Nuances for Engineering Social Change

A marathon 1-hour keynote for the folks at NATEG Days 2019. Slides can be a bit sparse, so we've got a Midas parable, then a tie-in to Society 5.0 (one of the conference's themes), then a bunch of lessons I've learned to stay productive and keep learning.

Transcript

1. NATEG Days 2019 1
2. Once Upon A Time... 2
3. 3 Midas Face Reconstruction from Skull, 2016 https://www.flickr.com/photos/66082566@N00/25383664534
4. 4 Midas Face Reconstruction from Skull, 2016 https://www.flickr.com/photos/66082566@N00/25383664534
9. Be Careful What You Wish For... 9
11. 11 The World’s First Coin White Gold (Electrum) Lydia, 600BC
12. 12 Was King Midas Responsible for the World’s First ICO?
13. Wish Better. Build Better. 13
14. Nuances to Engineer Social Change Mahmoud Hashemi NATEG Days 2019
15. Why Social Change? 15
20. Present-Day Values 20
21. 21 SCALE
22. 22 Consistency
23. 23 Concentration
24. 24 Workforce Flexibility
25. 25 Environmental extraction
26. Current Values ▪ Scale ▪ Consistency ▪ Concentration ▪ Workforce Flexibility ▪ Environmental Extraction 26
27. Antipatterns of The Future
28. We Can’t Take Anymore The values of the last two centuries have stretched beyond their limits. 28
29. 29 ?
33. https://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/kihonkeikaku/5basicplan_en.pdf
35. Antipatterns of The Future
36. Economies of Scale We’re focusing too much on efficiency. 36
39. (USA)
40. Value Creation At all scales, down to the individual level. 40
41. Uniformity We’re missing opportunities for local optimization. 41
44. Monoculture & Gros Michel
45. Celebrate Individuality Diversification at all levels makes for a more robust and more humane society. 45
46. Concentration Wealth and power centralization isn’t giving us the leverage we need. 46
49. Distribute & Decentralize Investing in local actors seeds the most opportunities for growth. 49
50. Vulnerability Commoditizing workers and citizens harms both consumption and creation. 50
53. Build Resilience & Robustness Optimize for creation and creator quality of life. 53
54. Environmental Exploitation We’re long overdue on the mortgage we’ve taken out on our environment. 54
55. Live Sustainably Solar, clean nuclear, carbon negative, whatever. Short-term price < long-term cost. 55
56. New Values ▪ Create Value ▪ Promote Diversity ▪ Distribute and Decentralize ▪ Build Resilience ▪ Establish Sustainability 56
57. New Values, New Metrics If you treasure it, measure it. 57
58. Metrics, Old & New ▪ Old ◦ GDP ◦ Unemployment % ◦ Stock market price ▪ New ◦ Labor force participation ◦ Underemployment ◦ Affordability ◦ Wage growth ◦ Stress levels ◦ Life expectancy ◦ Personal, professional, environmental health 58
59. No Silver Bullet ▪ Long-term ◦ Find (or create) better institutions to serve ◦ Help change the metrics in the public sphere ◦ Hold industry accountable to its debt to society ▪ Short-term ◦ Take what creative work you can get ◦ Just start and work hard ◦ Build community ▪ Right now ◦ Learn to be the best you can be 59
60. Engineer Social Change Better technology can lead to a better society* * If done carefully 60
61. But How? 61
64. “Specialize, then generalize.” - Hany Moustapha 64
65. +
66. Be the Best You Can Be Focus on: ▪ Solid fundamentals ▪ Growth and longevity ▪ Opportunities around you 66
67. Strong Fundamentals ▪ Don’t follow every fad ◦ That’s a good way to get burned out ▪ Look for tried-and-true technologies ◦ C ◦ SQL ◦ POSIX ◦ Python ▪ Still waters run deep ◦ Deep knowledge of mature technologies only grows more valuable. 67
68. “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” - Billy G 68 Long-Term Growth
69. Watch for Opportunities ▪ Big and small ▪ PayPal ◦ University talk ▪ Wikipedia ◦ Random hackathon ◦ Old friend of a college roommate ▪ Speaking ◦ Started a local meetup 69
70. The Creativity Gradient 70 How do you ensure you’re continuously creating? Consume Critique Curate (NB: look up Sisyphus) Create
71. Managing Yourself Ask: ▪ What are your strengths? ◦ StrengthsQuest, YouMap ▪ How do you learn? ◦ Reading, writing, talking ▪ What are your values? ◦ Who do you respect and why? Answer these for yourself, then your collaborators, then find where you belong. 71
72. Finding Where You Belong 72
73. I I Vs. Schoolwork 73 Work-Work ▪ No professors or TAs ▪ Managers != teachers ▪ No guarantee of possibility ▪ No taking the B+
74. 74 “The first 90% of the project accounts for the first 90% of development time. The last 10% of the project accounts for the other 90% of development time.” — Tom Cargill, Bell Labs The Rule
75. I I Vs. Business 75 Technology ▪ Few technology businesses are driven by technology ▪ How many big names rely on pushing the state of the art? ▪ Instead, engineers are usually problem solvers ▪ Just part of the larger business context
76. I I Vs. Research 76 Development ▪ Unpredictable vs. Predictable ▪ Definitely Unmanageable vs. Probably Unmanageable ▪ Art vs. Craft
77. I I Vs. Systems 77 Applications ▪ Low-level vs. High-level ▪ Automation-facing vs. Human-facing ▪ Primitives vs. Products ▪ Technically rewarding vs. Materially rewarding ▪ Slower-moving vs. Faster-moving ▪ Consider also: enterprise vs consumer (B2B vs B2C)
78. I I Vs. Money & Power 78 RESPECT ▪ Money != Power ▪ Power != Respect ▪ Don’t forget your values
79. Engineering Social Change ▪ Know yourself (and your team) ◦ What are your strengths? ◦ How do you learn? ◦ What are your values? ▪ Work on yourself (and your team) ◦ Fundamentals ◦ Long-term growth ◦ Watch for opportunities ◦ Climb that Creativity Gradient ▪ Find where you make the biggest impact ◦ Business ↔ Technology ◦ Research ↔ Development ◦ Systems ↔ Applications ◦ Enterprise ↔ Consumer 79
80. Thanks! Find me at: github.com/mahmoud twitter.com/mhashemi yak.party mahmoud@hatnote.com sedimental.org 80