In vitro gametogenesis (IVG) and artificial wombs.
Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?
11–20 of 311 posts
Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?
#12A lot of a billionaires which:
1. Exist
2. Actively making us not noticing their existance by shitting us with some fake problems like gays, drugs, foreigners, terrorists, etc (different set of fake problems per country).
Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?
#13Plastic pollution
Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?
#14We have an aging population and many places have a flat birthrate. We need to solve how to deal with this consequences. Who will care for these people? How will we deal with the consequences of flat population growth? How will we deal with the stock market's expectations of perpetual growth when the underlying population itself is not growing (and especially since productivity has also been relatively flat)?
This aging topic is very important. Re: stock markets, economies need to shift from eternal $ growth to share holder wallets, to providing equitable outcomes for all people and the planet - that will be very interesting to watch, i can’t see it going well.
> to providing equitable outcomes for all people and the planet
The top 10% who hold essentially all the wealth in the world have very little interest in that goal.
Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?
#15Water and water rights.
Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?
#16We have an aging population and many places have a flat birthrate. We need to solve how to deal with this consequences. Who will care for these people? How will we deal with the consequences of flat population growth? How will we deal with the stock market's expectations of perpetual growth when the underlying population itself is not growing (and especially since productivity has also been relatively flat)?
This aging topic is very important. Re: stock markets, economies need to shift from eternal $ growth to share holder wallets, to providing equitable outcomes for all people and the planet - that will be very interesting to watch, i can’t see it going well.
You might be interested in the work of Steven Hail and Gabrielle Bond. There's an online course they run through Torrens University that covers a lot of this stuff:
Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?
#17Fundamentally we have only 1 problem worth solving: how to support 11bn people sustainably and equitably by 2050 (that's when the population peaks and levels out).
you can do a Wardley map that shows the needs of those people, then you can move down the chain of needs, until you find something you're apt to solve.
Personally I'm working on reducing eWaste by providing a global solution to carrying multiple mobile phones as many people do this for work.
Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?
#18The animals and ecosystems wide scale extinction seems to be a major threat I think. It’s something people don’t seem to notice much as it isn’t in the news constantly, but 60% of wild life disappearing in the last 70 years seems like a disaster snowball that is growing fast. I think this is the threat that will be largely ignored, and because it is purposely ignored it will keep growing in the background until it ta…
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Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?
#19The biggest problem domain worth pursuing is figuring out fusion. If we can unlock what is effectively limitless power a lot of problems become far more tractable. Everything else is a distraction. We need cheaper and more available power.
Every physicist and engineer in the world should probably try dedicating at least one or two month of their life to figuring out fusion.
If humanity could pay a trillion dollars to instantly unlock fusion it would still be considered a bargain. And yet we don't treat research into that field as something with such a potentially massive impact.
Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?
#20Technology: (1) getting off “free” platforms aka adtech. (2) Software quality aka actually providing good software that is intuitive to use and does what people need.
So what do we do with the billions who can't pay? They should stay offline until they can? I know I can pay now, but when I was starting out, I couldn't