Essay: Build Something Useful
This week:
You're wasting your talent on bullshit while the world burns.
You — yes, you — can actually use your very unique set of skills for good. Even and especially at scale, even — yes — right now.
Here's What You Can Do:
- Donate to the Electronic Frontier Foundation to help get Zuckerberg’s grubby little paws off of your data.
- Volunteer with Tech Shift and start creating technology that actually contributes to the betterment of humanity.
- 🌎️ Get educated about social media, deepfakes, misinformation, and all the other internet foes by taking this Media Literacy Crash Course.
- Be heard about creating the appropriate safeguards for AI by urging your representatives to support the Algorithmic Accountability Act.
- 🌏️ Invest in tech that reduces emissions instead of dismantling democracy using Carbon Equity.
Get more:
- Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
- Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
- Get our merch
- Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
- Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
- Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
- Subscribe to our YouTube channel
- Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
- Produced by Willow Beck
- Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
- Take a nap you deserve it
Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors
Listen On
Featured Episodes
How To Make Ethical Decisions
Has there ever been a more important time, a more consequential time, to lead with ethics? That's today's big question, and my guest is Dr. Susan Liautaud . Susan is the author of The Power of Ethics and of the …
The Female Origin of Species
How did the female body drive 200 million years of human evolution? And why the hell are we just finding out about it now? That's today's big question, and my guest is Cat Bohannon . Cat is the author of …
Can Your Gut Predict Alzheimer's?
Can your gut composition predict Alzheimer's? That's today's big question and my returning guest is Gautam Dantas. Gautam heads up the Dantas Lab at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis . His lab works at...
What Causes Depression?
Content Warning We're going to be talking about stress and anxiety, depression, suicide, and more today. If any of this could be triggering to you in any way, please feel free to just skip over this one. Nothing in this …
Fighting Food Waste With The iPhone of Trash Cans
How much food do you throw away every week? And do you have to? That's today's big question, and my guest is Matt Rogers . Matt is a former Apple iPod and iPhone engineer . The Co-Founder of Nest thermostats …
How To Live A Happy Life
How can we live happier lives? That's today's big question, and my guest is Dr. Marc Schulz, the co-author with Dr. Robert Waldinger of “The Good Life: Lessons From the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness” They're t...
Every Climate Action Matters
What can I do? The simple question is the underlying premise of everything we do here. It's often the easiest one to help people answer for themselves, but from the outside, it's often the most imposing. All of which is …
Clean Air Is An Inside Job
Imagine you’re in a sci-fi movie. The one where everything’s on the line . And while dinosaurs or aliens or a virus takes over down on the ground, you’re the scientist unexpectedly riding in the helicopter with the actual pre...