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Solving All the Wrong Problems

nytimes.com

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Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#91

Post by im_down_w_otp »

johnnyhillbilly wrote: post #90
im_down_w_otp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The calculus of the opportunity cost presented here isn't the tiny incremental improvement attached to my already amply comfortable lifestyle, but rather the aggregate full-time loss of many dozens or hundreds of engineers, data scientists, and investment $$$ diverted to trivial pursuits. Or put more simply. The lost problem-solving potential for 8-10 hours a day of a single PhD in Applied Mathematics massively dwarf…

I think you misunderstand how much time and focus is spent on trivial problems. Somebody already replied to this, but I will add more on the same note. 1 If some scientist finds a way to save a minute per instance of brushing your teeth, and if there is no difference in quality and cost, that is 600 million+ minutes saved every day in the US alone. 2 If some scientist finds a way for nocturnal people to contribute to…

Aggregations in this case aren't interesting unless the component part of the aggregation is by itself interesting.

A human, due to real constraints can't do a whole lot with an extra minute per day, and humans as a social body due to real constraints can't effectively collectively block-allocate 600 million diffuse minutes to some other cause. Each of them can only reallocate the minute they own/save.

The units and the distribution matter here... a lot. This seems obvious enough to illustrate using your own narrative.

What if I saved 6 Billion people 1ms per day? That's nearly 70 aggregated whole days saved per day. What are you going to spend your newly found 1ms on?

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#92

Post by hudibras »

jdoliner wrote: post #40

I find articles like this pretty frustrating. There's tons of companies in Silicon Valley that are trying to do audacious things that people's mothers never did for them. They don't get much press coverage and that's fine, media outlets are businesses too so they need to write about companies that their readership wants to read about. But the fact that they then turn around and complain about the fact that all the co…

>There's tons of companies in Silicon Valley that are trying to do audacious things that people's mothers never did for them.

Can you name one?

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#93

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

muzster wrote: post #27

In case there is just one person in this world who desperately needs any one of the said apps.. you can thank me later. A service that sends someone to fill your car with gas. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-02/gas-delive... A service that sends a valet on a scooter to you, wherever you are, to park your car. http://luxe.com/ A service that will film anything you desire with a drone. http://thenextweb.…

The app to help you understand "cause and effect in your life."

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/zenta-stress-emotion-mana...

It seems geared toward helping users become more aware of the impact their habits have on their well-being & emotions. The description in the article makes it easy to dismiss, but speaking from the standpoint of someone who's been emotionally disconnected for 20 years through information addiction (yep...it's a thing, complete with withdrawal symptoms) until earlier this year, there's a huge market.

I'm only just starting to learn how to recognize my emotions in the moment. Anxiety was so pervasive, it was my norm. Now, my struggle is to identify when I'm getting anxious because it's a vital signal from my body telling me there's a need of mine that I'm overlooking (another thing I'm just starting to learn).

It's why I'm considering getting a Microsoft Band 2 to help monitor my heart rate & sleeping habits.

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#94

Post by wott »

SwellJoe wrote: post #54

The interesting thing about technology is that it has proven to be so powerful that when people do mundane things with it, it is viewed as a failure (maybe rightly so, to some degree). But, and this is a big but, the vast majority of people go to work every day and do very little of importance . 99% of people are not changing the world, for the better or otherwise. All the people making coffee, serving food, pushing…

> I just wonder what makes us (in the broad use of "us" here, to mean anyone who builds technology for a living) that we get tasked with fixing the world?

Because:

-- we are the ones who have the intellectual abilities to do it,

-- we are the ones who received an education allowing us to do it,

-- our companies and a fair number of us pretend to do it and yell it everywhere,

-- an insane amount of money is poured in companies and projects we work for, and most of these companies and projects are either useless or harmful.

This set makes a big difference with people who are just in charge of making the world go round day after day, and who just do it well. Those do not disappoint. Those do not deceive.

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#95

Post by tmptmp »

This article is full of personal bias and seems to have been written by a person who doesn't understand how technology progresses.

I know there is some truth to the criticism of current tech-startup scene in SV. Most startups are without much potential or without much creative juice (e.g. "we will fill your car's tank for you" type). But there are some which have very large disruptive and creative potential. Elon Musk comes to my mind, to begin with. Boston Dynamics is another.

This article also reminds me a personality trait that makes some people always complain with "whatever happened to good old days". Seems that people like this article author, want us to prepare our meals the way you see a person is seen doing in this video [1].

(Disclaimer: I have no disrespect to the person in that video [1], I just want to point out that I don't want to live like that and I wish to point out a fallacy in the article.)

Such people always seem to complain: Whatever happened to the good old days and good old ways of doing things? All the while, seemingly unaware of the fact that they themselves have become so much used to the technology.

Of course, it is apparent that she doesn't realize that without the very technology and the very technology creators she is so happy to criticize, she would not have been able to put her photo along with the article she has written/typed.

Since when and why has the ability to publish our photos along with articles become so critical for us? and for such writers? So much for the person criticizing the technology creators from self-assumed higher moral ground.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvQttEjfYtM

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#96

Post by jdoliner »

hudibras wrote: post #92
jdoliner wrote: post #40

I find articles like this pretty frustrating. There's tons of companies in Silicon Valley that are trying to do audacious things that people's mothers never did for them. They don't get much press coverage and that's fine, media outlets are businesses too so they need to write about companies that their readership wants to read about. But the fact that they then turn around and complain about the fact that all the co…

>There's tons of companies in Silicon Valley that are trying to do audacious things that people's mothers never did for them. Can you name one?

I mean sure.

Apple - my mom never made me any electronics equipment Tesla - my mom never made me a car

You can find many more by googling things like:

Silicon Valley enterprise companies Silicon Valley hardware companies Silicon Valley med tech companies

etc

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#97

Post by klipt »

throwanem wrote: post #67
Swizec wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a problem or a good thing? Washing machines, kitchen appliances and similar technological advances, freed up our at home time so much that we can put a whole nother 50% of the population through college. A whole 50% of the population that can get jobs, have careers, and do cool shit, who was stuck wiping men's proverbial bottoms until the 1950's. Making free time free is a good thing. There's no telling what…

Is it possible that most of the low-hanging fruit has already been plucked?

Then build a platform to stand on so you can easily reach higher fruit.

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#98

Post by booleandilemma »

The author's examples focus on companies that provide services to individuals, which is a subset of all the companies out there.

I'm sure there are many innovative companies silently changing the world in their own small way, we just don't see them because they're not marketing themselves towards individual consumers through tv commercials, online ads, etc.

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#99

Post by gjolund »

calbear81 wrote: post #53
gjolund wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just said the same thing about wash.io closing down.

Help me out here, I really never got wash.io or rinse or any of those services. I'm assuming the target audience was millenials who have never stepped foot inside a dry cleaner and realized that many of them offer "pick up, wash & fold" services. No fancy app I'm sure but the core of the service existed. The comparisons made to "Uber" were not applicable in my opinion because there wasn't some type of laundry cartel…

I've dated millenials that have never done their own laundry.

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#100

Post by gjolund »

im_down_w_otp wrote: post #23
gjolund wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just said the same thing about wash.io closing down.

Yeah... it seems to me like the world might be well served to give people with more pressing or interesting problems access to more tools and means to try to solve them.

I feel the same way about advertising.

It makes me sad that some of the smartest people in the world are at Google and FB getting people to click ads.

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