A Net Positive

I want to contribute a net positive to humanity. I think that’s probably a really obvious thing to say but I also think people tend to get sidetracked or distracted when they actually try to make that impact. For example, if you consider Mark Zuckerberg, he’s a guy that has really good intentions but someone who’s created something that he can no longer really control. The reason for many of the cogs that turn our society which we find to be harmful are because of platforms such as Facebook or Instagram. I also think that when considering problems that are worth solving, it’s important to think about what the worst case could lead to and how to possibly prevent that. I think that most of us looking back, would see how Facebook could potentially be such a harmful thing to society but when we were considering it for all the positives back when social networking was only starting to become mainstream, it seems like such a harmless thought.

When considering my net impact, I’m trying to think about how my misconceptions of the world lead me to make certain decisions. For example, I just like everyone have my own biases to why I think certain things are good or bad. The aggregation and tracking of information to me no matter the medium is so powerful when used the right way but many others in the world will only tend to look at the negative consequences of this, mostly because of scandals such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

People like Logic, my favorite rapper, on the other hand I feel have made a net positive impact. He’s rapped about things such as racial inequality, mental health issues, etc but has also dropped music that is fun and quirky which I think is all important. He really feels purpose in what he raps which is why I think the positive impact exists. While it’s on a much smaller scale compared to people such as maybe Elon Musk, it’s still positive.

When thinking about the scale of impact, it’s harder to control the positivity when that scale becomes larger which is why it’s important to judge that when making decisions, or interacting with people, or choosing where to spend time. I don’t really know where this post is leading but it’s something I was thinking about for a long time today while doing some work.