Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

Personally, I believe the most important problems are mostly relationship problems in other words politics. The solutions there are simple but not easy. For example, world peace is simple: Everybody just stop killing each other. However, getting everybody to agree on that is ridiculously hard.

My general thoughts are:

1. I have a certain set of skills and strengths that I can contribute. I should use them instead of doing stuff I'm not good at because that should optimize the global productivity.

2. I should work on things where return of investment is best. So do not work on things where a return is unlikely, e.g. intergalactic travel or fixing email, or where the return is not worth it, e.g. cheaper ice cream or a flappy bird clone.

3. Keep track of big problems where the time/opportunity has not come yet. This is inspired by Hammings talk on research. It also applies to lots of free software though. For example, if Twitter would shut down tomorrow, then the Fediverse would be there to catch the fallout. So it is of some importance to work on open alternatives to popular services. The iPhones success was mostly waiting for the right time, when mobile Internet, mobile computing, and app-store market structure all were ready enough.

Unfortunately, in terms of my hobbies I'm still mostly suffering from the Paradox of Choice. Too many options to make a decision, so I don't do anything. Let check Hacker News again...

Work on what you enjoy and/or can make you a living.

You are not here to solve some big world problem that you don't particularly care for (but think you "have to" care).

In fact, why even think that your contribution on that sector (healthcare) would be that big or required, seeing that you don't even know if you want to work on that area?

Any potential client/startup that comes to me asking for help with their e-commerce business, unless it's something truly unique, I always say, get a Shopify/Squarespace account first don't waste time on designing for something that has so many established design patterns already.

Whereas if someone comes to me for help with robotics, crypto, trading, AI, complex services in healthcare etc, that's where I want to help.

I have recently further decided to focus on industries with jobs aren't desk related (i.e. where you don't sit in front of a computer).

These make up 80% of the just that exist out there yet only get around 1% of the actual investments from ex. Sillicon Vally investors. So our venture studio is now also focusing on that which is a very interesting space and kind of allow me to come full-circle with the kind of jobs my parents had (cleaning lady and plumber).

The "problems" that I solve, or try to solve, come mostly from the following sources: academic colleagues asking questions, natural questions that arise during math seminars, finding the optimal way to reach some goal specified by one of my bosses, finding ways to fix or understand ad hock methods invented by my coworkers, natural questions that occur to me while reading astronomy, math, AI, or economics articles, and lastly, answering mathematical or AI questions about games just because I love games and game theory.

Sometimes problems or questions will remain in my head for years before being solved. Many are never solved, but they are fun to think about.

It is very rare that one of my solutions affects more than 100 people.

Now, what can money buy? Only things on the physical level, that is, _sense experiences_. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches. That's it. Money can't buy love or knowledge. Maybe a library, but not knowledge :)

So even in a naive examination money has limited uses which apply at the physical/material level. It's useful to note that happiness/wellbeing is largely a state of mind and thus you might find someone who is equally or more happy than you despite not having the generator. How is this possible?

The point is that as inherent motivation money just isn't good. People who are incentivised inevitably want greater and greater compensation or they burn out. In contrast, those fired up by a higher ideal (which, of course, includes the wellbeing of the family) are motivated by an initiative to work which is not dependent upon something external.

So, make your money, and install that generator. But don't make the mistake of thinking your wellbeing/happiness is dependent upon XYZ externally.