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Ask HN: One thing you wish would happen in the next 10 years?

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Re: Ask HN: One thing you wish would happen in the next 10 years?

#32
Decentralized social media, decentralized chat platforms, decentralized almost everything that we depend on the Internet for. Users of the platform have more control over which provider to use, can freely move around and even start things on their own to connect into well defined interoperable systems and protocols.

This is more of a pipe dream than a hope, but I would be ecstatic to see such a world. Like Peter Sunde of Pirate Bay said recently, it looks like we can do only some damage control now. [1]

[1]: https://thenextweb.com/eu/2017/06/09/pirate-bay-founder-weve...

Edit: Added interoperability for the sake of clarity.

Re: Ask HN: One thing you wish would happen in the next 10 years?

#34

It is really hard to say just one thing but if I could only name one I would say find a cure for cancer. That in and of itself would have wide impact on families who are emotionally and financially devastated as a result; should help reduce the cost of healthcare overall given that cancer treatment is exorbitant; and would allow researchers to focus on other illnesses or worldwide problems.

"Cancer" is such a broad term, with ~200 different "types". I agree that "cancer" is a huge problem (my brother had childhood leukemia at 9 months until he was about 6 years old), and its effects on the family cannot be understated. Unfortunately, we've only begun to scratch the surface towards a cure for very few of the 200 types of cancer out there.

Re: Ask HN: One thing you wish would happen in the next 10 years?

#38

Civilized discussion on hard topics -- There seems to be a large amount of shouting matches going on right now. We need to be able to discuss things in a calm and respectful manner even when we strongly disagree with the other side. There are a lot of buzz words that get thrown out that to me have lost meaning (racist, sexist, etc.). These words do have meaning and there are absolutely people doing these things that…

This, but I also think we can't just do this in a pure "freedom of speech" way. In order to have a space where we can talk about things calmly and respectfully we will need to shut-out "bad faith" actors, supremacists and ideologues. Otherwise they will pervert the dialogue in order to win some political battle and we risk the wrong outcomes.

We have to come at this very directly from the perspective of the outcomes we wish to achieve and those that we wish to avoid ("consequentialism") rather than through some mindless repetition of an ideal that we believe to be sacred ("free-speech is so important"). Free-speech might be important but maintaining peace and achieving good outcomes for all involved should probably be held in higher regard [0] than some abstract principle, particularly when that abstract principle is a shibboleth of the people on one side of an issue but not the other.

[0] I'm talking about people that want to argue about racism and sexism while incidentally subjecting those they're arguing with to the most extreme and potentially toxic people in their group in the name of 'free speech'.

Re: Ask HN: One thing you wish would happen in the next 10 years?

#40

It is really hard to say just one thing but if I could only name one I would say find a cure for cancer. That in and of itself would have wide impact on families who are emotionally and financially devastated as a result; should help reduce the cost of healthcare overall given that cancer treatment is exorbitant; and would allow researchers to focus on other illnesses or worldwide problems.

"Cancer" is such a broad term, with ~200 different "types". I agree that "cancer" is a huge problem (my brother had childhood leukemia at 9 months until he was about 6 years old), and its effects on the family cannot be understated. Unfortunately, we've only begun to scratch the surface towards a cure for very few of the 200 types of cancer out there.

That being the case, we still can't rule out the possibility of general-purpose treatment methods.
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