Ask HN: Why aren't people solving real problems?
8 comments
Your tone is antagonistic, and so I'll answer in kind.
"We need radically better ways to think, organize, and communicate" is a load of unsubstantiated nonsense. We can contact, point-to-point, basically anyone in the developed world on a whim. We can do so with text, audio, and/or video. The communication problem is pretty well solved--it's just not distributed yet, and even then there is a question of whether it should be.
Your sequence? Talking, writing, printing, radio, computers, internet? We've been slowly backsliding on all of that as people become lazier and lazier with their communications (see twitter/vine), and more eager in their use of filter bubbles. Hell, it's getting to the point where even that basic "talking" thing is hard...just watch how many people at a restaurant spend their time with their face stuck in their phones. There's your communication. There's your progress.
This "is anyone ambitious anymore?" line is just complete self-indulgent bullshit. People are building drones, people are building rockets, people are curing cancer, people are trying (with mixed results, sigh) to fix healthcare, and all sorts of things. Just because those people aren't working on your pet little issue doesn't mean you should demean their work.
Seriously, get over yourself.
"We need radically better ways to think, organize, and communicate" is a load of unsubstantiated nonsense. We can contact, point-to-point, basically anyone in the developed world on a whim. We can do so with text, audio, and/or video. The communication problem is pretty well solved--it's just not distributed yet, and even then there is a question of whether it should be.
Your sequence? Talking, writing, printing, radio, computers, internet? We've been slowly backsliding on all of that as people become lazier and lazier with their communications (see twitter/vine), and more eager in their use of filter bubbles. Hell, it's getting to the point where even that basic "talking" thing is hard...just watch how many people at a restaurant spend their time with their face stuck in their phones. There's your communication. There's your progress.
This "is anyone ambitious anymore?" line is just complete self-indulgent bullshit. People are building drones, people are building rockets, people are curing cancer, people are trying (with mixed results, sigh) to fix healthcare, and all sorts of things. Just because those people aren't working on your pet little issue doesn't mean you should demean their work.
Seriously, get over yourself.
I worry more communication could be a problem until we can deal emotionally and compassionately with vastly greater interdependence — right now I think it is causing significant compassion fatigue and fear:
"Instead of tending towards a vast Alexandrian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as an infantile piece of science fiction. And as our sense have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside. So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence." - Marshall McLuhan
I think that the key to the next step in communication would have to be drastically more transhuman than the internet — telepathy will be rather trival compared to multithreaded cyborg thinking: first, there will be the ability to learn nigh instantly, using implants and interfaces, what once took real-time experience — this will destroy the education industry, "persuasion" as it is currently misconstrued, and hence the civilizing process as we know it as fast as the technology permeates; second, there will be thoughts never before possible — thoughts as shattered and reintegrated as a Kierkegaard's — passion and reason playing off each other, but both raised to new heights simultaneously. In the mind, medium and message are indistinguishable - thus telepathy requires more interesting minds to be of more interest.
"Instead of tending towards a vast Alexandrian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as an infantile piece of science fiction. And as our sense have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside. So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence." - Marshall McLuhan
I think that the key to the next step in communication would have to be drastically more transhuman than the internet — telepathy will be rather trival compared to multithreaded cyborg thinking: first, there will be the ability to learn nigh instantly, using implants and interfaces, what once took real-time experience — this will destroy the education industry, "persuasion" as it is currently misconstrued, and hence the civilizing process as we know it as fast as the technology permeates; second, there will be thoughts never before possible — thoughts as shattered and reintegrated as a Kierkegaard's — passion and reason playing off each other, but both raised to new heights simultaneously. In the mind, medium and message are indistinguishable - thus telepathy requires more interesting minds to be of more interest.
The point of starting a startup isn't to change the world, it's to make money. Being able to dedicate your life to anything other than money is a privilege only available to the truly rich.
Changing the world is just another sales pitch.
Changing the world is just another sales pitch.
You make it sound like they are mutually exclusive. Uber is just a taxi service. It'll just be great for their business if they can get self-driving cars to work so they're researching it.
http://fortune.com/2015/06/01/uber-carnegie-mellon
You want a world changing idea that can make lots of money. Look at Genetech from the 1970's: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genentech
There are dozens of other recent examples.
http://fortune.com/2015/06/01/uber-carnegie-mellon
You want a world changing idea that can make lots of money. Look at Genetech from the 1970's: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genentech
There are dozens of other recent examples.
You get a lot more people just trying to survive by selling fruit from a cart, and they'll never make it big enough to run speculative R&D. Don't look down on them just because they drag the "number of people changing the world" average down.
Most people don't even have enough energy to have original ideas because their dead end job is sucking them dry, and they can't quit and still afford to eat.
Most people don't even have enough energy to have original ideas because their dead end job is sucking them dry, and they can't quit and still afford to eat.
What are you talking about? No one came close to saying anything that you're implying. I said they don't have to be mutually exclusive and said there are dozens of recent examples. If you want to sell fruit or make YouTube videos, that's up to you. I'm not a hater. :-)
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/08/youtuber-pewdiepie-responds...
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/08/youtuber-pewdiepie-responds...
I was expecting: "The important things are to cure cancer and malaria." (They are very difficult targets, but if it makes you happy, polio and guinea worm are almost eradicated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_infectious_dise... .)
I'd love to work on that kinda thing, but I still gotta eat!
It's a real problem that people in this world still drink raw sewage.
It's a real problem that people starve to death in the midst of modern cities, surrounded by restaurants, in the street like dogs.
It's a real problem that people hack one another into pieces with machetes in the name of Stone Age fairy tales.
It's a real problem that there are islands of garbage floating around in the ocean the size of American states.
It's a real problem that people die of dementia, cancer, heart disease, and aging.
Ad Infinitum.
The world is full of real problems, of which your passion is one. Brilliant, driven people are trying to solve them. Look beyond your nose and you can find the whole field of human endeavor that lies beyond startup culture, and problems that are far, far more fundamental than "what comes after the internet." And I guarantee you someone is trying to solve that as well.
The problem is not everyone else, the problem is you. Your arrogance, your lack of insight, your lack of ambition. If you have yet to meet anyone you consider credible to tackle these issues, then your world is too small. Go do something about that.
It's a real problem that people starve to death in the midst of modern cities, surrounded by restaurants, in the street like dogs.
It's a real problem that people hack one another into pieces with machetes in the name of Stone Age fairy tales.
It's a real problem that there are islands of garbage floating around in the ocean the size of American states.
It's a real problem that people die of dementia, cancer, heart disease, and aging.
Ad Infinitum.
The world is full of real problems, of which your passion is one. Brilliant, driven people are trying to solve them. Look beyond your nose and you can find the whole field of human endeavor that lies beyond startup culture, and problems that are far, far more fundamental than "what comes after the internet." And I guarantee you someone is trying to solve that as well.
The problem is not everyone else, the problem is you. Your arrogance, your lack of insight, your lack of ambition. If you have yet to meet anyone you consider credible to tackle these issues, then your world is too small. Go do something about that.
Be the change.
Talking, writing, printing, radio, computers, the internet. These things are important. Why would any capable human not be dedicating their life to get this sequence further?
I have grown to be obsessed with communication (as the sequence of inventions above might indicate), and that's the one thing I'm dedicated to improve. We need radically better ways to think, organize and communicate. I've been searching for years, and I've yet to find anyone who's both ambitious and serious about these issues. It is extremely clear that the vast majority of people waste an incredible amount of energy solving unimportant problems, and that's incredibly frustrating.
Is anyone ambitious anymore? Why aren't real problems being solved?