[jlgreco]

I get that you don't think "hacker" implies developer. But you said: "Can you imagine how much we could improve the quality of life of everyday people if everyone in Silicon Valley focused on economic, environmental and social issues for a couple months?"

Those "Silicon Valley people"... what are they going to do? Do you really think "Silicon Valley people" are going with a crash course in genetic engineering are going to make a difference? What are these people going to bring to the table, besides being clever (like people in every other field) and being inexperienced?

If you think there are not enough biomed people volunteering to work with non-profits to find super-crops, then fine, that is a legitimate complaint. Don't focus on importing Silicon Valley people to fill that gap though, focus on telling the biomed people to get their act together and start volunteering.

There is nothing unique about the Silicon Valley brand of clever. Really what you are complaining about is that a bunch of clever people have acquired skill sets that are not particularly useful for solving most remaining social problems. Go convince students to switch majors if you really want to correct that.

[peterwwillis]

I would... but it's much easier to just complain on HN.