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Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#551

The US codifying privacy as a Right. Too many parties interested in exploiting the lack of privacy are making the lack of privacy laws painfully apparent. When it changes, its going to be all at once.

Codifying privacy as a right is not in the interest of corporations. I am extremely sceptical that the US government will harm corporations for something most people obviously don’t care about. The success of Facebook, Tictoc, Nest, etc are definitive proof that most people do not care about their privacy at all.

I agreed with that...right up to Roe v Wade being overturned.

Privacy is going to become a very important issue very quickly as some states start to make laws that will be shockingly backward to most people. And those laws will be sticky and will require Amendment level changes to correct. To prevent an Amendment, even Repbulicans will introduce sweeping and broad privacy laws and will likely point to big tech companies as scapegoats to divert attention from their own generally unpopular activities (that play great to their base so they don't get primaried out).

Corporations are going to get swept up in the melee unless they begin to self-govern in a very real way very quickly to get ahead of this. Because every personal data player that does something can can be spun negatively will be dragged through the mud for political points from both sides.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#552

The stumble over abandonment of ICE vehicles. By 2030 (8 years from now) at least six manufacturers will have stopped making ICE vehicles entirely, and India claims it will ban the sale of ICE-only vehicles. By 2040 (18 years from now) over half of all new cars sold will be electric, and the UK and France claim they will ban the sale of ICE-only vehicles. However, there's still not a plan that makes all that sustaina…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#553

Clean Energy, Water Desalination, Nigeria's crackdown on anonymous SIM cards, Monkeypox, Separation of Church & State in a post-Roe world, Computer chips made out of light, The managed decline of Britain, Crackdowns on E2E encrypted messaging apps, Quantum-resistant cryptography, Tesla cars charged by burning coal.

Billy Joel should update "We didn't Start the Fire" with your list.

Separation Church & State

Tesla cars are burning slate

Crackdowns on encrypted talk

Britain shock

We don't want the MONKEYPOX!

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#554
post #503

Preimplantation polygenetic testing. The idea is that, when doing IVF, you sequence the genome of all the embryos and implant the ones that you predict will have properties that you like. This already exists for monogenetic screening (for parents who don't want to pass on heritable diseases for their children, where those diseases are localized to one gene). But the idea here is that, by checking thousands of genes,…

I don't think there is any genetic basis for intelligence: if there was, then you would expect that the offspring of the geniuses we had in the past to have an higher chance at being extremely intelligent than other people. But this doesn't seem to be the case, as you usually never hear about the sons or daughters of such geniuses, as they seem to be like other "normal" people in most cases. I admit I'm not bringing…

There certainly is a genetic basis for intelligence. It's not even something that's up for debate academically, there's a mountain of evidence for it. We even have identified specific genes that play roles in intelligence. Almost every human trait is partially heritable, and it would be very surprising if intelligence were an exception (considering there's considerable variation in intelligence and it's very important for fitness.)

More information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#555

The stumble over abandonment of ICE vehicles. By 2030 (8 years from now) at least six manufacturers will have stopped making ICE vehicles entirely, and India claims it will ban the sale of ICE-only vehicles. By 2040 (18 years from now) over half of all new cars sold will be electric, and the UK and France claim they will ban the sale of ICE-only vehicles. However, there's still not a plan that makes all that sustaina…

I would love to see some company produce components someone could purchase and replace an ICE engine with to make it an EV. I'm not talking 300 mile range EV with fancy software, etc. just basic stuff like a battery pack sized to replace a gas tank, electric motor and other components, etc. Some kit that you could take a modern-ish Corolla/Civic and turn it into a 100mi range EV which could satisfy a ton of household…

I've been looking for this too. Not just for cars, but also lawnmowers, snow blowers, chain saws ...

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the idea here is that, by checking thousands of genes, you can make predictions for things that start to be very relevant to parents, like attractiveness or height or intelligence. Personally, I think this interpretation of polygenic risk scoring is a crock of irreproducible shite. I don’t think it’s your fault, I think a lot of people in the field are shilling something they don’t have for grant money, and the…

> show me someone who can take a genome and predict adult height within a centimeter, then I’ll believe they have a snowball’s chance of predicting something as nuanced and varied as “attractiveness” or “intelligence”. This has been done. Not to 1cm but ~3cm, and it has been reproduced by many labs all over the world That said, most genetic prediction aren't targeting exact vales, but avoiding the worst outcomes, whi…

I haven't previously read the Lello paper [1] that review is citing, but a quick skim makes me skeptical.

Particulary the legend for figure 5:

> Activated SNPs are distributed roughly uniformly throughout the genome.

If the authors were actually identifying a genetic component to a heritable trait, I'd expect them to observe some linkage disequilibrium. And without any analysis of the SNPs (are they coding/noncoding? which genes are they associated with?) it's hard to believe that they're uncovering actual biology and not just chance correlates with external/socioeconomic factors.

I also find it difficult to trust studies when the lead author fails to disclose a conflict of interest. [2]

[1] https://academic.oup.com/genetics/article/210/2/477/5931053

[2] https://academic.oup.com/genetics/article/214/1/231/5930514

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#557

Preimplantation polygenetic testing. The idea is that, when doing IVF, you sequence the genome of all the embryos and implant the ones that you predict will have properties that you like. This already exists for monogenetic screening (for parents who don't want to pass on heritable diseases for their children, where those diseases are localized to one gene). But the idea here is that, by checking thousands of genes,…

> But the idea here is that, by checking thousands of genes, you can make predictions for things that start to be very relevant to parents, like attractiveness or height or intelligence. Personally, I think this interpretation of polygenic risk scoring is a crock of irreproducible shite. I don’t think it’s your fault, I think a lot of people in the field are shilling something they don’t have for grant money, and the…

> Height is a univariate trait that does not change after the age of ~20. If you show me someone who can take a genome and predict adult height within a centimeter, then I’ll believe they have a snowball’s chance of predicting something as nuanced and varied as “attractiveness” or “intelligence”.

I don't know why that would be the standard, since the amount of variation in height that's attributable to environmental factors might make that fundamentally impossible. But we can get quite close to that standard nonetheless.

And even if it's not possible yet, do you think that in 20 years we'll have no ability to predict height or intelligence from a genome? It seems very plausible to me, especially with how cheap genome sequencing is now.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#558
post #536

80% of all USD have been printed since 2020. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL

That's probably because it's not true. You can see the definition of M1 changed at the exact time that chart shows a spike. https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h6/current/default.h...

What exactly was the change in definitions and is it possible to account for the change or is information missing?

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#559
post #284

General purpose humanoid robots. They're kind of mainstream idea, but very few people talk about them or take them seriously. Humanoid robots will have an absolutely massive impact in very near future. Most people don't realize that with general purpose humanoid robots, labor becomes software. Labor becomes repeateable, testable, simulatable, modular, extensible, verifiable, etc. All things that apply to software wil…

AI robots have still proven to be hard. And if my roomba is any indicator... we are still a long way off... from that kind of sophistication.

What is coming online in the near term. Is robots operated remotely by humans. Imagine having a robot in your house... being remotely operated by cheap overseas labor. Folding clothes, cleaning, cooking, taking care of elders..

Or my dream... a french chef making dinner for me... in my house.

This is already in demonstration stage: https://www.beomni.ai

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#560
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am under the impression that instead of preparing for climate immigration, EU citizens are actually slowly but surely mutually brainwashing themselves into increasing hate towards immigrants as a whole. From what I read and understood about climate change, a tsunami of immigrants from southern hemisphere countries towards northern hemisphere countries is to be expected. I would rather have my elected ones work on a…

Europeans would rather go Japan - ie. keep their national identity and downsize, than America - healthy demographics, but constant cultural clashes and crime waves.

I doubt that Japan would like to have them.
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