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Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

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Re: Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

#81

Post by Balgair »

vehementi wrote: post #6

When a scientist wants to make progress in some field, the scientist first educates herself on the state of the art, and then does novel research that pushes the frontier. When you have a discussion on facebook/reddit/HN about your favorite political issue, you just post your gut feeling and what you heard on TV instead of educating yourself on the issue, learning what the foremost experts are currently debating and…

This is a great idea, as it is a 'meta' idea, in that it is about making the new ideas faster and better. However, I think that what is proposed is a moderation issue. GAIs seem to be a bit of a ways off still, so humans are still the ones that need to write these messages and determine what would be prompted to be shown. As such, I think that a (gasp) market economy may be a good way to get people to do this. Maybe you can get an 'expert' to be paid to write these messages and as payment, they get some percentage of "ModCoins" that are mined in the background. I know that's not very much, right now, but who knows.

Re: Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

#82

Post by gt_ »

vehementi wrote: post #6

When a scientist wants to make progress in some field, the scientist first educates herself on the state of the art, and then does novel research that pushes the frontier. When you have a discussion on facebook/reddit/HN about your favorite political issue, you just post your gut feeling and what you heard on TV instead of educating yourself on the issue, learning what the foremost experts are currently debating and…

I love where you're going. I would eagerly join a team working on this problem. If approached in a critical fashion, I do belive there could be a cohesive approach. There are numerous seemingly impassible problems and barriers, but this kind of thing is rarely done from a truly critical angle.

My thoughts here may lack some formbut one of the paradoxical issues I see are that a brand must be developed, but by way of a keen awareness of the problems of branding. The brand would have to be defended without alienation before market domination. But also, there is not a market for a convention such as knowledge to be automated. The competition is brands which automate opinion validation instead. I think your idea is already stepping ahead of this by automating away the process of deciding on sources.

The result would need to be something like automated research as it is done in a library.

Re: Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

#83

Post by marak830 »

david927 wrote: post #75
marak830 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia has the same issue. Unless you can argue Australia isn't a 1st world country.

Did you read the full comment? Australia, I'm guessing, is more similar to Idaho than California.

I commented before the edit, but even after the edit I don't agree. (As someone who volunteered assisting mentialy handicapped homeless for 3 years).

Re: Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

#84

Post by frightfulfalcon »

david927 wrote: post #8
mojomark wrote: post #4

Homelessness induced by mental health challenges. I know this isn't exactly what you were asking, but this is an area in which creating engineering solutions can go a long way. As suggested - think geographically local. Improvements in the way our society handles these issues, proven to work on a local scale, can be adapted and replicated globally.

That's solved in every industrialized country besides America. It's an issue of political will. I think it's a great thing to work on, and desperately needed in the US, but it's not a question of how to implement it but rather the political change to implement it. Edit: it's not even, strictly speaking, nation-wide. Idaho for example, does a great job on this. California had most of its mental health facilities shut…

I've tripped over plenty of spaced out homeless in Barcelona. Particularly in touristy/nightlife places like Port Olympic and La Rambla, but on the block of every hotel I've stayed in as well.

I haven't seen you mention what legislation and support Idaho has for the homeless that California doesn't. Are you saying Boise has more access to mental health facilities than SF?

My general sense is cities in Idaho, like a lot of places that aren't the Bay Area, prosecute the homeless until they move somewhere less visible but haven't improved their situation at all, can you enlighten me?

Re: Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

#85

Post by oDot »

marcc wrote: post #41
oDot wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DroneDeploy does that: https://www.dronedeploy.com/ One of the best hiring prcoesses I've experienced (didn't end up working there, though)

Can you describe why that hiring process was so good? What did they do that set it apart from most?

Mainly:

- It was transparent - They asked me very good, enjoyable, questions that relate to the actual job - It was very reasonably timed

Re: Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

#86

Post by dv_dt »

Economics. A problem that has come with increased inequality is that the allocation of capital has gotten further and further disconnected from people (the human capital) who have a more direct link to knowing or exploring ways of developing fundamental value generation. I suspect we are seeing this in metrics like decreasing productivity, decreasing new business generation - it seems like financial capital isn't mixing with human capital nearly as efficiently as we might hope. Is there a way to relink the two through an new or modified economic channel that dramatically facilitates this; and maybe even helps rebalance inequality by making invested human capital more consistently yield hands off dividends like invested financial capital.

Re: Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

#87

Post by s3nnyy »

david927 wrote: post #22
mojomark wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>That's solved in every industrialized country besides America. Whoa. That's an interesting unsubstantiated statistic. A quick (albeit unnecessary) Google search begs to differ: https://homelessworldcup.org/homelessness-statistics/

It's really not. First, I said industrialized . I know that homelessness is high in some poorer countries. I'm talking about the wealthy countries such as most EU countries. Switzerland, for example, doesn't remotely have this problem.

Switzerland is also not in the EU and is completely different from all the other countries. It's the only place in Europe where engineers can earn Bay Area salaries.

Re: Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

#88

Post by [deleted] »

s3nnyy wrote: post #87
david927 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not. First, I said industrialized . I know that homelessness is high in some poorer countries. I'm talking about the wealthy countries such as most EU countries. Switzerland, for example, doesn't remotely have this problem.

Switzerland is also not in the EU and is completely different from all the other countries. It's the only place in Europe where engineers can earn Bay Area salaries.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

#89

Post by david927 »

s3nnyy wrote: post #87
david927 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not. First, I said industrialized . I know that homelessness is high in some poorer countries. I'm talking about the wealthy countries such as most EU countries. Switzerland, for example, doesn't remotely have this problem.

Switzerland is also not in the EU and is completely different from all the other countries. It's the only place in Europe where engineers can earn Bay Area salaries.

You are a recruiter, and that's a recruitment link.

Re: Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

#90

Post by tedmiston »

PaulHoule wrote: post #57
tedmiston wrote: post #16

Making good financial advice and planning accessible to everyone, especially those who need it most.

It's not clear what that means. Frequently the "financial planning" drumbeat seems oriented towards doing what is good for Wall Street.

You're right, I think it's broad and there are several subproblems. For some people it might mean: opening their first savings account, teaching them to grow a safety net, introducing retirement accounts and their benefits, helping people understand tools like HSAs, helping people understand and take advantage of credit card rewards, coming up with approaches to pay down debt, understanding the repayment of student loans in fields that are special cases like education.
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