Ask HN: Helping people medically with technology, what is the reality?

3 ge96 4 7/23/2025, 5:10:50 PM
So whenever I see someone that is disabled, missing a leg, something like that, I genuinely feel bad for them. I wish I had magic powers and could just heal them you know.

With regard to tech, I know medical stuff has a lot of red tape. What is a realistic way to help people, I also realize some of this tech is advanced/not someone just a person can do.

Background is probably an issue too I could see.

Obvious/easiest is to donate money. But wondering about working in the field and would be the pay be decent.

Specifically about technology like motorized wheelchairs or robotic artificial limbs.

Comments (4)

PaulHoule · 7h ago
This guy worked on that kind of thing in the private sector

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Kamen

and was a real local hero when I was growing up in NH.

ge96 · 7h ago
I guess that was a rumor about the guy driving off a cliff/dying from a segway?

Edit: ahh different guy owner vs. inventor

PaulHoule · 7h ago
He invented the Segway, but before he did that he invented an insulin pump and a super wheelchair.
gsf_emergency_2 · 29m ago
Almost homing in on care vs assholery dilemma*

Recall the famous Steve Jobs takedown of Kamen

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3533.html

(Payoff from cooperation in action/hard resources >> cooperation in thought/design)

*agreeability+conscientiousness vs dark traits

Need to check against all famous (=data-abundant) edgecases.

HN is a game where cooperation in hard resources is ... Not just an afterthought.. tetradic questions worth generalizing to Bartle's Taxonomy to attack the confusion!!

At face value, HN is about cooperative cognition.. but weird lack of relevant features suggest a different motive :) until one passes some ultimate karma threshold