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Ask HN: What should we fund at YC Research?

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Re: Ask HN: What should we fund at YC Research?

#191

Post by empressplay »

mietek wrote: post #173
derrida wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Humans need more lifespan, badly. Do we? Or do we need more realistic perspective about death? Why quantity over quality? Seems there's a lot of quality improvements that could be made [1]. For instance, I read recently (can't recall source) that San Fransisco's homeless is the least happy in the world. Also that the top 1% in the world make over $35K a year, but there are far happier people than exist in middle Am…

> Why quantity over quality? That’s a false dichotomy. Please disregard my one-liner, and watch one of de Grey’s talks instead — or read his “When Quality and Quantity Do Not Compete”: http://online.liebertpub.com.sci-hub.io/doi/abs/10.1089/rej....

You can live for a thousand years and you will still procrastinate and you will still not want to die. An extended lifespan won't help those issues. You need to get over them whether you live 50 years or 500.

Re: Ask HN: What should we fund at YC Research?

#192

Post by untog »

At least ten of the suggestions that I've read already are better than what I have in mind, but hey, why not...

How do people stay informed in the 21st century? By which I mean informed well. We are all naturally drawn to echo chambers, and I don't think I'm imagining people becoming more polarised over time as they surround themselves with news outlets that tell them what they want to hear.

This will only get worse as more media companies collapse - only the opinionated ones will get the audience to survive... if they even do. There's a business model question but also a broader philosophical question: how can anyone help citizens be informed about the world around them? How is it sustainable?

Re: Ask HN: What should we fund at YC Research?

#193

Post by jspaulding »

gonehome wrote: post #140

Academic research/funding is broken - it'd be cool if there was a way to create something to fix the incentives. I think that's kind of the goal of YC research in a narrow sense, but it'd be interesting if there was a way to align the incentives so scientists collaborated more instead of hiding research so they don't get 'scooped'. At this same time this could get rid of the academic journals that charge huge amounts…

My startup, Thinklab, is trying fix the incentives. The concept is to partner with science funders and help them distribute their money in a way that rewards scientists for openly sharing their work in real-time while collaborating with each other over the Internet. The first simple step is requiring researchers to openly post their proposals in order to get funding. A portion of funding is then set aside to reward valuable contributions from the scientific community. We would love to have the support and participation of YC Research.

Re: Ask HN: What should we fund at YC Research?

#194

Post by untog »

derrida wrote: post #164
mietek wrote: post #129

http://sens.org/ . Humans need more lifespan, badly. I’d have said AI safety, but it’s already on your list. Excellent. I’d also have said basic income. Good to know you’re on it. Meta-research. Academic publishing is obsolete, and knowledge should not be paywalled. How many researchers already make use of https://www.reddit.com/r/scholar or http://sci-hub.io/ ? Bacteriophages. Antibiotics are running out, while phag…

> Humans need more lifespan, badly. Do we? Or do we need more realistic perspective about death? Why quantity over quality? Seems there's a lot of quality improvements that could be made [1]. For instance, I read recently (can't recall source) that San Fransisco's homeless is the least happy in the world. Also that the top 1% in the world make over $35K a year, but there are far happier people than exist in middle Am…

Agreed. With overpopulation already a problem I'm not sure that living longer is a pressing need for the world. Better to help people make the most of the time they have allotted on this planet.

Re: Ask HN: What should we fund at YC Research?

#195

Post by petke »

Automation of common medical lab tests. Not just for the sick but for the healthy. How cool would it be to every week send a drop of blood by mail and get to see a nice graph on a website how the different hormones and proteins etc in your blood has changed throughout the year. It could help you live a healthier life.

Re: Ask HN: What should we fund at YC Research?

#196

Post by AlexDanger »

visualsearchsv wrote: post #58

Large Scale Medical Data Mining research, similar to OpenAI. Specifically Computational Healthcare a Search and Aggregation Engine for Medical Records & Claims. We believe that this is a classic Software eating the world situation and the time is perfect for it. Here is the link http://www.computationalhealthcare.com We have access to almost 130 Million de-identified medical records from approximately 36 Million pati…

I agree this sounds a great candidate for YC. I hope you are looking to take this global. The cost/benefit in health outcomes would be enormous.

Most importantly, I think a system like this must be non-profit and freely available for global usage. Privacy issues can be solved with careful ETL process. Ideally a single global platform...although political realities may force multiple instances.

Regardless of implementation details - this seems to fit the YC Research charter in terms of medium/long horizons and big 'change the world' payoffs.

Re: Ask HN: What should we fund at YC Research?

#197

Post by AlexDanger »

visualsearchsv wrote: post #58

Large Scale Medical Data Mining research, similar to OpenAI. Specifically Computational Healthcare a Search and Aggregation Engine for Medical Records & Claims. We believe that this is a classic Software eating the world situation and the time is perfect for it. Here is the link http://www.computationalhealthcare.com We have access to almost 130 Million de-identified medical records from approximately 36 Million pati…

I agree this sounds a great candidate for YC. I hope you are looking to take this global. The cost/benefit in health outcomes would be enormous.

Most importantly, I think a system like this must be non-profit and freely available for global usage. Privacy issues can be solved with careful ETL process. Ideally a single global platform...although political realities may force multiple instances.

Regardless of implementation details - this seems to fit the YC Research charter in terms of medium/long horizons and global 'change the world' payoffs.

Re: Ask HN: What should we fund at YC Research?

#198

Post by dineshp2 »

aylmao wrote: post #188
dineshp2 wrote: post #152

Education. Everyone knows it's broken,not effective anymore and literally a waste of time and money. More so if you had the oppurtunity to experience what education means in third world countries.Spoiler alert : it's a joke that will make you cry. It needs to be fixed as quickly as possible and research needs to be done for alternatives to help people in the process of learning.Online education is a good start, but w…

Education isn't ideal now, but I don't think online education is a good start or even a viable model. Training more and better teachers is the way to go, especially in "third world countries". Not only is there big issues with motivation and the whole social/interactive/distant aspect to moocs; what do you do when you don't have internet, or your device breaks? Now your education depends on a machine that costs a cou…

Online education is a great way to democratise access to the very best teachers/classes/content and I see it as a great way for learners to discover new topics/subjects quickly without needing to enroll in any physical classes.

I don't think we will reach the point where we have great teachers everywhere. That is just not practical and too idealistic. That's exactly why we need to start innovating in the field of education to try and make it a more meaningful experience and one which positively impacts society.

I see online education as one of the pieces of the education puzzle.

Re: Ask HN: What should we fund at YC Research?

#199

Post by aman-pro »

Food.

The food production is not keeping up with the boom in population, specially in the developing nations. In India, where I come from, farmers are running away from Farming. (Because it's not profitable enough to even feed a family and pay for school fees). We desperately need ways to increase the food production, without increasing the land or water usage. A way of doing it can genetic engineering (Supercharged Photosyntesis?), but even this solution looks like a distant reality. May be not enough people are working on it or there is a lack of funding here...

Food is the most basic requirement for survival for any life form. Fund this research... YC will be eternally blessed! :D

Re: Ask HN: What should we fund at YC Research?

#200

Post by jameswilsterman »

Criminal Justice

+ Apply machine learning algorithms to determine and preempt causes of recidivism

+ Develop Minority Report-style "pre-cog" policing algorithms to prevent predict future crimes and help prioritize policing resources

Public Policy & Economics

+ Land use reform (impact of land value taxes / pro-density initiatives)

+ Develop robust electronic voting systems

Science & Medicine

+ Explore possible systems of carbon sequestration

+ Mars habitability

+ Superconductors? Carbon nanotubes?

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