Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?
I'm not interested in building an other B2B Invoicing SaaS app. Instead I'm trying to look for pressing problems, where I as an engineer could potentially contribute to. What do you feel is an important problem that, when solved (or at least worked on) could make a big difference in the world.
117 comments
One strategy that I adopt is to think of industries that are highly manual labor and dream of ways to fix that. I forget the name of the company, but there's a startup in the Bay Area that builds drones for farmers. Right now, farmers wake up early in the morning and drive through small sections of their fields and spot check things to decide what needs water or fertilizer or what-have-you. They have to spot check, because some of these farms are so large that it would take a prohibitively long time to check everything. As a result, a small patch of plants that might need more water might get some water, but the nearby plants that are already well-watered might get too much water. With these drones, the farmer can wake up, hit a button on their computer, go make coffee, and by the time their coffee is ready, the drones have uploaded photos of every square foot of the farm onto their computer. Software can analyze it to see what needs watering and fertilizing, what's ready for picking or for planting, etc.
That's the kind of thing that gets me excited about the future of technology. How could we automate or ease the jobs of farmers? How can we automate going to the DMV? How can we streamline flu shots? Can we write software that can organize resistance to Ebola outbreaks or malaria? Is there some software that can get the people of Flint access to clean water -- or can we write software that will prevent a Flint-like crisis from happening again? Can we identify bots that might be trying to affect our political processes? What about making sure kids in schools are well fed, since we know that hungry kids perform worse in schools? Can we solve that somehow?
I don't have answers to any of those questions. They are what I call "Epic Problems," and I think about them all the time. Unfortunately, the solutions are several orders of magnitude more involved than a standard CRUD app.
One thing to do is pick an Epic Problem, then work in an Agile mindset to tackle it. That's what Planet Labs did when it came to satellites. They have hundreds of shoebox-sized satellites in space, putting them up there at a tiny, tiny fraction of the cost of what it takes to put a traditional satellite in orbit.
What else could you do that with?
That's the kind of thing that gets me excited about the future of technology. How could we automate or ease the jobs of farmers? How can we automate going to the DMV? How can we streamline flu shots? Can we write software that can organize resistance to Ebola outbreaks or malaria? Is there some software that can get the people of Flint access to clean water -- or can we write software that will prevent a Flint-like crisis from happening again? Can we identify bots that might be trying to affect our political processes? What about making sure kids in schools are well fed, since we know that hungry kids perform worse in schools? Can we solve that somehow?
I don't have answers to any of those questions. They are what I call "Epic Problems," and I think about them all the time. Unfortunately, the solutions are several orders of magnitude more involved than a standard CRUD app.
One thing to do is pick an Epic Problem, then work in an Agile mindset to tackle it. That's what Planet Labs did when it came to satellites. They have hundreds of shoebox-sized satellites in space, putting them up there at a tiny, tiny fraction of the cost of what it takes to put a traditional satellite in orbit.
What else could you do that with?
Expanding on that from the opposite direction, what new industries can be created that can employee the previous workers disrupted by new technology? He who figures that out will never be for want.
(This isn't an argument against the parent comment at all, as I agree with them too. Their comment just got me thinking.)
(This isn't an argument against the parent comment at all, as I agree with them too. Their comment just got me thinking.)
Excellent point.
I sort of got into this discussion a few minutes ago with a friend of mine, but I think part of solving Epic Problems is revisiting the notion that one must work in order to survive, and particularly revisit the 40 hour work-week idea. If we can automate a farmer's job so that he spends 4 hours a day instead of 8 hours a day, does that change the value he provides to society? Of course not. His earnings shouldn't be dependent on hours worked, but rather productivity to society. If that farmer can employ 5 farmhands instead of 10, do the five that lost their jobs really need new jobs? Can we recognize that the economy doesn't need them anymore? Or can we cut the hours so that each farmhand works half-time?
Mind you, we're getting into UBI territory which is outside the scope of this thread, but... How many jobs can you think of that were created in order to maintain or grow a budget? How many middle managers aren't really necessary? Do we really need cashiers at Walmart or Target or the grocery store?
As automation accelerates, we're going to find ourselves more and more in a position of struggling to find new jobs for displaced workers... and I think we should challenge that premise from the start.
I sort of got into this discussion a few minutes ago with a friend of mine, but I think part of solving Epic Problems is revisiting the notion that one must work in order to survive, and particularly revisit the 40 hour work-week idea. If we can automate a farmer's job so that he spends 4 hours a day instead of 8 hours a day, does that change the value he provides to society? Of course not. His earnings shouldn't be dependent on hours worked, but rather productivity to society. If that farmer can employ 5 farmhands instead of 10, do the five that lost their jobs really need new jobs? Can we recognize that the economy doesn't need them anymore? Or can we cut the hours so that each farmhand works half-time?
Mind you, we're getting into UBI territory which is outside the scope of this thread, but... How many jobs can you think of that were created in order to maintain or grow a budget? How many middle managers aren't really necessary? Do we really need cashiers at Walmart or Target or the grocery store?
As automation accelerates, we're going to find ourselves more and more in a position of struggling to find new jobs for displaced workers... and I think we should challenge that premise from the start.
DroneDeploy does that: https://www.dronedeploy.com/
One of the best hiring prcoesses I've experienced (didn't end up working there, though)
One of the best hiring prcoesses I've experienced (didn't end up working there, though)
Agtech is big all over the place, for instance this Dutch company:
https://www.lely.com/the-barn/milking/astronaut-a4/
Also in the ag field "technology transfer" is a real thing (not just a euphemism for patent trolling.) Schools like Cornell and UNH are always looking for varieties of crops that can be grown a little further north and for ways to put money in the pockets of farmers large and small.
https://www.lely.com/the-barn/milking/astronaut-a4/
Also in the ag field "technology transfer" is a real thing (not just a euphemism for patent trolling.) Schools like Cornell and UNH are always looking for varieties of crops that can be grown a little further north and for ways to put money in the pockets of farmers large and small.
Make a website that brings transparency to your local political candidates and votes. In many places it's very difficult to find any real information on what we're voting on and the props themselves are ambiguous or confusing. And the candidates themselves also often have no online presence and no real scrutiny as to whether they're full of shit.
Homelessness induced by mental health challenges. I know this isn't exactly what you were asking, but this is an area in which creating engineering solutions can go a long way. As suggested - think geographically local. Improvements in the way our society handles these issues, proven to work on a local scale, can be adapted and replicated globally.
I'd go further and slightly more abstract by focusing on countering loneliness and/or on fostering community. I strongly suspect that technological and societal developments have increased loneliness in a worrying degree. At least based on my research and personal experience homelessness is very often a 'symptom' of loneliness, or lack of a tribe/community. I also believe that mental health or lack thereof is, sadly, often a symptom of waning communal life. Even more specifically, high-functioning autism might well be, in part, a symptom of a less 'cohesive' society.
Theory aside, I think our work as programmers has significantly changed the way society communicates and interacts. For better and worse. Would it not make sense that we continue this work, but more towards solving the issues we perceive, whether self-created or not?
I propose programmers spend more time talking to friends about challenges in their life that might be 'programmed' away, and less time on ads, tracking, manager checklist #321, or anything fundamentally centered around Business, because, let's be fair, on the whole, at least in 'the west', we as programmers have it incredibly good, so we can afford to be ideological.
Theory aside, I think our work as programmers has significantly changed the way society communicates and interacts. For better and worse. Would it not make sense that we continue this work, but more towards solving the issues we perceive, whether self-created or not?
I propose programmers spend more time talking to friends about challenges in their life that might be 'programmed' away, and less time on ads, tracking, manager checklist #321, or anything fundamentally centered around Business, because, let's be fair, on the whole, at least in 'the west', we as programmers have it incredibly good, so we can afford to be ideological.
That's solved in every industrialized country besides America. It's an issue of political will. I think it's a great thing to work on, and desperately needed in the US, but it's not a question of how to implement it but rather the political change to implement it.
Edit: it's not even, strictly speaking, nation-wide. Idaho for example, does a great job on this. California had most of its mental health facilities shut down during the 1960's when Reagan was Governor to save costs.
Edit: it's not even, strictly speaking, nation-wide. Idaho for example, does a great job on this. California had most of its mental health facilities shut down during the 1960's when Reagan was Governor to save costs.
>>That's solved in every industrialized country besides America.
Whoa. That's an interesting unsubstantiated statistic. A quick (albeit unnecessary) Google search begs to differ: https://homelessworldcup.org/homelessness-statistics/
Whoa. That's an interesting unsubstantiated statistic. A quick (albeit unnecessary) Google search begs to differ: https://homelessworldcup.org/homelessness-statistics/
It's really not. First, I said industrialized. I know that homelessness is high in some poorer countries. I'm talking about the wealthy countries such as most EU countries.
Switzerland, for example, doesn't remotely have this problem.
Switzerland, for example, doesn't remotely have this problem.
I know from being involved with a Washington state based NGO That there are entire unincorporated Spanish speaking villages in Washington. Even in places like Germany and Japan, you have itinerants. I highly doubt any country has a zero homeless population. That said, there is a big difference between such people who are largely self sufficient and stay out of the public eye, and those that don't. The latter are identified by society as a problem.
It's really not an issue of visibility.
European countries tend to spend less of their money on military and more on social programs so that it's both harder to become homeless in the first place and, if it happens, there are programs to help you.
European countries tend to spend less of their money on military and more on social programs so that it's both harder to become homeless in the first place and, if it happens, there are programs to help you.
They do. But I would like to see homeless populations as a percentage of the whole population before making a judgement. I would still expect the US to have a larger percentage but not that much higher. I was in Denmark/Germany/Netherlands/France/Greece this year and saw a good amount of homeless -- though they've been dealing with a migrant crisis unlike the U.S. has experienced.
Many commenters here are extrapolating on their experiences in SF/Oakland/LA/Seattle/Portland and thinking the rest of the US has a commensurate homeless population. Spoiler: they don't.
Many commenters here are extrapolating on their experiences in SF/Oakland/LA/Seattle/Portland and thinking the rest of the US has a commensurate homeless population. Spoiler: they don't.
though they've been dealing with a migrant crisis unlike the U.S. has experienced.
There are many parallels between the current migration crisis and the Irish potato famine, though I'm not sure how they compare in scale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHr9GRgRw_M
There are many parallels between the current migration crisis and the Irish potato famine, though I'm not sure how they compare in scale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHr9GRgRw_M
I can only assume you haven't spent a lot of time in the EU... Switzerland (which is not in the EU) is the only European country I've been to that does not have a very visible population of homeless people.
20 years in Europe. I've never never never never tripped over crazy homeless. It's all I do in Berkeley and SF.
It's not a small, nuanced difference but literally night and day. Have you really seen tents downtown in any city in Europe?
I'm American but most Europeans I know struggle with living in the Bay Area because it's such a shock for them.
It's not a small, nuanced difference but literally night and day. Have you really seen tents downtown in any city in Europe?
I'm American but most Europeans I know struggle with living in the Bay Area because it's such a shock for them.
The parent of my comment was claiming that it is a solved problem everywhere outside of the US. My claim is simply that it is far from solved, and if someone thinks homelessness is "solved" in the EU, I can only assume they haven't been there.
You're saying it's worse in SF/Berkeley, and no doubt it is. But it's not "solved" in the EU.
You're saying it's worse in SF/Berkeley, and no doubt it is. But it's not "solved" in the EU.
That was me. I said, "Homelessness induced by mental health challenges" was solved in every other OECD country -- and it's true. In those countries there are programs to make sure people with significant mental health issues, especially those which would lead to homelessness, are placed in special care.
I've spent 20 years living in various countries in Europe. I stand by my statement.
I've spent 20 years living in various countries in Europe. I stand by my statement.
SF is also an extreme example of homeless problems because of various factors (weather, systems which attract homeless, etc).
There's a homeless problem in other cities, but we don't have tents downtown.
There's a homeless problem in other cities, but we don't have tents downtown.
I was in LA recently and there was an entire tent city in the heart of downtown Orange County.
The link below lists around 30 US cities with tent cities downtown.
The link below lists around 30 US cities with tent cities downtown.
Canada has also had this problem.
http://tentcity.wikidot.com/list-of-tent-cities
http://tentcity.wikidot.com/list-of-tent-cities
I have in Japan, I have seen drunks at 10am arguing and throwing shit at each other. It's not a US only problem.
Edit: autocorrect -.-
Edit: autocorrect -.-
I can only assume you haven't spent a lot of time in at least one of the following:
- The EU
- San Francisco or Oakland
- The EU
- San Francisco or Oakland
Australia has the same issue. Unless you can argue Australia isn't a 1st world country.
Did you read the full comment? Australia, I'm guessing, is more similar to Idaho than California.
Homeless is increasing fast in Australia, largely a consequence of property speculation. It's also increasing in every European country except Finland (https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/sep/14/less...).
I commented before the edit, but even after the edit I don't agree. (As someone who volunteered assisting mentialy handicapped homeless for 3 years).
How? Is there a simple solution that would work in the U.S. as well? Most people I've heard that are reasonably informed about it here invariably end up with, "It's complicated, because it's a combination of issues spanning mental health, law enforcement, drug policy, etc..."
Plus suicide, disability, etc.
I am going to focus on US centric problems. Here are the two areas I think Americans could use the biggest help:
1) Personal finance - Americans across the board lack basic financial competency. This effects the US across the board, people take on too much credit card debt, school debt, etc. This problem is across all classes (lower, middle, upper) - Americans do not understand basic things on how to budget, how much debt they can take on, how credit cards should work, how to invest, etc. We need financial education happening at the high school level so that the next generation of Americans don't make the same financial mistakes we have (taking on too much school debt, using credit card as loans, not taking advantage of employer 401k, buying houses you can afford, etc)
2) Diet / Eating - If you look at the list of the most common sources of death for Americans, almost every issue is linked to lifestyle (diet, smoking, alcohol, etc.). Our diets have spun out of control; Americans lack basic knowledge on what is healthy or not. I've had many friends who struggle with weight issues who lack even basic knowledge of how calories work, what their daily needs, what are necessary nutrients, etc.)
1) Personal finance - Americans across the board lack basic financial competency. This effects the US across the board, people take on too much credit card debt, school debt, etc. This problem is across all classes (lower, middle, upper) - Americans do not understand basic things on how to budget, how much debt they can take on, how credit cards should work, how to invest, etc. We need financial education happening at the high school level so that the next generation of Americans don't make the same financial mistakes we have (taking on too much school debt, using credit card as loans, not taking advantage of employer 401k, buying houses you can afford, etc)
2) Diet / Eating - If you look at the list of the most common sources of death for Americans, almost every issue is linked to lifestyle (diet, smoking, alcohol, etc.). Our diets have spun out of control; Americans lack basic knowledge on what is healthy or not. I've had many friends who struggle with weight issues who lack even basic knowledge of how calories work, what their daily needs, what are necessary nutrients, etc.)
Wouldn't that come under education though?(Australians have the same problem).
I didn't realise how bad it was in Aus until I moved to Japan.
Edit: I was referring to your first point, sorry.
I didn't realise how bad it was in Aus until I moved to Japan.
Edit: I was referring to your first point, sorry.
Ideally, I agree it should be taught in school. But frankly, our education system is so screwed on even teaching basics, I don't think it could handle something as critical as this.
What about something that would get both parents and their kids involved? This is a multigenerational problem and it might help to get everyone involved on both points.
What about something that would get both parents and their kids involved? This is a multigenerational problem and it might help to get everyone involved on both points.
Batteries. Batteries are the number one technical problem right now. A battery with energy density approaching crude oil would revolutionize the world beyond even what the Internet did. We really don't have an energy generation problem, we have an energy storage problem.
"Batteries" is a pretty good answer, but I'd argue that getting cost down is more important at this point than raising energy density. Tesla proves that you can make long-range vehicles with today's battery energy density. The batteries are just too expensive at present to deliver an under-$20k-USD vehicle that can sustain 5 hours of freeway driving between charges.
For grid scale storage, which would be needed to get to really high penetration levels of renewable electricity, energy density is even less important. A paltry 50 watt-hours/kg would be perfectly fine if the battery also offers low capacity fade per deep discharge cycle and low costs.
A battery with really high energy density, but per-kWh costs higher (or at least no lower) than today's batteries, would be revolutionary for aircraft and an extremely welcome improvement for mobile electronic devices. But I don't think that it would have the same breathtaking macro-impacts on world energy systems as making much cheaper batteries could.
For grid scale storage, which would be needed to get to really high penetration levels of renewable electricity, energy density is even less important. A paltry 50 watt-hours/kg would be perfectly fine if the battery also offers low capacity fade per deep discharge cycle and low costs.
A battery with really high energy density, but per-kWh costs higher (or at least no lower) than today's batteries, would be revolutionary for aircraft and an extremely welcome improvement for mobile electronic devices. But I don't think that it would have the same breathtaking macro-impacts on world energy systems as making much cheaper batteries could.
> For grid scale storage, which would be needed to get to really high penetration levels of renewable electricity, energy density is even less important. A paltry 50 watt-hours/kg would be perfectly fine if the battery also offers low capacity fade per deep discharge cycle and low costs.
For grid scale storage there's also options like pumped hydro storage. Cost / kwh can be much lower than batteries, depending on site and scale. Might need to start with a budget of $50m-500m though.
For grid scale storage there's also options like pumped hydro storage. Cost / kwh can be much lower than batteries, depending on site and scale. Might need to start with a budget of $50m-500m though.
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I see two things:
1) making data and facts more available and easier usable for everyone. This includes good sources, polished data streams and - the most neglected thing I suppose - good UI for non-techs.
2) Decentralize applications, plug in interoperability. OStatus is a good example of this. We need to reduce datasilo hoarding monopolies. This also partly plays into 1)
1) making data and facts more available and easier usable for everyone. This includes good sources, polished data streams and - the most neglected thing I suppose - good UI for non-techs.
2) Decentralize applications, plug in interoperability. OStatus is a good example of this. We need to reduce datasilo hoarding monopolies. This also partly plays into 1)
Was going to post about more decentralized fundamentals on the Internet; identity, file storage, basic data, etc. But I'll piggyback and upvote this.
"I'm not interested in building an other B2B Invoicing SaaS app"
I think I made the very 1st one of those and I'm working on an upgrade now. lol.
A few areas come to mind that are obvious, like food, shelter, income, energy.
There's a lot of work being done on growing food for personal and community use with controlled systems but there looks (to me) like there's plenty of room for improvement and innovation there still.
From what I've read recently inexpensive, durable, and accurate soil moisture sensors are needed. It looks like a "Pick one feature" situation there right now. I've been pondering that a bit lately.
I've seen some interesting innovation in how weeds are managed in large scale agriculture that include using organic "grit" to "sandblast" weeds with remote controlled mechanically articulated nozzles using image recognition software to direct the blast. This eliminates the need for herbicides so it attempts to solve a very pressing issue.
I recently saw a robotic "weed whacker" on a social funding site that got a lot of attention, but the prototype they showed didn't inspire confidence in me that it'd do much.
Pest control is another obvious pressing problem in agriculture, as is efficient use of water.
I'm currently designing a simple experiment to grow salad veggies outdoors in the winter using low hoop row covers and passive solar heating.
Growing food closer to where it's consumed has the potential to greatly reduce costs, environmental impact, and hunger, and it looks to me like there's a lot of headroom there for improvement.
I think I made the very 1st one of those and I'm working on an upgrade now. lol.
A few areas come to mind that are obvious, like food, shelter, income, energy.
There's a lot of work being done on growing food for personal and community use with controlled systems but there looks (to me) like there's plenty of room for improvement and innovation there still.
From what I've read recently inexpensive, durable, and accurate soil moisture sensors are needed. It looks like a "Pick one feature" situation there right now. I've been pondering that a bit lately.
I've seen some interesting innovation in how weeds are managed in large scale agriculture that include using organic "grit" to "sandblast" weeds with remote controlled mechanically articulated nozzles using image recognition software to direct the blast. This eliminates the need for herbicides so it attempts to solve a very pressing issue.
I recently saw a robotic "weed whacker" on a social funding site that got a lot of attention, but the prototype they showed didn't inspire confidence in me that it'd do much.
Pest control is another obvious pressing problem in agriculture, as is efficient use of water.
I'm currently designing a simple experiment to grow salad veggies outdoors in the winter using low hoop row covers and passive solar heating.
Growing food closer to where it's consumed has the potential to greatly reduce costs, environmental impact, and hunger, and it looks to me like there's a lot of headroom there for improvement.
I couldn't agree more re. growing food for personal and community use. I'm currently in the very early stages of designing an app for small farmers and CSAs. Hard to get many farmers to respond to giving me input and share their knowledge. I see a tremendous scope for improvement in the entire user and customer experience of finding and signing up for a CSA (from the end customer side) and then effectively managing and nurturing your customers and reducing churn (from the small farmer's side).
Not sure how you're soliciting feedback but you'd probably have pretty good luck volunteering for them and observing/conversing while getting first hand experience. Plus you'd make some friends (beta users).
yep- much harder to find the time to go volunteer but you're right on that. I don't consider myself a good salesman but I need to sell the idea that doing this would improve their bottom line.
A big difference how? You could work for the NSA and make it easier for the government to know people's thoughts, that would sure make a big difference in the world.
Or you could build an information sharing and vetting platform which could use proofs from multiple independent sources to certify data as true by tying it to factual evidence, a kind of scientific reddit to combat disinformation. You could use it as a backend to Wikipedia to vet and prove information, or disprove. Extend it using multiple dependent proofs to support another and you might be able to provide a platform on which to fight for political issues based on reams of certified data.
Also, jobs. It's hard to give some people jobs. People need jobs, and they need to make money, in order to fuel an economy and sustain a society. As an example, in a country with some 6 million felons, it's hard for them to get jobs, so they become a strain on the economy (among other things). Make a thing that helps people who have a hard time getting a job to get a job.
Or you could build an information sharing and vetting platform which could use proofs from multiple independent sources to certify data as true by tying it to factual evidence, a kind of scientific reddit to combat disinformation. You could use it as a backend to Wikipedia to vet and prove information, or disprove. Extend it using multiple dependent proofs to support another and you might be able to provide a platform on which to fight for political issues based on reams of certified data.
Also, jobs. It's hard to give some people jobs. People need jobs, and they need to make money, in order to fuel an economy and sustain a society. As an example, in a country with some 6 million felons, it's hard for them to get jobs, so they become a strain on the economy (among other things). Make a thing that helps people who have a hard time getting a job to get a job.
When a scientist wants to make progress in some field, the scientist first educates herself on the state of the art, and then does novel research that pushes the frontier.
When you have a discussion on facebook/reddit/HN about your favorite political issue, you just post your gut feeling and what you heard on TV instead of educating yourself on the issue, learning what the foremost experts are currently debating and what arguments are already refuted.
Super shitty example fix: Facebook Clippy "It sounds like you're having a discussion about abortion - are you aware that the smartest people on this topic are not actually discussing X, but rather have moved on to Y?"
Side problem:
When we DO make some bump of progress, only a few people benefit (the people reading the thread, at best), and everyone else does not. A million parallel discussions rehash the issue until after a decade, "culture" incrementally improves. How can my facebook discussion, in which I made a good point, prevent that same discussion from ever happening again?
When you have a discussion on facebook/reddit/HN about your favorite political issue, you just post your gut feeling and what you heard on TV instead of educating yourself on the issue, learning what the foremost experts are currently debating and what arguments are already refuted.
Super shitty example fix: Facebook Clippy "It sounds like you're having a discussion about abortion - are you aware that the smartest people on this topic are not actually discussing X, but rather have moved on to Y?"
Side problem:
When we DO make some bump of progress, only a few people benefit (the people reading the thread, at best), and everyone else does not. A million parallel discussions rehash the issue until after a decade, "culture" incrementally improves. How can my facebook discussion, in which I made a good point, prevent that same discussion from ever happening again?
I love where you're going. I would eagerly join a team working on this problem. If approached in a critical fashion, I do belive there could be a cohesive approach. There are numerous seemingly impassible problems and barriers, but this kind of thing is rarely done from a truly critical angle.
My thoughts here may lack some formbut one of the paradoxical issues I see are that a brand must be developed, but by way of a keen awareness of the problems of branding. The brand would have to be defended without alienation before market domination. But also, there is not a market for a convention such as knowledge to be automated. The competition is brands which automate opinion validation instead. I think your idea is already stepping ahead of this by automating away the process of deciding on sources.
The result would need to be something like automated research as it is done in a library.
My thoughts here may lack some formbut one of the paradoxical issues I see are that a brand must be developed, but by way of a keen awareness of the problems of branding. The brand would have to be defended without alienation before market domination. But also, there is not a market for a convention such as knowledge to be automated. The competition is brands which automate opinion validation instead. I think your idea is already stepping ahead of this by automating away the process of deciding on sources.
The result would need to be something like automated research as it is done in a library.
Well education is how you solve this but we chronically underfund it and every kid is a blank new mind so progress is lost when we don’t teach.
In the West we have two general views on the nature of humans; intrinsically good or fundamentally bad. The rest of modern politics is shaped from this.
The internet and Facebook helps to find a diversity of thought but also in general does not promote critical thinking skills (which you’re suppose to learn in high school)...
since as we’ve seen facebook just degenerates into an echo chamber where blatant propaganda is unquestioned and in fact promoted. Critics are fake news and we refuse to critically debate. You see this in Congress where they blatantly lie about tax cuts, health care etc...
In the West we have two general views on the nature of humans; intrinsically good or fundamentally bad. The rest of modern politics is shaped from this.
The internet and Facebook helps to find a diversity of thought but also in general does not promote critical thinking skills (which you’re suppose to learn in high school)...
since as we’ve seen facebook just degenerates into an echo chamber where blatant propaganda is unquestioned and in fact promoted. Critics are fake news and we refuse to critically debate. You see this in Congress where they blatantly lie about tax cuts, health care etc...
Education doesn't fully solve it. Education remedies the deficiencies.
To use PG's method: in 200 years, do you think that we will have 100M parallel, entry level discussions about the merits of abortion (or the political issue du jour)? No, obviously our discussion experience will be augmented such that we are easily led to the forefront of the debate and build on top of the pertinent points and progress being made. How do we invent that future?
To use PG's method: in 200 years, do you think that we will have 100M parallel, entry level discussions about the merits of abortion (or the political issue du jour)? No, obviously our discussion experience will be augmented such that we are easily led to the forefront of the debate and build on top of the pertinent points and progress being made. How do we invent that future?
I don’t think it will happen that way. The courts already ruled in roe vs wade and yet people still go back to first principles to argue.
People can disagree with Roe v Wade. There's still a foundation, that I think you're not noticing - we as a culture have made progress on it, the arguments are not the same as they would have been 100 years ago. More dramatically, the arguments about slavery are not the same, we are past it.
There’s a legal foundation but it’s still an active political argument as is teen birth control. We have made progress but I wouldn’t say anything is guaranteed.
This is a great idea, as it is a 'meta' idea, in that it is about making the new ideas faster and better. However, I think that what is proposed is a moderation issue. GAIs seem to be a bit of a ways off still, so humans are still the ones that need to write these messages and determine what would be prompted to be shown. As such, I think that a (gasp) market economy may be a good way to get people to do this. Maybe you can get an 'expert' to be paid to write these messages and as payment, they get some percentage of "ModCoins" that are mined in the background. I know that's not very much, right now, but who knows.
In the software space, I think that the world could use high-integrity reader/renderer libraries for common file formats. It's embarrassing that e.g. TIFF and font file readers/renderers have enabled arbitrary code execution, years after the formats were standardized, for inputs that aren't supposed to contain any interactive functionality.
Of course it's pretty obvious why nobody has done this before: almost nobody wants to pay for high integrity software unless compelled by law.
And there's obvious problem number two: even if you find a philanthropist to pay you to write this software and give it away under the most liberal license, it'll take effort to switch away from existing libraries. You might be able to imitate the structure of e.g. LibTIFF but everyone who was handling TIFF with another library will find it hard to switch.
Of course it's pretty obvious why nobody has done this before: almost nobody wants to pay for high integrity software unless compelled by law.
And there's obvious problem number two: even if you find a philanthropist to pay you to write this software and give it away under the most liberal license, it'll take effort to switch away from existing libraries. You might be able to imitate the structure of e.g. LibTIFF but everyone who was handling TIFF with another library will find it hard to switch.
The one that you understand and have skills, knowledge, abilities, or relationships that you can apply.
I know that's kind of cliche but there are opportunities and/or places to help all over the place. It's a matter of finding the ones that you can a) get passionate about and b) be successful at. And this applies to startups, non-profits, or even that internal project.
Personally, I work to support Austin Disaster Relief Network - https://adrn.org/ - which is a group of ~150 churches in Central Texas that come together to help people during flood, fire, hurricane, and anything else. We are background checked and badged to cross the emergency tape and help the Red Cross, local PD, or whoever else is on the scene. The focus first is helping people immediately.. while their house is still on fire. And then help them get back on their feet.
While I have first aid training, my specific role is helping on the technology side. When something happens - like Hurricane Harvey - we can stand up a 25 person call center in under an hour. It's powered by Cisco phones plugged into a local Asterisk/FreePBX server connected to Twilio. (I'm a former Twilio employee but they're not involved.) In the field, ADRN uses simple web and mobile apps to collect victim info and issue gift cards. It's tied into geolocation services and person databases to reduce fraud. There are online/offline modes for when you're in the field where there is no connectivity. There are a ton of technical roles required!
And the underlying aspect of all of this is that we design, build, and deploy technology with the HOPE that it never gets used. If it's used, that means something horrible happened.
And btw, Harvey isn't over for people in the field. All help is appreciated - https://adrn.org/disaster-relief/hurricaneharvey/
I know that's kind of cliche but there are opportunities and/or places to help all over the place. It's a matter of finding the ones that you can a) get passionate about and b) be successful at. And this applies to startups, non-profits, or even that internal project.
Personally, I work to support Austin Disaster Relief Network - https://adrn.org/ - which is a group of ~150 churches in Central Texas that come together to help people during flood, fire, hurricane, and anything else. We are background checked and badged to cross the emergency tape and help the Red Cross, local PD, or whoever else is on the scene. The focus first is helping people immediately.. while their house is still on fire. And then help them get back on their feet.
While I have first aid training, my specific role is helping on the technology side. When something happens - like Hurricane Harvey - we can stand up a 25 person call center in under an hour. It's powered by Cisco phones plugged into a local Asterisk/FreePBX server connected to Twilio. (I'm a former Twilio employee but they're not involved.) In the field, ADRN uses simple web and mobile apps to collect victim info and issue gift cards. It's tied into geolocation services and person databases to reduce fraud. There are online/offline modes for when you're in the field where there is no connectivity. There are a ton of technical roles required!
And the underlying aspect of all of this is that we design, build, and deploy technology with the HOPE that it never gets used. If it's used, that means something horrible happened.
And btw, Harvey isn't over for people in the field. All help is appreciated - https://adrn.org/disaster-relief/hurricaneharvey/
Economics. A problem that has come with increased inequality is that the allocation of capital has gotten further and further disconnected from people (the human capital) who have a more direct link to knowing or exploring ways of developing fundamental value generation. I suspect we are seeing this in metrics like decreasing productivity, decreasing new business generation - it seems like financial capital isn't mixing with human capital nearly as efficiently as we might hope. Is there a way to relink the two through an new or modified economic channel that dramatically facilitates this; and maybe even helps rebala