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Ask YC/HN: What's a problem you'd like to see someone solve?

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Re: Ask YC/HN: What's a problem you'd like to see someone solve?

#91

Post by ddemchuk »

oakmac wrote: post #79
ddemchuk wrote: post #56

Universal language...there's no reason why people speak different languages anymore, they only create barriers now. In our newly technologically connected world, our languages we speak should not be getting in our way anymore...

Eliminating languages would be devastating to culture. How about a software solution for translation that works perfectly?

Some would say that the amount of internationalization of the world has also devastated most cultures. Different dialects emerged because of regional isolation amongst different groups throughout times of historical growth. As the world is no longer isolated from each other any more, the need to persist those independent languages has lessened to the point where distinctly different dialects (alliteration?) only hamper communication.

While a tool to instantly translate a conversation while two people speak would be amazing, it would have the same effect as having a universal language in my opinion.

Re: Ask YC/HN: What's a problem you'd like to see someone solve?

#93

Post by Tichy »

CaptainMorgan wrote: post #35

The rising cost of education. I've yet to receive a response from my institution or others that I've considered, of why it is they keep raising their fees, tuitions, etc.., especially in a recessed economy. It seems to me to be counterproductive - folks are losing their jobs, therefore losing their finances, and now possibly finding out that they need more training or they need to enter a new field, thus requiring ed…

Wikipedia

Re: Ask YC/HN: What's a problem you'd like to see someone solve?

#98

Post by Tichy »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #53
tlrobinson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self replicating living beings? Wouldn't that cover just about all living beings?

This is another of those things that amuse me: People who think of tiny self-replicating nanomachines as a vision of the future, rather than as a reflection upon our mutual family history. I, for one, am pretty sure that I'm a colony of several trillion self-replicating cells, whose parts are self-replicating nanomachines. And that is an amazing realization. But not especially futuristic.

I also thought recently that grey goo is a very unlikely scenario. If there were a new kind of self-replicating naonmachines, they would likely also be subject to evolution and diversify into all sorts of colorful things, just like biological cells.

Re: Ask YC/HN: What's a problem you'd like to see someone solve?

#99

Post by lionhearted »

oakmac wrote: post #82
vaksel wrote: post #55

Longer lifetime...200-300 years. There is just too much to do and time flies way too fast. One minute you are a 20 year old college student, the next minute you are 40 years old, running out the clock.

Why only 200-300 years? Either go for the gold (live forever) or accept your mortality.

I did some research into living forever at one point. Basically, three things kill us: Disease, old age, and trauma.

Disease seems beatable. Reversing old age is going to be trickier, especially as things we don't expect to fail start failing after we prolong our vitals for longer. But these both should be doable.

The real killer is trauma. I scubadive. Given forever, eventually I'm going to something stupid underwater and that'd be the end of me.

The 200-300 years seems like a good place to start. It'd involve preventing or treating fatal diseases and finding ways to keep especially your vital organs running. I started spending more time in the gym and eating a bit better after my research.

Re: Ask YC/HN: What's a problem you'd like to see someone solve?

#100

Post by cx01 »

tokenadult wrote: post #41
mrtron wrote: post #21

I got flamed for suggesting this recently, but I'd like to see it: Equal wages/prices for all regardless of geography, brought on by a single world currency and the internet? That would solve world hunger (which is a money issue, not supply issue). edit: Awesome. It's getting downvoted here too? What the hell is wrong with the concept? edit 2: Oh I was completely blind to the obvious here...I mean equal wages in term…

What's your recommendation for something to read about economics, a question I asked HN readers http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=415683 with fewer answers than I expected from this erudite group.

I'd recommend you to read up on the Austrian School of Economics. A rather easy introduction is this: http://mises.org/books/econforrealpeople.pdf More advanced: http://mises.org/rothbard/mes.asp and http://mises.org/Books/HumanActionScholars.pdf
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