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The first job is buy-in. When a society collectively chooses to solve some difficult problem, it gets solved, no matter how hard it is. Apollo program or homele

The first job is buy-in. When a society collectively chooses to solve some difficult problem, it gets solved, no matter how hard it is. Apollo program or homelessness.

orzig 5y ago
Or cancer! Oh oops
- jeffrallen 5y ago
  5-year survival rates have improved — for some cancers — in adolescents and young adults https://sph.unc.edu/sph-news/5-year-survival-rates-have-improved-for-some-cancers-in-adolescents-and-young-adults/ https://sph.unc.edu/sph-news/5-year-survival-rates-have-impr...
- ben_w 5y ago
  Cancer is many things rather than one, and some of those things have been solved.
  - FeepingCreature 5y ago
    So's homelessness.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  Cancer is a hugely complex problem. It is not a single attack vector like a virus. But we are still making great progress on it, just think that the best vaccines for Covid came as fruit of cancer research.
bradleyjg 5y ago
It depends on the kind of problem. An engineering challenge, even a really difficult one, is something that can be attacked with effort. Changing human beings is far far more difficult. Perhaps impossible on timescales less than generations. We’ve had societies that really wanted to stop people from using mind altering substances, agree with that goal or not it was something that multiple societies choose to try to solve and mostly they failed. The ones that partly succeeded were the ones that used heinously brutal methods.
tedunangst 5y ago
When was the last time somebody stepped on the moon? If that's success criteria, we just need to stick all the homeless in a hotel for a night, declare the problem solved, then kick them out in the morning.
patrec 5y ago
Back in reality, the majority of society was opposed to the Apollo program (even after the successful landing support was only lukewarm) and I have no difficulty thinking of difficult problems with enormous societal buy-in and vast funding that proved intractable. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moondoggle-the-forgotten-opposition-to-the-apollo-program/262254/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moond...
umvi 5y ago
I don't buy it. Apollo almost failed many times by administrative churn and lack of public support. Apollo was successful because of passionate engineers working on the problem not by public support
- lmilcin 5y ago
  The engineers did not pay for the project or their salaries. And certainly they weren't working for free or even under market rate.
  - umvi 5y ago
    The salaried engineers worked way more hours than a 9-5 and were not paid overtime AFAIK
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      Which is almost every company I have worked for for the past 20 years. Listen, these guys were very good, dedicated engineers. But to say they did this without public support is stupid, because they were paid for from public money in the first place. The public support comes in many ways. Just because some people didn't like the idea doesn't mean there was no public support. The ultimate public support is the government, which is officials elected by... wait for it... THE PUBLIC.
      - umvi 5y ago
        > The ultimate public support is the government, which is officials elected by... wait for it... THE PUBLIC. Well if that's your definition of "public support", Apollo just barely had enough to succeed. The Lyndon B. Johnson Administration that came after JFK was actively defunding Apollo and trying to dismantle the space program. Back to my original point, society didn't "collectively decide" to make moon landings happen. JFK made a few bold claims to boost his public image against Russia and his successors tried to dismantle said space program. If it weren't for the tenacious engineers and leaders at NASA, moon landings would not have happened. In other words, if the engineers/leaders at NASA were not passionate enough, LBJ would have succeeded at dismantling Apollo.

The first job is buy-in. When a society collectively chooses to solve some difficult problem, it gets solved, no matter how hard it is. Apollo program or homelessness.

orzig 5y ago

Or cancer! Oh oops

jeffrallen 5y ago
5-year survival rates have improved — for some cancers — in adolescents and young adults https://sph.unc.edu/sph-news/5-year-survival-rates-have-improved-for-some-cancers-in-adolescents-and-young-adults/ https://sph.unc.edu/sph-news/5-year-survival-rates-have-impr...
ben_w 5y ago
Cancer is many things rather than one, and some of those things have been solved.
- FeepingCreature 5y ago
  So's homelessness.
lmilcin 5y ago
Cancer is a hugely complex problem. It is not a single attack vector like a virus. But we are still making great progress on it, just think that the best vaccines for Covid came as fruit of cancer research.

bradleyjg 5y ago

It depends on the kind of problem. An engineering challenge, even a really difficult one, is something that can be attacked with effort. Changing human beings is far far more difficult. Perhaps impossible on timescales less than generations. We’ve had societies that really wanted to stop people from using mind altering substances, agree with that goal or not it was something that multiple societies choose to try to solve and mostly they failed. The ones that partly succeeded were the ones that used heinously brutal methods.

tedunangst 5y ago

When was the last time somebody stepped on the moon? If that's success criteria, we just need to stick all the homeless in a hotel for a night, declare the problem solved, then kick them out in the morning.

patrec 5y ago

Back in reality, the majority of society was opposed to the Apollo program (even after the successful landing support was only lukewarm) and I have no difficulty thinking of difficult problems with enormous societal buy-in and vast funding that proved intractable. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moondoggle-the-forgotten-opposition-to-the-apollo-program/262254/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moond...

umvi 5y ago

I don't buy it. Apollo almost failed many times by administrative churn and lack of public support. Apollo was successful because of passionate engineers working on the problem not by public support

lmilcin 5y ago
The engineers did not pay for the project or their salaries. And certainly they weren't working for free or even under market rate.
- umvi 5y ago
  The salaried engineers worked way more hours than a 9-5 and were not paid overtime AFAIK
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    Which is almost every company I have worked for for the past 20 years. Listen, these guys were very good, dedicated engineers. But to say they did this without public support is stupid, because they were paid for from public money in the first place. The public support comes in many ways. Just because some people didn't like the idea doesn't mean there was no public support. The ultimate public support is the government, which is officials elected by... wait for it... THE PUBLIC.
    - umvi 5y ago
      > The ultimate public support is the government, which is officials elected by... wait for it... THE PUBLIC. Well if that's your definition of "public support", Apollo just barely had enough to succeed. The Lyndon B. Johnson Administration that came after JFK was actively defunding Apollo and trying to dismantle the space program. Back to my original point, society didn't "collectively decide" to make moon landings happen. JFK made a few bold claims to boost his public image against Russia and his successors tried to dismantle said space program. If it weren't for the tenacious engineers and leaders at NASA, moon landings would not have happened. In other words, if the engineers/leaders at NASA were not passionate enough, LBJ would have succeeded at dismantling Apollo.