevertheless, here's my (up)vote of confidence!

This post spells it out via endless links of endlessness: http://lesswrong.com/lw/373/how_to_save_the_world/

I've been doing this for a few years: http://blog.printf.net/articles/2010/11/26/giving-thanks

And I've come to rely on GiveWell, which is an organization performing quantitative review of which charities produce the most good per dollar donated: http://www.givewell.org/

Good luck!

To answer your question directly:

Find a problem that affects people of all 'levels' of society and do your best everyday to solve for it.

[1] https://www.socialfortress.com - The site is sparse on technical information but expect that to change in the coming weeks. Any specific questions can be directed to feedback@socialfortress.com

Here are a few links: Unreasonable Institute http://unreasonableinstitute.org/ Ashoka http://www.ashoka.org/ Social Edge http://www.socialedge.org/ B Corporation http://www.bcorporation.net/

2- Or do like Billy. Create a monopoly in an industry and rip most of the benefits. Then take the profits and eradicate Malaria.

Note: It is arguable that Bill Gates alone does more good than all the charity donated through DonorsChoose or Kiva etc..

I was really impressed with this video by Derek Sivers about how startups don't need funding to start. Though in a different context, it puts the point across. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KLnXjqKL5g) If you want to make a big difference, start by doing smaller things and scale up.

As you see how these people live and their problems you'll come up with a solution because your a software engineer - thats what we do.

Step two: Just take it from there.

Check out their website here: http://enspiral.com

While I felt proud of the fights I had won on behalf of users (every time you type command-comma and it works…), making them more productive at their jobs, I felt I wasn't doing enough to help people directly. I didn't want to just make tools to help other people work on big important problems or give them money — I wanted to work on big, important problems.

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to volunteer for the Obama campaign in 2008. What started out as a couple of phone calls turned into two months of solid work, helping register hundreds of thousands of voters and making sure folks found their polling places. I didn't lose touch with the grassroots field volunteer in me, either: I was on the phone, too, talking to regular voters.

I wanted to be this inspired by my work all of the time. After shipping another big cat, I left. I spent a month helping Engineers Without Borders Canada (important: not all EWBs are created equal), and went through a leadership development fellowship.

While my number one passion is for the environment and energy efficiency — and I'm not doing that — yet, I have been fortunate to pick and choose some really cool projects:

  - creating an online application process for college and university scholarships
  - helping EWB Canada win $50,000
  - doing strategy/UI/fundraising for a network of student-run food co-ops
  - building a text messaging-based tool to remind people to vote

Where this becomes a big deal is not in presidential elections, where turnout is 50-60% (which is pretty shameful), but in local, primary and special elections, where it drops to 10%. But once you're signed up to vote by mail, you just get the ballots … and you vote … and maybe we get turnout to 15%. It's not a lot, but relatively speaking, it's a big deal.

If this sounds like fun, we're hiring a rails developer: http://blog.turbovote.org/2011/07/were-hiring/

The internet is my world. Therefore all my ideas are The Next Better Widget (tm). I think I need to go on an internet diet for a month.

Will have to think about this, thanks for giving me personally dangerous ideas DotOrg.

Though not related solving these basic need problems, I'm working on providing very low cost (free) communication for people far away. Hopefully I'll get something to show soon.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2625009

Doing something meaningful, in the way you described it, looks a lot to me like guilt over a perceived unfairness of life. Yes people are dying in remote places, yes people need healthcare in the US, and yes not everyone has a job. You want to try and fix the situation, but many others also have tried, and failed.

Maybe you want to do that to be relieve of your guilt, to try and find happiness instead. I mean it's very popular to say that you are trying to change the world, making it a better place, and so on, but then in the end, will it make you happy?

And even worse- what is your final objective? Being happy?

Maybe you perceive a dysfunction is the way the world works vs how you think it should work. Then your goal might be to "remove biais", or be "less wrong". Some blogger might help you in your path.

If your goal is finding consistence, there are many ways which do not always involve doing "something meaningful" in the sense of charity work. Abstaining from charity and being vocal about it, trying to make more people join such absentionist movements, might be very positive. A lot of people believe the problems for exemple in Africa are due to foreign involvement creating a long lasting dependance on aid, food, and so on. Basically, it might not be good to have more people on a continent that can be fed by the production of this given continent. Here the lack of action would have dire consequences in the short term, but would improve the situation in the long term - and it would be self consistent.

If you goal is happiness, a better shortcut might be finding happiness without having to resort to such a guilt-ridden trip of charity, ie learnt to not care anylonger!

If your your goal is being popular, ie respond to peer pressure which views charity work in a positive light, maybe you could find some other way that is also well received - say american idol, a free software project that'll make you famous, fight again racism/global warming/whatever is popular these days.

But from what I have read in your message, I would sincerily question your premises.

Instead of doing what is better "for the world" or "for the global good", have you considered the possibility of doing "what's fun", "what you like", or "what is important to you"? You do not need justifications or moral endorsement to do that. Yet it requires some serious introspection.

If you do have considered these alternatives, and if you are sure of your premises, have you identified limitating beliefs, ie the reason why you consider these alternatives not to be worth your limited time on this earth?

I would answer the question of "should you?" with a resounding yes.

I've been finding it difficult to match up my skills as a software engineer to a project with meaning as a lot of them are in the hardware or humanitarian aid realm.

Your point of doing "what's fun" or "what you like" is also an important factor and almost goes without saying. The ideal job for all of us is doing something we like that pays the bills and has a tangible benefit to humanity (not a made up one).

I have always thought very disturbing in the occidental culture the notion that there are "unworthy" occupations, and some people "waste their life" doing something different that they could in someone else's opinion.

But that's just applying peer pressure to make such people comply to our (skewed?) visions of how life should be, and when failing, using guilt to try to destroy the joy they find in doing what they do the way they do.

Maybe because I grew up watching too much anime and reading too many mangas I admire whatever people are, in any field, trying to remove my own bias.

Like - you don't have to be a Nazi to admire what Roemmel (sp?) did in north-africa. A true military genius of the time. Or how a handfull of guys armed with box cutters social-engineered they way to massive destruction and terror. And also it's hard not to admire the beautiful job of some people in charity work - eradicting polio, wow. Using cellphones to develop microcredit and banking in countries with little infrastructure - that's beautiful!

But unlike you, I would but the fun part above the "important" part, because what's important is a personal opinion. If someone find something important, it's important.

If designing and testing landmines aimed at killing and maiming people is fun because, I don't know, the mathematical challenge behind it, the noise of explosions, whatever - it's a worthy endeavour. If you make good money because you're good at the job you love, even better.

BTW the knife cut both ways - my training has been mostly on the medical field, but someday I realised the humanitarian field no longer meant anything to me. I'm not feeling any greater purpose or anything, and I don't believe I ever did. Maybe I tried to fool myself thinking I did. Maybe I resent the fact that's it's difficult to match up my skills to what's usefull in the industry, but I doub thatt and I don't think it's clouding my judgement too much. Anyway it is just no longer fun and that's what matters.

I don't feel bad about that. It's not good or bad - just an indication that's it's time to do something else now, and that as usual change is hard. If I listened to what people would think about my move, I'd up for one another good guilt trip :-) Like why don't I go to some poor country to save people? Because I don't care, don't see the point, and while the visiting part might be fun initially, it would be boring and I may not like the food and the culture :-)

What I fear is many people are doing this for a time in their life - sometimes their whole life - without realizing how empty it is, until it bites them back, a la Lars Von Triers' "Dogville".

Maybe I grew out of the guilt trip that's forcing of lot of people into such training and studies. I'm just sad to see such post and comment, including people downvoting the not politically correct things to say.

Do what you like, and figure out justifications later.

PS: You don't have to spend 8 hours a day working on something BTW - slavery is gone is most part of the world. Economic slavery however remains, and if you want more things than you can affort, yes, you will have to spend your time this way, and might resent it.

Some people, mostly in europe, figure out how to strech their money and benefits to live without doing any purposeful work. I would find that sad - unless they enjoy the "game" part of gaming and abusing the system. In that case maybe a worthy endeavour to them, rest of mankind be damned.

I can only talk about personal experience; that is, if I meet someone in need, am able to help them, and as a result they are in a better position than before, it makes me feel great.

It's a selfish proposition, by helping someone, i'm essentially helping myself. Having said that, it still feels right and I have a compulsion to extend that to my life's work.

The YC and other entrepreneurs ALWAYS help people. If they didn't, their business folds. Because simply: it's not useful to people. eg They created an app to put moustaches on every picture; you may think it's not helping people but it'll give a smile to families who see the wedding pictures with moustaches everywhere. So, help to people is quite subjective.

On the other hand, it sounds like you're doing a 'numbers of helping many people for as little work possible'. This is incredibly hard. For example, if you give water to communities but you also have to deal with culture that creates inefficiency issues. eg Corruption, malice, war and population issues. Yes, you could be exacerbating the problem by making their lives easier but in long term worst as so many people are reliant on you giving water. Don't always assume that helping many people at once will be the best solution.

I hope you seek something that's very helpful and is long term solution for them. Even if it's only helping one person. If that person lives to wealthy world life expectancy, that's better than many suffering at once because that person can pass on knowledge, etc.

If you want to get some ideas, listening to problems is usually helpful, then brainstorm with it. eg over a million children are trafficked; maybe create cheap GPS transmitters for children so parents in home countries can track their children's 'work opportunities' and report discrepancies. Bonus: There's an awful lot of lazy people or people with not enough time that talk about ideas but never execute them. Since you want to execute something, you have a lot of research and brainstorm material done for you!

Some directions to go from:

http://www.good.is/

http://itstartswith.us/

http://www.charitynavigator.org/

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-08-13/12m-children-trafficke...

Last tip: Try to release your project! It's time wasted if you let it be in obscurity. If you don't want to do it any more, release it anyway. eg free code repositories, free blog post with project notes and research, etc. People like me who want to do something similar to you will be able to make use of it.

Currently I think of meaningful impact as:

-The depth of behavioral change you create in an individuals' lifetime

-The breadth and scale of behavioral interactions created eg you use Instagram for 1min/day for a month with 100 friends vs a computer for 12hrs/day for life with millions of people (note: I'm not saying one is more or less meaningful than the other; small/simple interactions can turn into something big)

Secondly, I find it difficult to do something "meaningful" without a clear purpose or intention to create impact...(while admitting that at the early stages, visions are often opaque and intentions change)

How entrepreneurs respond to "how are you creating meaningful impact?" helps me decide which startups to invest in...wish I could write more but need to go back to DOing...

Others say: "Impact is a change in the state of the world brought about by an intervention. It’s the final result of behaviors (outcomes) that are generated by activities (outputs) that are driven by resources (inputs)." -Kevin Starr, Mulago Foundation

Notes: -Know your mission (in 8 words using verb, target, & outcome) ex. save pre-mature babies in poor countries http://embraceglobal.org/

-Measure the right thing (the single best indicator)

-Measure it well (the right baseline & interval + show that it was you eg tight story, matched control, randomized controls)

A little algorithm to think about the impact you're creating: Is it needed? Does it work? Will it get to those who need it? Will they use it right?

Text: http://www.mulagofoundation.org/ideas/r/how-we-think-about-i...

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMEpvxGBkFU<br/>;

Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/aynne/design-for-real-impact-0610

Other points of view: -"A change in purpose changes a system profoundly, even if every element and interconnection remains the same." Donella Meadows http://thinkinginsystems.org/

-"Purpose first, then profit" as part of Umair Haque's New Capitalist Manifesto http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz2Zc9UJFUo

-"Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, yet the social sector remains focused on the isolated intervention of individual organizations." http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/collective_impact/

I've learned first hand immersing myself in communities like East Palo Alto with http://muralmusicarts.org and in nations like Myanmar, South Africa & the White Mountain Apache tribe with http://extreme.stanford.edu.

(YC S11) Interviewstreet is disrupting the recruitment space and create a place where the best hackers get the best jobs

(YC S11) Splitterbug private beta: track expenses with friends from your phone

Munch On Me (YC S11) Helps You Discover Tasty Dishes

Stypi (YC S11) Is Etherpad Reborn

Parse (YC S11): A Heroku For Mobile Apps

Envolve (YC S11) Launches An API For Real-Time Chat

Kicksend (YC S11) Launches To Make Sharing Big Files A Breeze

Snapjoy (YC S11) Will Organize Your Photos For You

Leaky (YC S11) is Hipmunk for Car Insurance

Picplum (YC S11) is automatic photo printing service created to help you easily share your best memories with friends and family

Plus about 10-15 (YC S11) Advertising companies (a guess)

And.....drumroll........

ZeroCater (YC W11) Raises $1.5 Million For No-Hassle Office Lunches

Thanks. My head has not exploded. Here's why:

- Employees love us. Often they go from getting no free lunch, to getting daily hassle-free meals without having to lift a finger, just because we make it so much easier for the companies we serve.

- Companies love us. See above. Often we enable free food as a completely new employee benefit. Other times we free up an hour or so of an admin's time every day.

- Restaurants love us. We give them a large predictable stream of food orders, and work closely with them to improve their service. We pass on the feedback we get from employees (comments and ratings on each meal), so suddenly our vendors are getting a very strong direct signal telling them what people like and dislike.

We're not curing cancer, but I'm happy.

Criticism and even a spoonful of cynicism does not kill dreams. If they do, it was a lousy dream.

I agree overall though. Some of the criticisms here have just been needlessly venomous. If I was in YC I would definitely appreciate feedback that was more professional.

And maybe a better way to judge the market is to look at what Sequoia is funding over the years.

That's about what it would take for small towns to start doing well in the US again. It's a matter of political will, not technological progress.

Ross Perot predicted what you're seeing in small towns today about 20 years ago. He called it, the "giant sucking sound" of jobs leaving America if NAFTA was passed. That's exactly what you're experiencing today.

TL;DR: Trade deficits matter.

Your existential crisis is nothing more than a product of typical shift in international economic power balance.

There are actually a few startups mentioned there which fall in the category that the poster is looking for.

But that doesn't mean that concepts or definitions are subjective. Quite on the contrary: in order to be correct, definitions have to be induced from reality, just like like any true scientific concept (such as momentum, for example). The purpose of a definition also has to be kept in mind: definitions are what we use to mentally distinguish one concept from another.

Once you understand the above, you can see why it's really sensible to take the Objectivist stand on the word "self."

And for the same reason, you can see why we had to take words like "gay" and "queer" away from the bigots, who used them as epithets to smear hatred on good people. The bad rap that selfishness has with the culture today smears everyone. I think it's high time we fought back.