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Ask HN: Software with biggest potential for positive impact in 5 years?

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Re: Ask HN: Software with biggest potential for positive impact in 5 years?

#191

Post by VoodooJuJu »

perlgeek wrote: post #109

One thing we see over and over again leading to social injustice is the externalization of costs. Examples: * burning fossil fuels externalizes the cost of dealing with climate change * during the housing market crash of 2007, lots of risks were ultimately externalized to the state * plastic waste ending up in the ocean means somebody[tm] externalized the cost of not properly disposing of / recycling their waste ...…

>during the housing market crash of 2007, lots of risks were ultimately externalized to the state

Externalized to individual taxpaying citizens*. The state chose to transfer the perpetrators' would-be loss to unincorporated taxpayers.

Re: Ask HN: Software with biggest potential for positive impact in 5 years?

#192

Post by codethief »

GrapheneOS[0] has been an absolute godsend for me. For the first time in more than ten years I no longer have to distrust my phone and am still able to use pretty much any application (including Google apps) on a modern phone. Moreover, I regularly get updates & fixes – sometimes even several times a month – not just for the OS but also for the built-in apps (e.g. the Google Camera replacement).

I am very excited about the project's future! One thing I look forward to in particular is hardware developed primarily for GrapheneOS.

[0] https://grapheneos.org/

Re: Ask HN: Software with biggest potential for positive impact in 5 years?

#193

Post by teknopaul »

Beltalowda wrote: post #133
yojo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d love to see that software too, but most of the issues you describe (plastics, greenhouse gasses) had impacts that were non-obvious at the outset. Then they were controversial, then no longer controversial but heavily lobbied. At the start of the industrial revolution no one knew about global warming. Then the science came out but was lobbied against. Now the science is (mostly) accepted, but we still don’t know c…

> At the start of the industrial revolution no one knew about global warming. This is true, but it's been known since at least medieval times that that air pollution was pretty unhealthy; arguably a better reason to actually do something about things than climate change. The same can be said about the usage of lead in fuel and paint; people have known it was harmful well before leaded fuel was invented. The elephant…

Progress (noun) : gradual betterment.

By that definition progress is always good.

Re: Ask HN: Software with biggest potential for positive impact in 5 years?

#194

Post by codethief »

junon wrote: post #125
codethief wrote: post #115

Personally, I'm actually quite excited about Fuchsia (related HN thread -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30827210 ). Not at all because of its Flutter-based UI but because of its security features. Security on Linux is really lacking and Qubes OS requires too many resources (in particular: battery power), so I'd love to have an OS that has security guarantees at least as strong as Android.

There are a number of projects in that space btw. I'm working on one of them. OS development has picked up considerable interest in the last few years for similar reasoning.

Would you mind sharing a list of those projects (including yours of course)? :)

Re: Ask HN: Software with biggest potential for positive impact in 5 years?

#196

Post by teknopaul »

rg111 wrote: post #190
dane-pgp wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth checking out the approach being considered by Matrix[0] which should make the solutions scalable and thus affordable. Empowering users and communities to distribute and delegate their moderation decisions seems like it will enable more innovation, rather than users being stuck with a "one size fits no one" regime. [0] https://matrix.org/blog/2020/10/19/combating-abuse-in-matrix...

> Empowering users and communities to distribute and delegate their moderation So, basically what Reddit does. This leads to the creation of echo-chambers where the power is at the hand of select few.

More "select few" the better, enough echo chambers and you are just hearing yourself. Facebook is in the hands of Zuck.

The WWW exists, that allows "select few" to publish and irc/bbs/group chat are echo chambers, but these techa have not done the damage that social media has. They are doing something wrong.

Re: Ask HN: Software with biggest potential for positive impact in 5 years?

#197

Post by Beltalowda »

teknopaul wrote: post #193
Beltalowda wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the start of the industrial revolution no one knew about global warming. This is true, but it's been known since at least medieval times that that air pollution was pretty unhealthy; arguably a better reason to actually do something about things than climate change. The same can be said about the usage of lead in fuel and paint; people have known it was harmful well before leaded fuel was invented. The elephant…

Progress (noun) : gradual betterment. By that definition progress is always good.

"Better" for who? And many "betterments" come with downsides and trade-offs, too.

It's rarely that simple.

Re: Ask HN: Software with biggest potential for positive impact in 5 years?

#198

Post by emptysongglass »

aabajian wrote: post #54

I think adult education needs reform. We prioritize childhood education, but kids don't choose their parents. Affluent kids have access to better education, and there's no later-in-life educational safety net for adults without those early childhood benefits. If you went to a crap high school because of where you lived, you have limited options after graduating, and even less if you dropped-out. Your current options…

I never got the all-American college experience despite hailing from the States. I want to go to university courses on lisp dialects then go to a frat kegger, maybe rediscover acid for the first time falling into polycules of love.

Re: Ask HN: Software with biggest potential for positive impact in 5 years?

#199

Post by emptysongglass »

kaetemi wrote: post #8

An imaginary power user build of Windows that doesn't include all the builtin cloud nonsense and other useless distractions. And custom themes support instead of forced white menu bars that override the system pallette because some designer thinks they're clever.

What you're looking for is Windows LTSC.

Re: Ask HN: Software with biggest potential for positive impact in 5 years?

#200

Post by nanomonkey »

Beltiras wrote: post #171
nanomonkey wrote: post #129

Conflict-free Replication Data Types (CRDTs) and private cryptographically signed ledgers (not proof of work public blockchains, but similar) are what excites me these days, as they allow for users to own their own data, securely create transactions and collaborate without the overhead of their data being held hostage on one companies servers. IPV6 rides along with this as something I look forward to, only because so…

The term for the ledgers is minted, as opposed to mined.

These aren't coins, my friend, just normal events/messages/documents signed by your feed id so that they can be referred to by their content addressable hash, as well as verified to be from you by your peers.
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