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Ask HN: What do we get when applying root cause analysis to humanity's problems?
What happens when we apply RCA to the (global) problems we encounter in the real world? Where do we arrive? Where do we run in circles?
- stray 11y agoThe love of money.
- Ginguin 11y agoWhile this feels like a right answer, I would say that you can go deeper when doing a real root cause analysis. The desire for money is rooted in a deeper problem. Money is just a means of exchange. What more money really gives you is access and opportunity. The more money you have, the more access you have to limited resources. We want more money because we don't have enough to own the things we want, do the things we want, control the things we want, etc. Money is a means for control and fulfillment, both of which are not universally available due to hard limits (we don't have unlimited resources) and relative intangibles (the structure of society). A real root cause analysis would go deeper than "The love of money" to why money is something to be loved.
- okket 11y ago42
- adam419 11y agoThe fact the global population is far too large
- jonah 11y agoGreed/Selfishness
- hutzlibu 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population More population, more pressure on all ressources, more conflicts. ... but, my solution would not be reducing numbers, or birth control, but more and better technology to get more land and ressources available. Also, rich people are usually not rich on childs, they can't afford to feed. So let's build technology, that makes everyone rich ...
- noobie 11y agoYou always end up with humanity's existence as the root of humanity's problems.
- BjoernKW 11y agoPolitics: Powerful parties manipulating others into thinking that the goals of those in power are beneficial to society as a whole.
- tmoullet 11y agoMy vote is somewhere between "mortality" or "fear of our own mortality". I'd like to think the humans to transform into a form of asceticism if the bottom layers of Maslow's hierarchy were no longer a daily/hourly issue and we knew absolutely that we had long enough to achieve the top layers of the pyramid. Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys
- andriesm 11y agoSociopathy (1 in 25 people are diagnosable as APD) and stupidity (low IQ but even more importantly - flawed reasoning patterns and weak thinking skills)
- JeffreyKaine 11y agoa headache.
- afarrell 11y agoGreed, but in the algorithmic sense. Groups of people in tragedies of the commons and its siblings. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ Is a very interesting illustration of it.
- joeclark77 11y agoPride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
- Rainymood 11y agoBalance, or rather the lack thereof.
- lgieron 11y agoEgo - i.e. the need to have high status in a group.
- id122015 11y agoSexual Dimorphism I think its best explained by Turd Flinging Monkey in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6LE250Y3XM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6LE250Y3XM