Why Do I Exist?

[spiritplumber]

A world in which Elon Musk exists doesn't need me in it.

He's doing most of what I have been wanting to do (cheap access to space, resilient internet and power grid, making stuff in the USA, green tech, autonomous vehicles; you probably know me and my work, no need to relist it) but he has been doing it better than I have.

On top of that, he has been doing it more efficiently than I have from a financial perspective, meaning that my own efforts' opportunity costs and benefits balance out to a net negative.

Therefore, the most rational thing for me to do is to give him all my money and intellectual property, and then go away.

Do I have the fortitude?

I've spent weeks arranging a small apartment for two homeless people, they move in on the 8th and are in a motel for a few days to clean up and so on. I funded it with meme stocks, and it cost me time. It dawned on me that an Elon Musk or even a Mitch McConnell could have dealt with it with one phone call. What's the use of me?

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20140927.png This was me 2 months ago. I made a bunch of PPE last year, at my expense. My dad got a civic award for it. Again, all my efforts could've been replaced by one phone call from someone younger and richer.

What's the point of me? I am not suicidal, but is it not my professional duty to make room for those who can do things so much more efficiently than I?

[troyjfarrell]

I'm sorry that you celebrated your birthday alone. That's not fun.

Don't beat yourself up because you think that someone younger and richer can solve the problems that you are solving more effectively. The reality is that someone younger and richer is not interested in solving the problems that you are actually solving. Elon is working on space, but he's not working on helping the homeless.

The world is bigger than it seems and your impact on it is beyond what you can see. Don't worry that you aren't Elon Musk. Your post, thus your existence, reminded me to get back to looking into emergency mesh networks. (I looked at your submissions and comments.) One of my clients is a clinic in a place that is expecting a natural disaster and will likely lose communications when that disaster happens. Your work on LoRa and ESP32s may end up saving the lives of people you've never known.

[spiritplumber]

Thanks, let me know if I can help with it. I'm happy to do custom work for stuff like that.

[ksaj]

> It dawned on me that an Elon Musk or even a Mitch McConnell could have dealt with it with one phone call. What's the use of me?

You have done for those people what folks like Musk and McConnell did not and probably would not do for them. And you did it more efficiently than the people you helped could. Without your efforts, they'd probably still be homeless. You might be comparing your efforts to the wrong side of the scale. At least to the people you helped, you were far more important and useful than Musk or McConnell were.

It sucks that your dad usurped the recognition. There's probably more to that story that we haven't been privy to, though.

> I made a bunch of PPE last year, at my expense. My dad got a civic award for it.

If you go into consulting, this will pretty much define your life.

[spiritplumber]

How do you mean about consulting? I do engineering consulting and small scale production. In my culture that sort of thing is common, I'm just a little salty about it because I did the work and someone else got the experience of the reward. Same with the NY maker faire awards 10 years ago. I did the work, I stayed home because my roommate had the flu and needed someone to look after her + I didn't want to accidentally get a bunch of people sick in case I caught it, someone else got to go on stage, receive the reward, get an interview in the new york times, etc. My experience was to get a little blue ribbon in the mail, looking at it, and then mailing it to my mom.

[spiritplumber]

What happened with my dad is that I'm in California, he is in Italy, I managed to do a bunch of stuff to help keep the hospital in our hometown in Italy open at the very start of the pandemic, and since I don't feel safe flying back to Italy even now, the award was given to my dad. Since it's the same family, everyone over there felt that it was fine. The family vs. individual balance is different between Italy and California.

[pestatije]

Ah, but you are part of the world. You need yourself in the world, otherwise you are bust.

[spiritplumber]

I'm not sure if I do. Trying to figure it out.

[dazc]

How fast would Usain Bolt run if there were no other runners in the race?

Even if you have no chance of winning, you are still making a difference.

[spiritplumber]

So the point of me is to be filler for the real players? I don't know if that's a good reason to live.

[_throwawayaway]

I'd say you'd have to launch at least one highly successful payment service first then move on to those other things.

[spiritplumber]

There's a lot of those now though. I remember doing e-gold stuff in the early 2000s, not much came of it.

[approxim8ion]

>It dawned on me that an Elon Musk or even a Mitch McConnell could have dealt with it with one phone call.

But did they?

[AnimalMuppet]

No. No, they didn't. They might have, perhaps, if they were there and had seen it. But they didn't, because they weren't there. You were.

[spiritplumber]

Not as far as I know, which is puzzling.

[pestatije]

Elon might be able to send people to Mars, but will he prepare soup for my daughter? No way he won't, unless he gets some millions in bitcoin for it. But that wouldn't be too efficient either.

[spiritplumber]

I like cooking for people, haven't had much occasion to do so this past year....