I really like Blendle and think it's great for people like me that consume a lot of high quality journalism and are willing to pay for it. The big question in my mind is how it will, or if it intends to, achieve mass appeal and bring high quality journalism directly to all as it does to us.
I enjoy people. I started at one of the lower rungs of society and have been able to do well for myself through a lucky concoction of genes, being born in the USA, and having the body of human knowledge at my fingertips. Not everyone is so lucky, and I imagine if I ever come into some serious money that I'll be using it to level the playing field for others. The effective altruism movement intrigues me as well.
You're telling me that all I need to do to build the institution of my dreams is provide people with a sense of meaning!? LOL.
I do the things I do because I like them and others find at least some of them valuable, and there's probably a significant chunk of biological determination behind my enjoyment of those things. And that biological determination is enough intrinsic value in my "meaning games" to satisfy my existential angst. I went on this whole meaning search in my early 20s which I'm just completing and came to similar conclusions, but apparently on a lighter note after going through my Debbie Downer bouts.
(1) Sunlight and exercise. (2) Friends and good conversation. (3) Women. (4) Pursuit of goals. (5) Altruism.
Rinse and repeat. Good enough for me. When I'm feeling down, it can be at least partially attributed to not checking one of the above boxes.
The "wealthiest" person alive today is some happy accountant in middle America with a great salary, good health, and happy family. Stable and well compensated work with plenty of leisure time and zero want for basic necessities.
And on top of all that, you have these crazily ambitious weirdos absolutely killing themselves to deliver to you all these cool toys and convenient services just to capture outsized economic surplus. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.
You picked an outlier top university frequented by the offspring of the upper middle class and wealthy. My point stands -- the notion is elitist and has no hope of reflecting the reality of most Americans' relationship with higher education.
Universities are already pre-professional for the vast majority of students. I think the idea of a university being a place of exploration and self-discovery is a lofty ideal of a bygone era for all but children of the upper middle class and wealthy. College used to be more optional; today it's practically a prerequisite for a middle class lifestyle.
Everyone's an armchair economist so I wouldn't count econ out.
I think that math/physics are more accessible to the layman. I know where to go if I want to get deeper into this subject.
I really don't know how to start becoming an amateur chemist or biologist. I've wanted to learn more about synthetic biology and gene therapy, but it's not as simple as cracking open a math book or going to a dev bootcamp. I wish these resources existed though! My best guess is because exploring chem and bio have bigger resource requirements like lab space.
90% of the world's tech sector out of business? That's absurd.
Sure, if you're working on some messaging app there's a good chance your SOL, but that doesn't mean software's going the way of the dinosaur.
To put things in perspective: McKinsey just released a report that 50% of work can be automated and only 5% of work requires a moderate level of human creativity. There are still plenty of peon responsibilities to hand off to the robots.
I have a very similar story, except I'm on part one. Recent graduate, very modest family, and drank all the Paul G koolaid which got me to jump into the whole scene just to realize I'm mostly surrounded by upper middle class types where there's still risk being taken just not nearly as much. This has taught me to always consider the source of advice more rigorously. I still think he's a great thinker, but some of the advice should come with a disclaimer.
I haven't been turned away from the tech startup world, but I'll be much more calculated if I'm ever to join another one. I also don't plan on staking my career purely in startups and am attracted to bootstrapped business now more than ever.