I'm On A Mission To Civilize

I've been feeling lately that I want to "do something". Something not about money. Something that's about doing "good" things for society. Something that's helpful. Something in Tech that is responsible. That exists solely for the purpose of contributing something without the expectation of getting anything back from the people who use it.

For months, it's been an itch in the back of my brain. I've done some cursory looking around at various organizations and projects but nothing has felt right to me. Projects are abandoned. Organizations disorganized. Whatever. Something just hasn't clicked for me.

Then, this week happened. And that got me thinking it was time to get off my ass and finally "do something".

Tech has long felt to me like a numbers game. Chasing engagement, CPMs, revenue, A.I., whatever. And for-profit businesses have to make money, I get it. And, I like my job and my paycheck.

But the "numbers game" in tech feels like dehumanization to me. And dehumanization feels like a trend in America of late. Politicians use numbers to paint in broad strokes to rile up bases while ignoring the actual humans those numbers represent. Their needs. Their rights. Their bodies. And social media creates bubbles where the only thing people see are "facts" and opinions that match their own.

Being able to will things into existence on the Internet feels like a superpower and one that, for those of us who are fortunate enough to wield it, has to be taken seriously.

The Idea

I'm hoping to find an organized team (or teams) of developers, designers and product people whose mission is not to make profit but to make empowering, responsible things that provide access to information and tools to those who need them. The only "stakeholders" involved are the people helped by the things being built. Civic hacking at a large scale.

If I'm not able to find such a thing, I'll do it myself.

I'm still organizing my thoughts on how I want to go about things. I put out some feelers on the various socials and got a few responses from others in the community that seem to be feeling the same urge to do something as I am:

Stephen Sauceda (@stephensauceda) on Threads

Is there such a thing as an organized group of developers, designers and product people whose primary goal is to put out “good”, empowering, helpful things that actively contribute to the betterment of society? Money isn’t the overall goal but helping people is? Like, civic hacking at a large scale? webdevelopment

Threads

That, at least, inspired me to set up an email list. I'm not a prolific writer or anything but I didn't want to lose contact with people who are also (maybe) feeling a bit isolated in tech and itching to use their superpowers for something (hopefully) substantial and that contributes to the societal good. If their feelings are strong enough to respond to my "scream in the void"-style of post, I want them to feel seen. Feel free to sign-up if you'd like to follow along (or work on something together) and please share with anyone else who may be interested.

Mission to Civilize

So far, I'm calling this journey "Mission to Civilize". It's something I've jokingly said on numerous occasions for years when I've shared my thoughts on ethical issues. I stole it from The Newsroom.

And yes, I've done the most "developer excited about a side project" thing I could do and already bought some domain names. I'm somewhat deliberately trying not to get to caught up in The Organization ™️. I'm more interested in (lower-case) organization. I'm doing it this way because, I have a tendency to go down rabbit holes. When I woke up to those responses, I immediately started looking up how to set up a non-profit and other "business" stuff. And that just keeps me from the goal of Putting Shit Out There ™️ (insert joke-about-developers-pre-optimizing-for-a-scale-they-may-never-reach here). If that stuff ends up necessary, sure. But (at this point) 48 hrs in, I'm not concerning myself with it. Tons of open-source work is done by individual contributors under no form of incorporation. Now, if I wake up on Monday to a few thousand responses and sign-ups (or even a handful of very dedicated potential collaborators), that might accelerate things. But that is, of course, a huge "if".

What's Next?

As mentioned above, I'm still trying to organize my own thoughts and planning my own actions. The responses and interest I've been getting have also sent my thoughts down other paths. This was, after all, supposed to be my journey, but now I'm wondering if it makes sense to expand my scope (see my pre-optimization concerns above).

For myself, I'm thinking about projects. What I want out of them. What I want others to get out of them. Etc. Some values I'm looking for in projects to contribute to (and/or hold myself accountable to in my own projects):

Be "good"

This is entirely subjective so one of the hardest to define. Making money isn't a deal breaker. Servers have to be paid for. "For-profit" might be though. It's hard to say. It depends on the mission and the impact. Basically, something that makes me feel good. Something that is not exploitive. Something that is responsible. Something humane. Something that empowers the "right" people.

Privacy-first

Minimal user data. Having any sort of user account has to have a very good reason. A person's information is their own and access to information and tools shouldn't be gate-kept arbitrarily behind a registration wall. In this day and age, people are vulnerable. And every site that stores their data is a potential leak waiting to happen. Not only is this the right thing to do for people but it (presumably) limits liability. Nothing awful can (hopefully) happen to individuals if the only thing being handled is public, or generalized, data.

Minimal (if any) A.I.

Fuck, I am conflicted on A.I. Can you build ethical products with unethical technology? Aside from the ethical concerns, A.I. also bumps right up against the “dehumanization” stuff mentioned earlier. I don't think I'm entirely opposed, but considered usage is important. Does its usage exponentially increase the impact of a project (in a good way)? Can the usage be offset in any way? If the answer is "no" to either of those questions, I'm probably out.

Things I'm Considering

Some of the issues I'm thinking about:

• The proliferation of misinformation on the Internet and how to fight it
• As more rights are being taken away from people, how can they have access to the information and services they need?
• Informing people on how their government officials vote and where they stand on issues as well as (like the first point) getting accurate information to people about current events
• Breaking through the social network echo chambers to meet people where they are with information/tools/services.
• Increasing voter turnout (the winner of this election won with pretty much the exact number of votes he lost with four years ago).
• Preserving the public data that’s available now from disappearing tomorrow

Baby Steps

I've set up a GitHub organization, if for no other reason, to keep projects separate from my professional work and other piddly personal projects. I like a tidy hard drive. An org will also help if, somehow, more people (!) are interested in participating/contributing. Discussions are enabled.

I've also set up a Discord server. I may be in there by myself. But whatever.

I'm very conscious of this becoming a developer-centric endeavor. I'm, of course, a developer and, also of course, I think I have an "eye for design" but I am keenly aware that I am not a designer. Being fortunate enough to work with phenomenally talented designers in my professional career has humbled that opinion. So, I'm curious how to make any potential projects as "designer-friendly" as possible. GitHub, a lot of the times, ain't it. Projects, Issues and Discussions might be a place to start, for now though. If anyone has any thoughts, please let me know.

The same goes for product and project managers. Good ones help keep projects moving and, for the things I want to be putting out in the world, that is a critical skill.

I'm also hoping to get started on some code. I have an initial (small) idea I want to do in regards to the items listed above. It involves some things I'm unfamiliar with so some learning would be in order. Considering the week it has been and the million things I have going through my head at the moment with this (and, you know, everything else) I don't know that a ton of code will be written.

But...baby steps.