The Different Ways I can Help the World
A story about the different avenues that I have, and how I can create a better world I want to see.
My goal in life is to help a billion people substantially. And with that, there are a number of pathways to reach that goal. The world does not lack solvable problems. This article is going to serve as a way for me to lay out my options, and see what I can do with my skills
Here’s my general process for approaching this problem:
- What is help?
- Who needs the most help?
- Who can I help the most?
- Is it even worth it to follow the help/follow the problems?
- What are the skills I need to build for this stuff to happen?
- What is worst case scenario?
- What next? What is my next step?
What are the biggest areas for help?
Every action to help usually goes in one of two directions:
- How do we make life better (Improvement in Quality of Life)?
- How do we make life longer (Improvement in Quantity of Life)?
From a series of studies, to improve 1, we must do the following things:
- Allow people to achieve their potential
- Allow people to make fulfilling relationships
- Build high access to energy
- Build high access to healthcare
- Build high access to technology
To improve 2, we must:
- Improve diet + exercise habits
- Build high access to energy
- Build high access to healthcare
And more similar things to part 1. So now, we have a couple of different avenues. For sake of simplicity, let us narrow our scope down to energy, healthcare, and ‘potential’. This potential can come in the form of education, relationship building, limiting corruption, promoting peace, or any other person to person connection.
Now that we have an idea for help, let us take a look at the people that can be helped in the best way possible.
Who should we help?
There isn’t a good way to rank who to help and who to not, as the second we get involved into that, we start determining who should live and who shouldn’t. That said, if all are created equal, then it makes sense to see who we have the most leverage in where we can help.
Now, usually this boils down to two things: One if there's a group that significantly easier to help than any others, or two, if we have an intimate understanding of a community. We either find the people that have the easiest method of helping, or we find the people that we care the most about helping.
Group 1 seems to be helping people in the third world; a mosquito net in a malaria ridden country costs significantly less than cancer treatment for a person, yet they both save lives. However, if we care more about helping people deal with cancer, then we are able to put a little more effort in compared to another way of helping people.
Since I primarily care about the number of people I can help, rather than a particular community, it makes sense for me to focus more on Group 1. This may be the third world or another group of people, but given that I do not have a strict attachment to a certain area, I’m free to work on the problems that I determine need someone like me.
Who can I help the most, and how?
One interesting metric that I’ve been using to understand where I can excel is value over replacement; How good can I be compared to the person that could replace me, and how much value would that provide?
The above picture has a measure of Value over Replacement. Most skills are in the left, and some skills appear on the right. Most of the rare skills may not be valuable, so we have a small minority of skills in the top right. Now, what are those skills that are useful? From my experience and what exists in the world, here are the big ones:
- Vision: People who can begin to see a better world that is 10x better, and not 10% better, can begin to work for a better world like that
- Communication: When we fail to communicate what we believe in, our dreams die. Knowing the audience, and as a consequence, knowing the sales pitch, is key.
- Technological Skills: At some point, there will be a technological barrier to solve. This will involve some skill, like analysis, software engineering, hardware engineering, or some skill like that.
- Problem solving: If you're able to understand what the problems are, how to break it down, and how to go step-by-step on how to solve them, it’s a valuable skill.
More interesting skills can be found here:
A big thing to understand here is that these skills and these techniques are all relative towards the group that you're trying to help. If you're trying to help in group of software engineers, someone who's in the 99% is gonna be significantly better at solving these problems than someone in the % percentile. This won't be a small difference, rather at the tails, it will likely be a 10 to 20 to 100 times here.
In terms of building the technology, I would wager that communication takes a back seat towards the engineering portion of our skills. During implementation, however, things start to happen in the real world outside of a garage, and that's where communication is key.
Going back to the question of who we help, it is important to understand the skills you have and the area you want to work on. If we’re trying to help advance quantum computing, that’s going to require a different set of skills than ensuring that we have the best possible health infrastructure in the third world.
For me, I would say that it is easier for me to communicate, both technically and non-technically than it is for me to necessarily engineer something from start to finish. I still think it's useful for me to spend the time in terms of building something out to understand the process and help develop my own communication skills. But when I build something in the real world, it is a lot more useful for me to focus on my strengths rather than becoming a ‘well-rounded’ person.
An organization needs to be well rounded, a person needs to be a spike.
I believe my strength lies in acting as an interpreter between technical and non-technical teams. This skill will be particularly valuable when working with diverse groups to build something from the ground up. While I don’t see myself deeply involved in the technical details, such as coding or hardware development, I understand that 1+1 = 11 here. We can get a series of spikes together to form a ball of death. This metaphor may be falling apart, but combining a number of strengths together seems to be where I can excel.
That said, things change. I’m 20. I don’t exactly know what I can succeed at. This will change in a couple years, and while I believe I could be an interpreter, and do some pretty incredible things as a result, a lot will change.
Why am I thinking of this?
What is the point of trying to solve these problems? Why not worry about the people I love, the immediate community I’m a part of, and build stuff for them?
In short, I’ve been given too many gifts to be able to not help the world in every way I could. I'm smart. I know how to approach problems. I'm hard-working. I know how to talk. And other vision to be able to approach these problems and actually do something great here. Why would I not try to change the world? I have everything going for me in that regard. There’s nothing I cannot do, and I want to shoot for the stars to help these billion people.
The Skills
So, now that we have a reason and a group of people to help, how do we help them?
From where I stand, I see two routes: You either go the route of technology, or you go the route of diplomacy and politics. These routes require somewhat different skills. In general, hard work, persistence, and effort is rewarded. However, tech probably requires more of really technical skills, while politics really requires you playing a game of seduction almost a game of talking communication and going around those routes.
Either way, I think it's still useful to at least get in the top 10% of each area. But depending on the area that you want to work in and depending on the people that you have aligned yourself with, you will require different skills that will then be showcased to the world. If you're surrounded by a bunch of politicians, your best bet is to work as as a tech person if you're surrounded by a bunch of tech people your best work is probably work as a politician or communicator. It really does depend on where you are.
Worst Case Scenario
Ok, so now we've determined that we should help the world; we have a certain set of skills that we want to build, and we have a specific problem that we want to work on. If we work on these things, and our Plan A, B, C, or D doesn’t work out, what happens then?
So if none of the plans work out, it depends still on the age we are at and the constraints that we have. I'm giving myself like a 10 year window to build something successful. Being able to build solutions out really has to happen quickly, as we do not have time to waste. The quicker I can build, the quicker that feedback loop happen, and I can really start refine my own product. And when I’m 30, I can successfully say I’ve changed the lives of a billion people.
If this does not work out then I try again, then try again, and then try again. If for some reason I have new constraints on what I'm able to accomplish (if I have a kid or 2) then my issues are gonna really take a different hold. It's easier to focus on the high risk path when you're 20, but if you have someone else to be responsible for, it's a whole different idea.
So if new responsibilities start to emerge, then I have to adjust, but I'm still gonna aim for the stars and shoot everything I can add. The energy and time loss that I’ll have will be outweighed by the experience I’ll gain.
If that doesn’t work, I’ll change again. I can’t lose, because I won’t give up.
Next Step
So what's the next step for me? Right now, I just don't have enough of the understanding for each person to figure out what problems I wanna solve yet. So the natural next step is gonna be understanding who to help and how to solve these problems. I want to see what the best group of people is for me to help, and for now, that involves an immersion into a third world country. I’m going through medical clearance for the Peace Corps right now, and I believe that this is the best next step forward.
So in short,
- It’s worth it to help the world
- Do the research on the most useful steps/hypothesis
- Test them
- Refine and go again
- Learn and keep going.
I’m excited to go through this journey. If I fail, it is because I do not move forward. So I’ll keep moving forward. Wish me luck.
Aniket
