Ask HN: What should we fund at YC Research? • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by mietek » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 7:19 AM UTC

untog wrote: post #194

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…

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.

It’s not as bad as you think — “Don’t Panic”: http://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-about-p...

If you can’t spare an hour, please watch Rosling’s TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...

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

#202

Post by sharp11 » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 7:20 AM UTC

Define a location-based metric for climate change vulnerability analogous to the way walkscore.com has defined and developed a metric for walkability.

A good walkscore makes property more valuable. A valid and widely distributed climatescore could be the most effective way to create political will by making property value accurately reflect future risk.

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

#203

Post by mekarpeles » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 7:22 AM UTC

+1 for YC Research's basic income (and standard for quality of life)

Meta-Research. +1 for @mietek's Meta-research; creating a distributed, open ecosystem (not a website, but a protocol) for publishing and navigating interdisciplinary research.

Medicine. +1 for Bacteriophages @mietek & open-medicine (e.g. Counter Culture Labs - Open Insulin) https://experiment.com/projects/open-insulin. Additionally, cancer and heart disease research.

A distributed, persistent, interoperable world wide web. (e.g. IPFS)

A sensible distributed DOI and identity system for people.

A meta exploration to determine the world's hard problems and impending catastrophies (e.g. www.metaculus.com)

Alternative energy and renewable energy.

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

#204

Post by sidcool » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 7:23 AM UTC

A few things:

1. Fusion research

2. Food/Water security research

3. Astrophysics research

4. Mental health research

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

#205

Post by HandleTheJandal » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 7:25 AM UTC

Genetic rescue & de-extinction. The Genetic Rescue Foundation https://www.geneticrescue.science/ and Revive & Restore http://longnow.org/revive/ have research projects that are advancing the scientific techniques required to do this. Having YC Research also take an interest in this would help to expand a field that already has the attention of some pretty talented individuals e.g. George Church.

Human beings are now the curators of planet earth. This is the Anthropocene era. We can either continue to intentionally and unintentionally destroy the earth's biodiversity; or through technology we can develop the means to preserve it.

We're not preserving biodiversity because panda's are cute and starving polar bear pictures make us sad. We're doing it because biodiversity is useful to humans and it takes a very long time to get it back when it's gone.

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

#206

Post by rajacombinator » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 7:26 AM UTC

The biggest opportunity for impact would be to find some politically incorrect / heterodox studies in areas where existing power structures have no incentive to fund. Nutrition comes to mind but it's a pretty crowded field. Alternately I think funding more open source legal docs like the SAFE could offer huge social ROI. (Perhaps in non startup legal areas.)

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

#207

Post by bbcbasic » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 7:27 AM UTC

Counter-lobbying

Wealthy interests lobby governments to do what is good for them, but often at some negative cost for society. The reason they lobby is the bang-for-buck. What if lobbying is used for good. What if instead of billionaire gives to charity, billionaire lobbies government so that charity is not needed anymore?

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

#208

Post by jspaulding » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 7:27 AM UTC

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…

> Academic publishing is obsolete

To expand upon this, it's not just publishing papers behind paywalls that is the problem. The entire system we use to advance humanities shared knowledge is broken. The Internet enables a dramatically more efficient model of scientific collaboration. The problem is academic science has been stuck with a reward system from the 17th century. And quite simply, it does not reward what we want it to reward anymore. However, there is a solution: science funders can distribute their money in a way that creates a very different set of incentives. Sadly, almost all science funders are very conservative organizations. YC Research can play a critical role in catalyzing a transition to an Internet-native model of research. My startup, Thinklab, wants to help. We're a service that helps science funders reward participation in a massively collaborative open online model of research.

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

#209

Post by peteretep » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 7:29 AM UTC

sandGorgon wrote: post #185

peteretep wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, it's hard to think of an area with quite so much "common sense" and "bro science", but also an area that should be so easy to research. Take people away on a residential and you can control exactly what they eat, their exercise etc. One of the nice things is that it'd be hard for anyone to patent findings either (I imagine). If I ever have enough money to dabble in my own research, it'll be there. How…

Agree on this. Especially research on Soylent like nutrition products for third world countries. Or the cheapest way to build muscle. Or a Crossfit alternative that's free and does not need equipment.

CrossFit is already free - they've been posting the WOD on their blog for free since forever. You could just take their body weight exercises and pick one randomly every day and you'd be doing CrossFit.

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

#210

Post by JoshTriplett » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 7:32 AM UTC

empressplay wrote: post #191

mietek wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> You can live for a thousand years and you will still procrastinate and you will still not want to die.

Of course not! Why should you ever want to die? Why should you ever "get over" that?

It's a bug. We haven't fixed it yet. It should not be romanticized, and it should most certainly not be treated as inevitable. It's an abomination we have yet to eliminate.