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we live in an imperfect world riddled with all sorts of problems (we are humans after all and being perfect is unreasonable). as a problem solver, I’ve come across the dilemma of the problems I want to solve - mainly working on impactful humanitarian issues or solving intellectually challenging technical problems.
while the two aren’t mutually exclusive, from a practical sense, working on things like low level virtual machines or low latency, high throughput distributed systems probably won’t be the innovations that ultimately solve issues like environmental catastrophe, homelessness, or crumbling economies. so question is - where do I focus my efforts?
personally, for me this is a really difficult question i’ve been trying to answer for quite a few years now. obviously, I want to pursue the route that leaves me most satisfied in life (I’m a bit of a utilitarian haha). working on humanitarian issues leaves me satisfied with improving the lives of so many but with the cost of potentially forgoing working with cutting edge technical work. and working technical problems achieves the opposite. i’ve spent my entire life to this point working with nonprofit organizations (i.e. radicubs, bits of good, & troop 4018) and it’s something I am truly passionate about but at the same time I am an engineer who will find myself spending hours upon hours reading about things like how we can build a zero knowledge proof-centered internet.
as it stands now, I don’t know where my future work will head - but life is short. I am already 20 and while for some it might be early, I know I want to maximize the time I am working on interesting and impactful problems. so what’s the plan? currently, do both.
high level, the current plan looks something like this:
step 1: work on a challenging technical problem (i.e. build next google)
step 2: profit??
step 3: use profit to work on and amplify the impact on humanitarian issue
step 4: eradicate humanitarian issue
but a part of me is stubborn - part of me believes that technically challenging problems can solve all sorts of issues. in fact, I am fully convinced that the solutions to some of the greatest humanitarian issues are in places that people never look (I will find a way to use compilers to solve environmental problems, someday!).
the current plan seperates my work with tech and humanity. my goal in life is to blend these two pathways together - as I grow older and more knowledgeable, I feel confident I can transform my current plan into something like this:
step 1: solve humanitarian issue using tech
step 2: profit??
step 3: build a positive feedback loop to use profit to amplify impact of tech to solve humanitarian issue
step 4: eradicate humanitarian issue
you might be thinking don’t companies already do this? and you are absolutely right; some do. but I’m ambitious and, for me, the issue is not only being able blend tech with humanitarian issues but to do this on a global scale. the real challenge is eradicating these issues entirely using technology through a self-sustaining, perrenial organization. step 4 in both plans is not to reduce the severity of a humanitarian issue - it’s to completely eradicate it and this step in particular is both intentional and paramount to the plan.
", "url": "https://samratsahoo.com/2023/08/07/a-reflection-on-humanity-and-tech", "tags": ["tech","philosophy","humans"], "date_published": "2023-08-07T00:00:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2023-08-07T00:00:00+00:00", "author": { "name": "samrat sahoo", "url": "https://samratsahoo.com", "avatar": null } }, { "id": "https://samratsahoo.com/2022/06/11/two-point-five", "title": "two point five.", "summary": "the average of two and three is two point five.", "content_text": "disclaimer: while I may be knowledgeable in these fields, I am by no means a professional. this is NOT technical advicethe other day I was fangirling over the potential of web3 (as usual – if you follow me on twitter, you probably notice it a lot). at the time I was using my favorite decentralized service – the ipfs, a decentralized and distributed file storage system – to permanently leave a footprint of some data i had on my laptop. but soon enough I had realized some clearly obvious shortcomings of this incredible technology. before I address the main shortcoming, I think its important to understand how decentralized systems like the ipfs work on a high level.most decentralized systems are organized in a graph network type structure where the underlying infrastructure is organized through “nodes” each representing a member of the system. for example the ipfs’s underlying infrastructure can look something like this (this is extremely simplified):the really powerful part of this is that it is completely non-discriminatory, censorship resistant, and far more robust than traditional file systems (its really really really hard to take down the entire ipfs). there is no central entity that can stop a user from anywhere in the world regardless of beliefs, status in society, or, quite frankly, any other factor from joining the ipfs network.this solves some of the concerns of traditional file systems. for example a web2 based file system could experience an abuse of central authorithy (which actually happens quite frequently in authoritarian governments where censorship of media is common):as we can see here, there is a central authority that decides what goes and what doesn’t. web3 solves this issue but at what cost?this brings me to the what I believe is the biggest shortcoming of decentralized and distributed systems – speed. in a centralized file system, speed is not really a concern because there is only one location to get the media from. when retrieving an image from the ipfs, at times it can take several minutes to load the content. so what gives – why is it so slow? effectively how the ipfs was designed was that each node in the network would not host all the data on the ipfs. it would only host the data that was requested. and it gets requested data by querying the graph network until it finds the peer node with the data it is looking for. this makes it quite slow to get data its never retireved before and oftentimes unfeasible to use for applications that need to retrieve data quickly.my proposed solution takes the best of the web2 and web3 systems. the idea is that we would preserve the graph network that makes web3 systems so powerful but add a different type of node that hosts a copy of all data uploaded to the graph network. (emphasis on a copy of the data because in the case that these nodes went down, we would still want to preserve the robust nature of a decentralized system). these new types of nodes would have no extra “power” or authority in the distrubuted file system.this would ensure the fast access that web2 systems provide with the censorship resistant and non-discriminatory nature of web3 systems. of course these new types of nodes would be entitled to some sort of “reward” for hosting this data but I have not had the chance to fully flesh out the economy of a system like this.as much as I believe in an internet built on top of web3 technologies, I don’t think its a bad idea to sometimes revisit our roots and see what allowed web2 technology to thrive for the past 3 decades. sometimes these ideas may just lead to the next big innovation in web3 and this is what I believe I have found here. a still fully decentralized system that draws upon some of the best aspects of web2.its hard for me to say if an internet on built on web2 or web3 will completely dominate but I would not be suprised if a web2.5 happens.I can say with confidence though, a web5 system will never take over the internet :)", "content_html": "disclaimer: while I may be knowledgeable in these fields, I am by no means a professional. this is NOT technical advice
the other day I was fangirling over the potential of web3 (as usual – if you follow me on twitter, you probably notice it a lot). at the time I was using my favorite decentralized service – the ipfs, a decentralized and distributed file storage system – to permanently leave a footprint of some data i had on my laptop. but soon enough I had realized some clearly obvious shortcomings of this incredible technology. before I address the main shortcoming, I think its important to understand how decentralized systems like the ipfs work on a high level.
most decentralized systems are organized in a graph network type structure where the underlying infrastructure is organized through “nodes” each representing a member of the system. for example the ipfs’s underlying infrastructure can look something like this (this is extremely simplified):
the really powerful part of this is that it is completely non-discriminatory, censorship resistant, and far more robust than traditional file systems (its really really really hard to take down the entire ipfs). there is no central entity that can stop a user from anywhere in the world regardless of beliefs, status in society, or, quite frankly, any other factor from joining the ipfs network.
this solves some of the concerns of traditional file systems. for example a web2 based file system could experience an abuse of central authorithy (which actually happens quite frequently in authoritarian governments where censorship of media is common):
![](\"/assets/img/06-11-2022-2.jpg\")
as we can see here, there is a central authority that decides what goes and what doesn’t. web3 solves this issue but at what cost?
this brings me to the what I believe is the biggest shortcoming of decentralized and distributed systems – speed. in a centralized file system, speed is not really a concern because there is only one location to get the media from. when retrieving an image from the ipfs, at times it can take several minutes to load the content. so what gives – why is it so slow? effectively how the ipfs was designed was that each node in the network would not host all the data on the ipfs. it would only host the data that was requested. and it gets requested data by querying the graph network until it finds the peer node with the data it is looking for. this makes it quite slow to get data its never retireved before and oftentimes unfeasible to use for applications that need to retrieve data quickly.
my proposed solution takes the best of the web2 and web3 systems. the idea is that we would preserve the graph network that makes web3 systems so powerful but add a different type of node that hosts a copy of all data uploaded to the graph network. (emphasis on a copy of the data because in the case that these nodes went down, we would still want to preserve the robust nature of a decentralized system). these new types of nodes would have no extra “power” or authority in the distrubuted file system.
![](\"/assets/img/06-11-2022-3.jpg\")
this would ensure the fast access that web2 systems provide with the censorship resistant and non-discriminatory nature of web3 systems. of course these new types of nodes would be entitled to some sort of “reward” for hosting this data but I have not had the chance to fully flesh out the economy of a system like this.
as much as I believe in an internet built on top of web3 technologies, I don’t think its a bad idea to sometimes revisit our roots and see what allowed web2 technology to thrive for the past 3 decades. sometimes these ideas may just lead to the next big innovation in web3 and this is what I believe I have found here. a still fully decentralized system that draws upon some of the best aspects of web2.
its hard for me to say if an internet on built on web2 or web3 will completely dominate but I would not be suprised if a web2.5 happens.
I can say with confidence though, a web5 system will never take over the internet :)
", "url": "https://samratsahoo.com/2022/06/11/two-point-five", "tags": ["web3","tech","stuff i think is big brain"], "date_published": "2022-06-11T00:00:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2022-06-11T00:00:00+00:00", "author": { "name": "samrat sahoo", "url": "https://samratsahoo.com", "avatar": null } }, { "id": "https://samratsahoo.com/2022/05/29/anya-forger", "title": "anya forger.", "summary": "anya >>> every anime character", "content_text": "disclaimer: I am not sharing this blog post anywhere so if you are on this page, you clicked on it on your own volition – be prepared for what you are about to reada few weeks ago I made an nft of anya forger on the blockchain (granted it was on a test network but hey an nft is still an nft). today I double down on my commitment to why I believe anya may be the best anime character to ever exist – let me explain.before I start, for those of you that don’t who anya forger is, she is a blessing from the heavens that we don’t deserve. but more so, she has completely brought together the anime community to unanimous agreement on the cutest character ever. for example –yes, she is absolutely adorable. adorableness aside – anya (symbollically) embodies what I strive to be in the future. no, not an absolutely adorable anime girl, although I wouldn’t blame people for thinking that. anya is someone who knows how make people happy, how to unite communities, and ultimately leaves the world in a better condition that she found it. and she does this while being completely fictional (although completely real in the hearts of her biggest fans)!not to be a philosophical wizard but –> in a world where people seem to be divided, it really got me thinking, how can I bring the same positivity that she does. truth be told, I don’t know. perhaps real people were not meant to unite because we are all fundamentally different or only the idealistic aspects of her character make the magnitude of her impact possible. and while that may be the case, I refuse to accept that. humans may be the most different, divisive, and irrational species to exist but anya has proved time and time again that we can come together if there is a meaningful force that allows us to do so. this is prescisely the reason I am writing here today. this blog is my effort to find something that allows the world to be in a better shape than when I found it and hopefully impact the lives of so many just like anya has done.and no I am not idolizing anya – i just admire her ability to touch the hearts of so many.ok maybe I am idolizing her a little bit.", "content_html": "disclaimer: I am not sharing this blog post anywhere so if you are on this page, you clicked on it on your own volition – be prepared for what you are about to read
a few weeks ago I made an nft of anya forger on the blockchain (granted it was on a test network but hey an nft is still an nft). today I double down on my commitment to why I believe anya may be the best anime character to ever exist – let me explain.
before I start, for those of you that don’t who anya forger is, she is a blessing from the heavens that we don’t deserve. but more so, she has completely brought together the anime community to unanimous agreement on the cutest character ever. for example –
![](\"/assets/img/05-29-2022-1.jpg\")
yes, she is absolutely adorable. adorableness aside – anya (symbollically) embodies what I strive to be in the future. no, not an absolutely adorable anime girl, although I wouldn’t blame people for thinking that. anya is someone who knows how make people happy, how to unite communities, and ultimately leaves the world in a better condition that she found it. and she does this while being completely fictional (although completely real in the hearts of her biggest fans)!
not to be a philosophical wizard but –> in a world where people seem to be divided, it really got me thinking, how can I bring the same positivity that she does. truth be told, I don’t know. perhaps real people were not meant to unite because we are all fundamentally different or only the idealistic aspects of her character make the magnitude of her impact possible. and while that may be the case, I refuse to accept that. humans may be the most different, divisive, and irrational species to exist but anya has proved time and time again that we can come together if there is a meaningful force that allows us to do so. this is prescisely the reason I am writing here today. this blog is my effort to find something that allows the world to be in a better shape than when I found it and hopefully impact the lives of so many just like anya has done.
and no I am not idolizing anya – i just admire her ability to touch the hearts of so many.
ok maybe I am idolizing her a little bit.
", "url": "https://samratsahoo.com/2022/05/29/anya-forger", "tags": ["anime","random fun to keep me occupied","philosophy"], "date_published": "2022-05-29T00:00:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2022-05-29T00:00:00+00:00", "author": { "name": "samrat sahoo", "url": "https://samratsahoo.com", "avatar": null } } ] }