I live in Baltimore. My city just broke 318 homicides. To give you an idea our record is 353. Our police are catching kids as young as 12 with firearms. Kids as young as 14 in brutal armed robberies. If I didn't have to worry about income. I would create arcades all over the city. Complete with huge computer labs and tons of video games. My goal is to create a positive environment that kids WANT to be in. They'd receive help with school and home work, have access to the internet, tons of video games books and movies.
I really just want to get the kids off of the street. There are lots of kids here that don't have two parents that care if they succeed or not. Teach them things like how to deal with their emotions and things like conflict resolution. When I was a kid I had "play all day" arcades for $5. I can't imagine the trouble I would have gotten into if I didn't have that arcade or our library wasn't accessible. I'm in a position now where I can either leave the hood and fend for myself and my family. Or I can try and do something to make a difference. I've even considered quitting my job to pursue this. If income was no worry, I would do this.
I disagree with your solution. Less guns and more discipline at a young age would go a long way. Why should a kid take your lecturing and conflict resolution seriously if he/she hasn't been raised knowing their actions will lead to very real and immediate consequences. The prison and juvenile detention systems encourage criminality not correction. Maybe the needed education is for parents. Social shaming of abandoning your child raising spouse might help too. I'm just saying,it's always best to address the disease instead of the symptom and that at the foundation of a child's life. Just my humble opinion.
Ending crime starts with repairing the family. In certain demographics, up to ~70% of births take place without a father present in the household. Together with the pressures of being a single mother, children simply lack the guidance (or just mere presence of parents) they need at such a pivotal moment of their lives. Eventually, the street is left to raise them, and the rest is predictable.
>I disagree with your solution. Less guns and more discipline at a young age would go a long way.
Agreed, But until you can outlaw owning a gun and criminalizing bad parenting we won't see any realistic change.
>Why should a kid take your lecturing and conflict resolution seriously if he/she hasn't been raised knowing their actions will lead to very real and immediate consequences.
It because the incentive would be admission to the center. It would be part of the experience. If they're not taking it seriously or behaving inappropriately privileges will be revoked. My hope is that they will receive this type of risk reward reinforcement at the center.
>The prison and juvenile detention systems encourage criminality not correction. Maybe the needed education is for parents. Social shaming of abandoning your child raising spouse might help too.
Agreed. Maybe national ad council money can be used for this social shaming of sorts. But sometimes it's not as simple as everyone abandoning their children. But again no one criminalizes bad parenting.
>I'm just saying,it's always best to address the disease instead of the symptom and that at the foundation of a child's life. Just my humble opinion.
Agreed. We needs to attack the disease and not the symptoms. Things like passing more gun laws aren't going to help this city. We have some of the strictest laws in the country. Criminal don't follow laws. This is known. The key is to reach these kids before they're picking up guns. We need to find out what drives their urge to rob, maim, and kill. Sure we can say it's bad parenting but it also goes a lot deeper than that. I had bad parents, grew up in a single parent home, and I don't feel the need to rob or kill. Sure it's anecdotal but it just a small piece of evidence that some kids turn out fine with shitty parents.
Your ideas come from a great heart, but I think they're a bit idealistic.
I have a very hard time imagining children voluntarily attending classes on "how to deal with their emotions and things like conflict resolution". You're also assuming that things you were interested in as a child (arcade) will be interesting to children now. None of these attack the root causes of crime, but rather try to deal with the symptoms. Which is great, but is not a solution.
Agreed. I think things like mindfulness, mentoring and conflict resolution would also go a long way. This would be more than a place to cure boredom. Think of it like the wholesome family's house in the neighborhood that no kid wants to leave. It gives them a place to learn and explore the world and themselves. This also would be aimed at a 10-14 age range. So hopefully catching them before entering the stage when they're not really thinking clearly.
I would spend more of my daytime outside in the sun. Also more impromptu travel. Those are probably my two least favorite things about having a day job: I’m inside for the best part of the day and I have to plan my travel far in advance around crowded and expensive holidays rather than taking random midweek trips when things are cheap and empty.
I’d probably keep programming, because some programming is fun. And I’d spend more time working at my theater even though they don’t pay me because I care about it in a way I will never care about my day job.
But also define “taken care of”. Currently I make more money than my parents combined yet I can still barely afford a one bedroom apartment in San Francisco. Any nationally reasonable level of universal basic income wouldn’t be nearly enough to get by with a comfortable life in the city. So maybe I would have to move? Not the worst thing in the world, but something to think about when people propose universal basic income, what’s the definition of universal?
Just enough? Work on mobile app gaming, mostly things people haven't touched. Converting TVTropes into a story generator. Gamifying productivity apps. Minimalizing popular PC games like X-Com, roguelikes and Transport Tycoon into something that can be comfortably played on mobile without squinting.
If I had more money, I'd love to do an accelerator to invest in marginal ideas. These dumb ideas that have no intention of going past $1M. The kind of things that regularly appear on Indie Hackers, like Ghost. They may not be growth oriented, they can have single founders, they can be done part time and more importantly, without an expensive team. No pressure to become a unicorn. I think it's an untapped market that also doesn't have to worry about competing with Silicon Valley.
That's a good idea! An accelerator for side-jobs or single-founder companies that aren't looking for more than a monthly salary and want to be their own bosses. They'll be getting an investment of a minimum yearly salary to just get by for 20% of their company. Nice.
I've been thinking along these exact lines lately too! Giving a boost to solopreneurs who can churn out 6-10 MVPs a year and then accelerating the projects that survive into a growth stage. Do you know of anyone already doing anything similar?
+ Wireless charging at distances of 2-3 meter. This will start a revolution of chip-based things for real. The main obstacle now is that no one wants to charge these all the time.
+ Artificial meat. It has the potential to reduce animal suffering tremendously.
+ Aquafarming. Create robotic infrastructure at sea that autonomously harvest algae. The 3D space potentially grows many more crops than on land.
+ 3D farming on land. If we don't rely on green houses and normal land we are much more resilient against the sun going dark by supervulcanos or comet impacts. I also think we should keep fossil fuels as a backup plan for those dark days.
+ Combine road, solar, and shadow infrastructure in North Africa. Tap the sun in such way that it benefits the continent.
Legislation plans:
+ Organizing UAV airlanes above roads. By licensing these to private companies the government can get a lot of money as with the 4G auctions. Plus, we finally can get to autonomous flying in logistics.
Write books
+ One popular science on tech. One attempt of literature.
Learn Arabic and Chinese.
Try to make Europe democratic again.
Fly to talk to people I admire and spend time with them.
First step was to take the kids out of school and go traveling through Southeast Asia for half a year.
But from a long term perspective, I just take a much more relaxed attitude towards what should be a work day and what should be a day off. Sometimes, I have weeks where I'm in the office 3 days in a row. Other times, like when conditions are right for bouldering in the forest, I go entire months without doing much more than answering the odd customer email.
I still have the two main SaaS products that replaced my day job salary ticking away in the background, but they're feature complete and have long been automated to the point where they don't take up any time to keep running. I can dev out new features when the mood strikes, but nothing is ever all that pressing.
Mostly it's all about finding the things that are important and making them a priority. It's basically just the lifestyle of most retired folks, happening 25 years earlier.
If my debts/rent/food were truly and reliably taken care of?
I would invest all my energy and anger, 25 hours/day, using every contact and connection I have, in an attempt to displace the current shitshow of "software engineering" with a true engineering society[1]. Or to put it in another way: I would not rest until the vast majority of HN readers are out of their job writing software. Too much is at stake.
I expect to get on this in 5~10 years either way: I sadly had to take a break from tilting at windmills when my debts crossed into 6 digits. Hopefully it is not too late by then.
In short ( and in very broad strokes ): there is virtually zero respect for the enduser's time[1]. And there are no incentives ( regulatory or otherwise ) for things to get better on this front.
[1] Note - I literally mean "time". Not security/privacy/safety/property, but more fundamentally and simply "time". Or in way better words: https://youtu.be/upu0gwGi4FE?t=1548
1) I teach programming to beginners and mentor juniors to help them bridge the gap to become employed faster and in more interesting jobs. I currently run a pro bono mentoring program and would expand that a lot.
2) I run a meetup group for frontend developers and would spend bit more resources on growing that and creating more opportunities for developers in the area to learn from each other.
3) I organize a tech conference and would continue doing that, devoting even more of my daily time for it.
4) I help young entrepreneurs with their ideas and offer mentoring for them (and access to my network of contacts) but hate when I have to say no due to not having enough time.
5) I would also spend more time playing board games and enjoying time with my game buddies.
That's about to happen to me, I'm about to retire on a defined pension. I'll pick up some easy contract work to make an additional $10k a year to spend on travel. I'd like to develop some simple small businesses but I'd be wasting a lot of my time battling Australian Govt. red tape. There is an opportunity to set up co-working spaces in small regional towns and affordable quality aged-care facilities but, again, the Govt. regulatory overreach would not make it much fun.
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I really just want to get the kids off of the street. There are lots of kids here that don't have two parents that care if they succeed or not. Teach them things like how to deal with their emotions and things like conflict resolution. When I was a kid I had "play all day" arcades for $5. I can't imagine the trouble I would have gotten into if I didn't have that arcade or our library wasn't accessible. I'm in a position now where I can either leave the hood and fend for myself and my family. Or I can try and do something to make a difference. I've even considered quitting my job to pursue this. If income was no worry, I would do this.
Agreed, But until you can outlaw owning a gun and criminalizing bad parenting we won't see any realistic change.
>Why should a kid take your lecturing and conflict resolution seriously if he/she hasn't been raised knowing their actions will lead to very real and immediate consequences.
It because the incentive would be admission to the center. It would be part of the experience. If they're not taking it seriously or behaving inappropriately privileges will be revoked. My hope is that they will receive this type of risk reward reinforcement at the center.
>The prison and juvenile detention systems encourage criminality not correction. Maybe the needed education is for parents. Social shaming of abandoning your child raising spouse might help too.
Agreed. Maybe national ad council money can be used for this social shaming of sorts. But sometimes it's not as simple as everyone abandoning their children. But again no one criminalizes bad parenting.
>I'm just saying,it's always best to address the disease instead of the symptom and that at the foundation of a child's life. Just my humble opinion.
Agreed. We needs to attack the disease and not the symptoms. Things like passing more gun laws aren't going to help this city. We have some of the strictest laws in the country. Criminal don't follow laws. This is known. The key is to reach these kids before they're picking up guns. We need to find out what drives their urge to rob, maim, and kill. Sure we can say it's bad parenting but it also goes a lot deeper than that. I had bad parents, grew up in a single parent home, and I don't feel the need to rob or kill. Sure it's anecdotal but it just a small piece of evidence that some kids turn out fine with shitty parents.
I have a very hard time imagining children voluntarily attending classes on "how to deal with their emotions and things like conflict resolution". You're also assuming that things you were interested in as a child (arcade) will be interesting to children now. None of these attack the root causes of crime, but rather try to deal with the symptoms. Which is great, but is not a solution.
I’d probably keep programming, because some programming is fun. And I’d spend more time working at my theater even though they don’t pay me because I care about it in a way I will never care about my day job.
But also define “taken care of”. Currently I make more money than my parents combined yet I can still barely afford a one bedroom apartment in San Francisco. Any nationally reasonable level of universal basic income wouldn’t be nearly enough to get by with a comfortable life in the city. So maybe I would have to move? Not the worst thing in the world, but something to think about when people propose universal basic income, what’s the definition of universal?
If I had more money, I'd love to do an accelerator to invest in marginal ideas. These dumb ideas that have no intention of going past $1M. The kind of things that regularly appear on Indie Hackers, like Ghost. They may not be growth oriented, they can have single founders, they can be done part time and more importantly, without an expensive team. No pressure to become a unicorn. I think it's an untapped market that also doesn't have to worry about competing with Silicon Valley.
Set up businesses:
+ Wireless charging at distances of 2-3 meter. This will start a revolution of chip-based things for real. The main obstacle now is that no one wants to charge these all the time.
+ Artificial meat. It has the potential to reduce animal suffering tremendously.
+ Aquafarming. Create robotic infrastructure at sea that autonomously harvest algae. The 3D space potentially grows many more crops than on land.
+ 3D farming on land. If we don't rely on green houses and normal land we are much more resilient against the sun going dark by supervulcanos or comet impacts. I also think we should keep fossil fuels as a backup plan for those dark days.
+ Combine road, solar, and shadow infrastructure in North Africa. Tap the sun in such way that it benefits the continent.
Legislation plans:
+ Organizing UAV airlanes above roads. By licensing these to private companies the government can get a lot of money as with the 4G auctions. Plus, we finally can get to autonomous flying in logistics.
Write books
+ One popular science on tech. One attempt of literature.
Learn Arabic and Chinese.
Try to make Europe democratic again.
Fly to talk to people I admire and spend time with them.
But from a long term perspective, I just take a much more relaxed attitude towards what should be a work day and what should be a day off. Sometimes, I have weeks where I'm in the office 3 days in a row. Other times, like when conditions are right for bouldering in the forest, I go entire months without doing much more than answering the odd customer email.
I still have the two main SaaS products that replaced my day job salary ticking away in the background, but they're feature complete and have long been automated to the point where they don't take up any time to keep running. I can dev out new features when the mood strikes, but nothing is ever all that pressing.
Mostly it's all about finding the things that are important and making them a priority. It's basically just the lifestyle of most retired folks, happening 25 years earlier.
I would invest all my energy and anger, 25 hours/day, using every contact and connection I have, in an attempt to displace the current shitshow of "software engineering" with a true engineering society[1]. Or to put it in another way: I would not rest until the vast majority of HN readers are out of their job writing software. Too much is at stake.
I expect to get on this in 5~10 years either way: I sadly had to take a break from tilting at windmills when my debts crossed into 6 digits. Hopefully it is not too late by then.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_ethics#General_pri...
[1] Note - I literally mean "time". Not security/privacy/safety/property, but more fundamentally and simply "time". Or in way better words: https://youtu.be/upu0gwGi4FE?t=1548
1) I teach programming to beginners and mentor juniors to help them bridge the gap to become employed faster and in more interesting jobs. I currently run a pro bono mentoring program and would expand that a lot.
2) I run a meetup group for frontend developers and would spend bit more resources on growing that and creating more opportunities for developers in the area to learn from each other.
3) I organize a tech conference and would continue doing that, devoting even more of my daily time for it.
4) I help young entrepreneurs with their ideas and offer mentoring for them (and access to my network of contacts) but hate when I have to say no due to not having enough time.
5) I would also spend more time playing board games and enjoying time with my game buddies.