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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?

#231

Post by f7ebc20c97 »

_benj wrote: post #205
f7ebc20c97 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News commenters have hated (and been wrong about) cryptocurrency ever since the first Bitcoin article appeared here. It's very strange. I chalk it up to some sort of Dunning-Kruger contrarian effect + demographics skewed toward cynical authoritarian statists (not sure why, since tech used to be full of libertarians). It's all just a repeat of the negative comments over and over... https://news.ycombinator.com/…

I’m noticing that! It seems to that instead of straight up hate, curiosity and exploring might yield better results… but seems like this is the wrong forum for that

If you find one, let me know!

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

#232

Post by shafyy »

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 ...…

I guess projects like Our World in Data and Carbonplan track negative externalities. I mean, other organizations track them, but they make them visible and readily understandable. And I agree, their impact is extremely outsized. For example, there only work a dozen+ people at Our World in Data, but what they do has an outsized impact.

https://ourworldindata.org/

https://carbonplan.org/

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

#234

Post by shafyy »

loudmax wrote: post #50

So many communication platforms are proprietary walled gardens these days. Facebook, Twitter, Slack, Discord, and so on. Their incentives do not align with what's best for their users, or society in general. We absolutely need open solutions become the standard dominant medium for communicating. If Matrix and Mastodon become as easy to use as their proprietary counterparts, they could undo much of the harm done by ou…

I agree that this is a big problem.

> If Matrix and Mastodon become as easy to use as their proprietary counterparts

The problem is not primarily about usability, but about network effects and economic incentives. First, it's really hard to break the dominance of existing social media platforms, and they will never voluntarily adopt open standards. Second, I fear that if a platform becomes big enough, they have an incentive to close down their standards because, you guessed it, cash money.

Therefore this needs to be regulated. The EU is taking a good first step with the Digital Markets Act, and just a couple of days ago decided that big messaging services need to open up their APIs. Now, this is not the perfect solution, but a step in the right direction.

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

#235

Post by jedharris »

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 ...…

Changing the laws or enforcement will take a while and software won't help directly. But extensive crowd-sourced measurement of externalities would be a big deal and software should help with that.

Actual measurement (and definition) of externalities will be very diverse, so the tracking will have to evolve and expand. Crowd-sourcing can handle that.

Once externalities can be clearly documented, public opinion will shift and companies will start to change their behavior in response. Then enforcement and laws will follow.

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

#236

Post by pjerem »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #139
agloeregrets wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Coming from the rust belt, NYC was shock and awe for me and it isn't even a good example. But I get a bunch of people who ask me "How do you park when you visit?!" I don't...in town. I get a PATH train in NJ and forget the car. It is freeing and the Subway system works well enough for anyone. I wish I didn't live in a Stroad hellscape.

Some of us (maybe most of us) don't want to live in a human Habitrail like NYC.

Still, you can live without cars outside NYC.

I’m currently living in the French countryside in a 3k people village. I do have a car but I barely need it on a daily basis : I WFH or take the 20 min train to my office (currently writing from my train running at 160kmh - 99MPH) and I have a grocery shop at 5 min of walk from my home.

I do have "luck" (well, it’s not really luck since I choose to live there) because even in France/Europe, it’s far from the norm.

But it’s possible and working solutions exists all over the world, just waiting to be copied.

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

#237

Post by gearhart »

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 ...…

This is what Route2 is building.

It's not a pure-play software solution or an external policing force; it depends on large amounts of work done by analysts and cooperation from the companies themselves.

However, the motivation to drive internal actors in companies to care about tracking externalities has always been the hardest part of this problem, and that's starting to be solved for us by society and the market.

Disclaimer: I'm the CTO and we're hiring

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

#238

Post by junon »

codethief wrote: post #194
junon wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)? :)

I don't have a comprehensive list, but the #osdev channel on Libera.chat has a lot of very active, very colorful, very smart people all working on their projects. Some hobby, some not. But the Fuchsia devs hang out in there too and are very pleasant and helpful folks.

My project hasn't been announced yet but follows similar design principles to Zircon. I plan to announce sometime in May if all goes well.

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

#240

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

Certainly not AI. There are very few applications of AI that do not tip the scale in favor of more powerful against the less powerful. It enables government and big tech surveillance, mass mind control, smart weapons, deepfakes etc.
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