Hi! I don't know if this is weird, stupid or hard to answer, but I'd love your opinions.

If I'm trying to be objective, right now I'm just a mediocre(maybe average depending on who you compare me to) web developer with some CS basics(I have some surface knowledge about a lot of stuff, but this is the only field where I'm employable), I regressed/stagnated a lot, and I don't think I can find the motivation to become great at anything if it's not to work on something truly life changing and really useful to the world.

I'm mostly interested by stuff that I could learn for free(including piracy).

When I say remote, I mean worldwide, preferably with the ability to be nomad.(IDC if I need to have meetings at insane hours from time to time)

When I say impactful I mean one of those things(by order of importance):

-working on climate change/sustainability/greentech, with a chance to actually make a difference about the global catastrophes that are about to happen, not just making people feel good about themselves

-life-changing healthtech: preventive healthcare, life extension, significant mental health innovations, significant quality of life improvements...

-maybe education, but something that could really cause a paradigm shift, there is a good chance I'm mistaken but I don't really think there is still much place for great innovation in that area given what's available for free on the internet

-maybe lifting people out of extreme poverty, at scale(like https://www.sama.com)

And I know that technically I could do web dev for companies working on this kind of stuff, but I don't think I'd really feel useful building the CRUD apps necessary to access the actually interesting/innovative/useful stuff.

So do you have any ideas/advice?

I'm thinking about Data Science/AI, but it seems really hard to become great/legitimate in this field, especially if I have to earn money at the same time I'm learning, and isn't there too many juniors already?Also wouldn't the kind of work I'm looking for be limited to PhD's, or really smart Master's?

I'm willing to learn about other things than tech. I'd still like to work with tech, but using concepts from other fields could be interesting.

Thanks!

user:	rboes
created:	February 14, 2018
karma:	15