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Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

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Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#101

Post by nojvek »

Grand problems for any decade until there are figured out.

- General artificial intelligence - being able to effectively model how the world works, and search for solutions in that model.

- Energy - nuclear fusion, cheap artificial photosynthesis, cheap solar such that we can have solar on almost every surface facing the sun.

- Molecular assembly - figure out how to custom program DNA from scratch to build what we need. Imagine building more efficient trees where it captures CO2 and sunlight into gasoline, or strong timber directly.

Each of these can go quite wrong if not developed with safety in mind.

I call it the Mind (intelligence), Body (molecular assembly), Energy (putting energy to work) problems.

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#102

Post by nojvek »

rlupi wrote: post #10

The UN has identified 17 sustainable development goals ( https://sdgs.un.org/goals ) and the AI for good Global Summit https://aiforgood.itu.int/ (which was held last week) focused on exactly that. If you check the recordings, some sessions were directly focused on connecting problem experts, data access, computing resources and people with skills or idea or passion. The opportunities span from students or researcher…

Neat. Although there seem a to be overlap in the goals.

Do they have measurement in the goals over time?

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#104

Post by UncleEntity »

slushh wrote: post #87
balder1991 wrote: post #9

The 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…

Could preserving animals be turned into a market? If companies can own the genetic code of the animals they protect, as long as those animals are alive, will the companies create the necessary structures to protect their animals?

You know they’ll turn the genetic code “ownership” into NFTs so some cryptobro can brag they own the Greater Borobudur Howling Monkey after they’re long gone…

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#105

Post by nojvek »

bequanna wrote: post #92
cyber_kinetist wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge problem… for capitalism. I think the refusal to marry and have kids (regardless of it being necessary or by choice) is basically the ultimate worker’s strike. So far capitalists have relied upon the fact that there will always be workers to exploit, since they consider any care work necessary to raise families (for the next batch of exploited workers) as simply just given. Now that this is going away (people c…

[flagged]

There’s difference between working and being able to afford to buy your own house so you could raise a family,

And rent being so expensive even with dual income that having kids does not make financial sense.

Everyone, especially women should have full control of when/if they want to have kids.

Yes, population is collapsing. 50 years ago population was exploding, and we somehow figured out that problem. We’ll figure out the collapse problem as well.

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#106

Post by s1gsegv »

mikewarot wrote: post #84

Unpopular opinion: Secure general purpose computing isn't available for the masses. In fact, most people here on HN don't have access to it either. Our current crop of widely used operating systems all share the same flaw, the ambient authority granted to any program that is run to access anything that the user account is permitted to access. This causes a host of problems, and almost nobody is aware of them, or inco…

Yes, there's much more work to be done here in the open source community, and I think it might have to be done there due to lack of aligned incentives otherwise.

For instance, on platforms such as Android that are meant to be secure in this way, I can't block an app from accessing the internet anytime it wants. Of course, the reason for that is that blocking internet access would also allow blocking ads, which Google has a negative incentive for.

Large corporations always take advantage of the sandboxing for anti-user features as well. In many apps I can download videos on desktop whether they want me to or not using inspect element etc, but this is often tricky or impossible on Android. Again, corporate incentives are aligned against the user.

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#107

Post by batshibstein »

camdenlock wrote: post #58
eimrine wrote: post #12

A 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).

So having >= 1,000,000,000 USD is somehow bad? How about 999,999,999? Still bad? How about 900,000,000? No? Hm. How much is too much, and why?

You play your cards right, you could be in the three-comma club, too. But probably not. But you could be. Probably not.

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#108

Post by srackey »

cyber_kinetist wrote: post #74
tomp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because “equity” (communism) requires violence. Taking away from those who create more and giving to those who create less. Something that is non-consensual and requires violence is by definition unfair (unless you’ve a wicked moral compass).

Communism (at least in an ideal Marxist form) has no relation to equity, it’s more of a liberal concept than anything else. People use the term Communism (both upper-case and lower-case) in various ways nowadays, but Marx’s original ideal form of society was "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" The ultimate goal is to create an affluent productive society that can provide all amenities…

Yes, and this will require violence to achieve (how else can you enforce the “from each” and “to each”?)

Communism has been tried. Again and again. The utopian endpoint it tires to get to is not possible. The consistent result is mass death and poverty.

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#109

Post by GirishSharma643 »

The biggest threat is health. The whole world have become helpless in front of Corona. World class medical institution, labs, scientist, colleges were weeping like an orphaned child. Don't think other than health. If we will remain, then we will think and work. For anything else human life needs.

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#110

Post by DoingIsLearning »

eimrine wrote: post #12

A 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).

"The greatest trick the ultra-rich ever pulled was pitting poor people against each other instead of against them."

https://v.redd.it/6wourzysxuma1/DASH_720.mp4

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