[azeirah]

You do not need to be extremely lucky to "make the world a better place". If that is truly your goal, you can definitely do that without building a startup, without getting extremely lucky, without spending 80 hours a week working on ideas.

I'm very much convinced that nearly everybody on this site who claims to want to make the world "a better place" just want to start their startup, earn their money and financial freedom, and tell themselves "they made the world a better place".

Snarky as fuck, yes indeed. I'm just beyond tired hearing all this bullshit, at least be honest with yourselves. If this does not apply to you, then it doesn't. If it does, please rethink your goals in life.

[smaddox]

I generally agree with your views. I think a large part of the problem is that we've all been (self) deluded into thinking technology can solve all our problems. The older I get, the clearer it becomes, though, that the root of all our problems is psychological. Outside of transhuman genetic engineering or human-replacing AI, I don't see how technology can fix our psychology.

[davidivadavid]

You can't see how technology can "fix" psychology?

The most obvious way is direct through e.g. drugs. There's a very wide spectrum of potential futures here from nootropics to brave-new-worldesque soma.

The less obvious way is that technology alters your surroundings, which in turn influence your psychology.

Neither scenario seems particularly implausible to me.

[smaddox]

The kind of psychological problems I'm talking about aren't the kind that are fixed by drugs. I'm talking about things like values and beliefs. I'm calling it psychology because I don't know what else to call it; perhaps mindset would be a better name.