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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?

#111

Post by mercer »

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.

I'd go further and slightly more abstract by focusing on countering loneliness and/or on fostering community. I strongly suspect that technological and societal developments have increased loneliness in a worrying degree. At least based on my research and personal experience homelessness is very often a 'symptom' of loneliness, or lack of a tribe/community. I also believe that mental health or lack thereof is, sadly, often a symptom of waning communal life. Even more specifically, high-functioning autism might well be, in part, a symptom of a less 'cohesive' society.

Theory aside, I think our work as programmers has significantly changed the way society communicates and interacts. For better and worse. Would it not make sense that we continue this work, but more towards solving the issues we perceive, whether self-created or not?

I propose programmers spend more time talking to friends about challenges in their life that might be 'programmed' away, and less time on ads, tracking, manager checklist #321, or anything fundamentally centered around Business, because, let's be fair, on the whole, at least in 'the west', we as programmers have it incredibly good, so we can afford to be ideological.

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

#112

Post by sjg007 »

vehementi wrote: post #106
sjg007 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it will happen that way. The courts already ruled in roe vs wade and yet people still go back to first principles to argue.

People can disagree with Roe v Wade. There's still a foundation, that I think you're not noticing - we as a culture have made progress on it, the arguments are not the same as they would have been 100 years ago. More dramatically, the arguments about slavery are not the same, we are past it.

There’s a legal foundation but it’s still an active political argument as is teen birth control. We have made progress but I wouldn’t say anything is guaranteed.

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

#113

Post by stcredzero »

tmccrmck wrote: post #109
david927 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not an issue of visibility. European countries tend to spend less of their money on military and more on social programs so that it's both harder to become homeless in the first place and, if it happens, there are programs to help you.

They do. But I would like to see homeless populations as a percentage of the whole population before making a judgement. I would still expect the US to have a larger percentage but not that much higher. I was in Denmark/Germany/Netherlands/France/Greece this year and saw a good amount of homeless -- though they've been dealing with a migrant crisis unlike the U.S. has experienced. Many commenters here are extrapolati…

though they've been dealing with a migrant crisis unlike the U.S. has experienced.

There are many parallels between the current migration crisis and the Irish potato famine, though I'm not sure how they compare in scale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHr9GRgRw_M

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

#114

Post by mariushn »

bobosha wrote: post #93

Reinvent information access ("search") for the mobile world. The current paradigm google mini-me model, or even glorified chatbots like siri, are nowhere near where they should be. This necessitates a complete rethink of the search browse paradigm.

>The current paradigm google mini-me model, or even glorified chatbots like siri, are nowhere near where they should be

What's your vision on better information access?

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

#115

Post by jbg_ »

david927 wrote: post #30
jbg_ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only assume you haven't spent a lot of time in the EU... Switzerland (which is not in the EU) is the only European country I've been to that does not have a very visible population of homeless people.

20 years in Europe. I've never never never never tripped over crazy homeless. It's all I do in Berkeley and SF. It's not a small, nuanced difference but literally night and day. Have you really seen tents downtown in any city in Europe? I'm American but most Europeans I know struggle with living in the Bay Area because it's such a shock for them.

The parent of my comment was claiming that it is a solved problem everywhere outside of the US. My claim is simply that it is far from solved, and if someone thinks homelessness is "solved" in the EU, I can only assume they haven't been there.

You're saying it's worse in SF/Berkeley, and no doubt it is. But it's not "solved" in the EU.

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

#116

Post by stcredzero »

ScottBurson wrote: post #71
stcredzero wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the wrong way to frame that problem. Formal methods generally have a mindshare problem that underlies their cost problems. Make formal methods more accessible to the average programmer.

It's not clear to me that you're disagreeing. "Cheaper and easier to use" and "more accessible" could be the same thing.

In the end, it is. But maybe not on a micro level, which keeps environment designers from doing the right thing to get more mindshare.

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

#117

Post by uoaei »

dv_dt wrote: post #86

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 mix…

Put ownership of productive goods and services in the hands of those who are actually creating those goods/performing those services. This would empower each person to push the investment of capital to what matters most to them--namely, themselves. When the consensus is formed, a lot more money will be devoted to maximizing human capital and a lot less toward the overhead (massive paychecks for a few, crazy cycles of bureaucracy) that are the hallmarks of today's economic goings-on.

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

#118

Post by david927 »

jbg_ wrote: post #115
david927 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 years in Europe. I've never never never never tripped over crazy homeless. It's all I do in Berkeley and SF. It's not a small, nuanced difference but literally night and day. Have you really seen tents downtown in any city in Europe? I'm American but most Europeans I know struggle with living in the Bay Area because it's such a shock for them.

The parent of my comment was claiming that it is a solved problem everywhere outside of the US. My claim is simply that it is far from solved, and if someone thinks homelessness is "solved" in the EU, I can only assume they haven't been there. You're saying it's worse in SF/Berkeley, and no doubt it is. But it's not "solved" in the EU.

That was me. I said, "Homelessness induced by mental health challenges" was solved in every other OECD country -- and it's true. In those countries there are programs to make sure people with significant mental health issues, especially those which would lead to homelessness, are placed in special care.

I've spent 20 years living in various countries in Europe. I stand by my statement.

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