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These are not frighteningly ambitious. How about: — A platform for CRISPR-assisted human genome editing. I, for one, welcome improving our inefficient, disease

These are not frighteningly ambitious. How about: — A platform for CRISPR-assisted human genome editing. I, for one, welcome improving our inefficient, disease-ridden, short-lived bodies. — A morality API. Various human societies have different moral concerns and taboos. Can we expose some tweaks and tools to navigate this as continuous spectra? — Post-government transitional structures. Hierarchical power arrangements and traditional governments are doomed anyway; let's use network science to simulate and explore how things might work in the future. And I still want my thermonuclear power generation. If electricity is to finally totally replace combustion, we need it cheaper. MUCH cheaper.

erikpukinskis 9y ago
This is actually a really good list. The "big problems" being solved in tech right now are mostly just people fiddling around with tooling and business models. I wish more of us would dig into these kinds of opportunities... things with a profound possibility to change civilization for the better. I think there's a lot of skepticism about that kind of endeavor, because there are so many 20 year olds who think they are going to "change the world" without either understanding the world, or really having the deep seated motivation required to see such a project through hell. But the fact that the area is blanketed in charlatans doesn't mean the underlying concept—looking deep into our future and try to accelerate big difficult changes—is flawed. It's just the people best suited to do it—with the skepticism, experience, and skin in the game—tend to write it off as a silly idea. Maybe they need to do more drugs. I'm actively working on #2 and #3, which I think are probably the same problem in different forms, but I think my efforts in the area would be well characterized as "hampered by mental illness". Not to say I won't get there, but maybe you have to be a little crazy to try.

erikpukinskis 9y ago

This is actually a really good list. The "big problems" being solved in tech right now are mostly just people fiddling around with tooling and business models. I wish more of us would dig into these kinds of opportunities... things with a profound possibility to change civilization for the better. I think there's a lot of skepticism about that kind of endeavor, because there are so many 20 year olds who think they are going to "change the world" without either understanding the world, or really having the deep seated motivation required to see such a project through hell. But the fact that the area is blanketed in charlatans doesn't mean the underlying concept—looking deep into our future and try to accelerate big difficult changes—is flawed. It's just the people best suited to do it—with the skepticism, experience, and skin in the game—tend to write it off as a silly idea. Maybe they need to do more drugs. I'm actively working on #2 and #3, which I think are probably the same problem in different forms, but I think my efforts in the area would be well characterized as "hampered by mental illness". Not to say I won't get there, but maybe you have to be a little crazy to try.