23 ms·

Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

• xerxesaa 3y ago
  We have an aging population and many places have a flat birthrate. We need to solve how to deal with this consequences. Who will care for these people? How will we deal with the consequences of flat population growth? How will we deal with the stock market's expectations of perpetual growth when the underlying population itself is not growing (and especially since productivity has also been relatively flat)?
  • ssss11 3y ago
    This aging topic is very important. Re: stock markets, economies need to shift from eternal $ growth to share holder wallets, to providing equitable outcomes for all people and the planet - that will be very interesting to watch, i can’t see it going well.
    • bequanna 3y ago
      > to providing equitable outcomes for all people and the planet The top 10% who hold essentially all the wealth in the world have very little interest in that goal.
      • ssss11 3y ago
        Yep 100% agree. Unfortunately
        • candiodari 3y ago
          Problem is, if you're being fair, the 90% bottom that will actually have to do the work, also don't want to care for elderly. A decent fraction would need to become nurses, and frankly, with less pay/worse conditions than they currently get. A small fraction will need to study a lot more so more treatments can be provided, which requires doctors and researchers. And we'll all have to do with less (much less) because this will cost a lot even disregarding wages.
    • dools 3y ago
      You might be interested in the work of Steven Hail and Gabrielle Bond. There's an online course they run through Torrens University that covers a lot of this stuff: https://www.torrens.edu.au/courses/business/economics https://www.torrens.edu.au/courses/business/economics
    • tomp 3y ago
      [flagged]
      • alexvoda 3y ago
        While communism does have it's flaws, i would argue it has in fact never been tried.
        • megalord 3y ago
          Communism has never been tried? Could you explain a little bit more? I don't know if you are joking or lacking knowledge. Or maybe I lack some knowledge you know about
          • lobf 3y ago
            It’s a “no true Scotsman” fallacy that communists trot out to defend their failed ideology.
            • alexvoda 3y ago
              I did not argue that communist regimes didn't fail. I even think that was inevitable. And I even think that it was inevitable that the communist ideal would be immediately abandoned by every single regime once they gain power. That doesn't change that none of the well known historical regimes under the communist brand ever came close to the communist ideals. The betrayal of their original ideals was decried by communists themselves very early on. My argument is actually that there are good reasons that humanity as it was 100 years ago and as it is now is incapable of achieving the communist ideal and therefore we need better philosophical theory on how to get closer to that ideal. I think the idea that revolution can bring about the communist ideal was naive. There are comments here about smaller scale communist social systems claimed to have worked I did not know about and about which I will read.
              • lobf 3y ago
                The important bit is that every communist country tried to implement communism and every single time it led to one-party authoritarian nightmares where actual thoughtcrime was illegal and brutally enforced. That indicates a fundamental problem with the ideology to me, and one that isn’t ever worth trying again.
    • defrost 3y ago
      Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered is a collection of essays published in 1973 by German-born British economist E. F. Schumacher. The title *Small Is Beautiful* came from a principle espoused by Schumacher's teacher Leopold Kohr (1909–1994) advancing small, appropriate technologies, policies, and polities as a superior alternative to the mainstream ethos of "bigger is better". Overlapping environmental, social, and economic forces such as the 1973 energy crisis and popularisation of the concept of globalisation helped bring Schumacher's *Small Is Beautiful* critiques of mainstream economics to a wider audience during the 1970s. In 1995 The Times Literary Supplement ranked *Small Is Beautiful* among the 100 most influential books published since World War II. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful
      • nine_k 3y ago
        This seems somehow unrelated. It's not about scale, it's about balance. You can run a small an beautiful country with zero economy growth and zero decline, all in a perfect balance, and 70% of population younger than 65. Everything works out. But when 50% of the population is older than 60, the picture changes a lot; the percentage of economically productive population is much lower, and the need to care for people who can't sustain themselves any more grows. Take a look at how Japan fares today.
        • pixl97 3y ago
          We'll we're going to have to learn how to deal with it. At the start of the 1900s the world was set for a population boom and overshoot. We went from families having 6-12 children to 2ish children in a few generations. This is going to lead to those 'boom' generations having a far older population and there is not really anything that can be done about this unless you want your population to continue growing forever.
        • defrost 3y ago
          Fair point, in hindsight it seems I may have thrown this book recommendation in under the wrong comment. It's relavant to this Ask HN question at large as we very much need to move away from blind pursuit of unlimited growth in population, resource consumption, waste byproducts, etc. and address the question of how to live well within our means. Aging population demographics is a challenge, but one that we must address and then move beyond to a move persistent and sustainable low term distribution. As for the current situation, I am 60, my father was born in 1935 and lives here in the same town as I do. He takes meals on wheels to the older folks who aren't all that mobile (yes, he's almost 88, walks 10km per day, and maintains a 15 km long section of a 1,000 km long walking trail) which is indicative of the entire community which has the highest median age in this country. There is scope to employ able older people to look after less able older people which gives provides purpose, companionship, and reduces the demand for younger pople in care roles, etc. This is not a full solution but it is a partial path forward.
    • atoav 3y ago
      Given limited resources exponential growth will always hit saturation. It is time we structure out economic systems in a way that aknowledge this reality.
  • yieldcrv 3y ago
    > How will we By adjusting which price to earnings multiple we want to tolerate, just like we always do Or take a bearish position if it happens to match your risk tolerance at the time The stock market will be fine, people will trade shares, who cares if the market price is greater or less than today’s
  • TheFreim 3y ago
    > We need to solve how to deal with this consequences. I'm hoping that we start to see an increase in pro-family policies. A couple rough ideas to look into would be decreasing taxation (or giving refunds/payments) based on how many children a productive family has, providing financial support so families can buy homes, and promoting wage increases so a single income can support a family to allow one to work and the other to focus on raising the children.
    • reducesuffering 3y ago
      > providing financial support so families can buy homes You mean building more homes. If there's X homes, and Y families get 10% subsidy, they're all still buying the same X homes for 10% more. (roughly)
      • TheFreim 3y ago
        Not mutually exclusive. More homes + making it easier for families specifically to get a home.
        • shortrounddev2 3y ago
          We should subsidize supply, not demand
    • carlosjobim 3y ago
      That is a down-right evil idea, in my opinion. It means those who cannot find partners to make families are further punished, making their chances to create families even lower. They're turned to a literal slave caste to provide for other people's families. Remove taxation on young and productive people instead if you want to help them create families.
      • TheFreim 3y ago
        > It means those who cannot find partners to make families are further punished, making their chances to create families even lower. Incentivization of family formation would push people to get married, it would not make family formation less likely. The entire point of incentivizing a behavior through providing benefits is to make it easier for people who partake in that behavior, therefore drawing people to it. > They're turned to a literal slave caste to provide for other people's families. I'm single, and due to various factors it's unlikely I'll be getting married in the immediate future. I'm one of the people who would be "punished" by my "down-right evil idea" but I still think it's good. Economic pressure would definitely make me more invested, not less, in getting married sooner. Calling this a creation of a "literal slave caste" is an extreme emotional exaggeration since I'm definitely not calling for myself to be enslaved by any meaningful usage of the term.
  • Denatured9654 3y ago
    aging population who accumulated a lot of wealth. so that'll take care
    • orlin_georgiev 3y ago
      Wealth is just paper and bits in a database if there is nobody to hire to take care of you in old age
• ssss11 3y ago
  Technology: (1) getting off “free” platforms aka adtech. (2) Software quality aka actually providing good software that is intuitive to use and does what people need.
  • abenga 3y ago
    So what do we do with the billions who can't pay? They should stay offline until they can? I know I can pay now, but when I was starting out, I couldn't
    • cwalv 3y ago
      Maybe just give an option to pay/go ad-free. It may be difficult, but it seems like there has to be a revenue neutral way to do this.
    • ssss11 3y ago
      The problem with free is the adtech surveillance system. “Can’t pay” is a sliding scale - without going into a detailed discussion it’s hard to say what a product is worth, but i get your point. There needs to be some cost to cover operations of the business.
    • carlosjobim 3y ago
      Do whatever you want for them. Make free content for them if you like. Get together with like minded and make free content and services. Are you on it?
      • abenga 3y ago
        I feel like the current situation where a lot of the content online is ad-supported, and people are free to install ad-blockers or move to publications that require payment already does this, no? I was wondering about OP's suggestion (that is very common around these parts from time to time) that everything online should be paid and the ad supported internet economy is the worst thing in the world.
• p1esk 3y ago
  How to survive as a human race when AI takes over the world?
• toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Climate change, environmental remediation, therapeutics solving for cancer and similar maladies.
  • toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Also biotech. https://youtu.be/9FppammO1zk https://youtu.be/9FppammO1zk
• iamjk 3y ago
  Privacy, longevity, nutrition science, trust, deep space exploration.
• Apocryphon 3y ago
  High interest rates
• balder1991 3y ago
  The animals and ecosystems wide scale extinction seems to be a major threat I think. It’s something people don’t seem to notice much as it isn’t in the news constantly, but 60% of wild life disappearing in the last 70 years seems like a disaster snowball that is growing fast. I think this is the threat that will be largely ignored, and because it is purposely ignored it will keep growing in the background until it takes us all down as a storm of natural disasters.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • slushh 3y ago
    Could preserving animals be turned into a market? If companies can own the genetic code of the animals they protect, as long as those animals are alive, will the companies create the necessary structures to protect their animals?
    • UncleEntity 3y ago
      You know they’ll turn the genetic code “ownership” into NFTs so some cryptobro can brag they own the Greater Borobudur Howling Monkey after they’re long gone…
• rlupi 3y ago
  The UN has identified 17 sustainable development goals (https://sdgs.un.org/goals https://sdgs.un.org/goals) and the AI for good Global Summit https://aiforgood.itu.int/ https://aiforgood.itu.int/ (which was held last week) focused on exactly that. If you check the recordings, some sessions were directly focused on connecting problem experts, data access, computing resources and people with skills or idea or passion. The opportunities span from students or researchers, up to what will take innovative companies or bigtech to solve, or government and international organizations. It was also the place were a lot of discussions about AI regulation took place. The discussions and the decisions that will follow from that meeting will shape the world to come IMHO.
  • nojvek 3y ago
    Neat. Although there seem a to be overlap in the goals. Do they have measurement in the goals over time?
    • willmeyers 3y ago
      I believe the World Bank keeps some metrics on tracking SDGs (sustainable development goals). Googling "world bank sdgs" yields results.
  • willmeyers 3y ago
    The SDGs are really the defining issues of this century that need to be solved. I think if a company truly wants to make the world a better place™ then they should start at looking at them.
• Teever 3y ago
  In vitro gametogenesis (IVG) and artificial wombs.
  • flir 3y ago
    I can definitely see an authoritarian regime "solving" population decline with that one, so I kinda hope we never get there.
• eimrine 3y ago
  A lot of a billionaires which: 1. Exist 2. Actively making us not noticing their existance by shitting us with some fake problems like gays, drugs, foreigners, terrorists, etc (different set of fake problems per country).
  • kfrzcode 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • haizhung 3y ago
      Your comment is very low on substance. Care to elaborate what kind of problems billionaires will solve, that are otherwise unsolvable? The number of billionaire is growing and growing, and so are the fundamental problems that might be leading the world to collapse. How many more billionaires would you reckon do we need?
    • eimrine 3y ago
      Perhaps my naїvety lies in the fact that I put this problem in the topic of the problems of the next decade, when in fact it seems to be the topic of the next century, where their competitor will be AI. But this can be solved very quickly if at least one country establishes a tax formula whereby the richer a person is, the more taxes will be paid on every dollar earned, without any exceptions for the richest. Ukraine might be that country if it ends its war not very destroyed. A definition of "problem" bond to some actor. Here is the definition from Google with my notices: a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome (for whom?) or harmful (for whom?) and needing (for whom?) to be dealt with and overcome. So, what kind of society/environment problems are they solving right now? Except of Bill Gates and pre-Twitter version of Elon Musk.
    • JohnFen 3y ago
      It seems doubtful. Extremely wealthy people have a very poor track record for solving societal problems, and a very good track record of perpetuating problems that lead to them increasing their power.
    • mynonameaccount 3y ago
• kabr 3y ago
  Plastic pollution
• cratermoon 3y ago
  Water and water rights.
  • rinka_singh 3y ago
    Water!!! With drying rivers, increasing pollution, potable water for humans, flora and fauna is becoming a key necessity. The other side of this increasing pollution - this dramatically reduces the amount of potable water available. THIS (m'thinks) is / will be a key reason for conflicts, for the continuation and accelleration of the ongoing extinction event... If we must survive, this is one problem that needs to be solved. There are others too: handling/processing/disposing pollution/garbage at scale and sustainable power generation but they are currently the next priority.
    • cratermoon 3y ago
      Texas and New Mexico have been in a fight over water from the Rio Grande for a decade[1]. Seven western states have been trying to fix the flawed Colorado River Compact[2]. That's just for the US. 1 https://www.hcn.org/articles/south-water-the-history-behind-the-new-mexico-texas-rio-grande-settlement https://www.hcn.org/articles/south-water-the-history-behind-... 2 https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/02/colorado-river-crisis-explained/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/02/colorado-rive...
• dools 3y ago
  Fundamentally we have only 1 problem worth solving: how to support 11bn people sustainably and equitably by 2050 (that's when the population peaks and levels out). you can do a Wardley map that shows the needs of those people, then you can move down the chain of needs, until you find something you're apt to solve. Personally I'm working on reducing eWaste by providing a global solution to carrying multiple mobile phones as many people do this for work.
• samantp 3y ago
  Universal basic services. Food, clothing, shelter, education, safety, healthcare.
• TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
  The biggest problem domain worth pursuing is figuring out fusion. If we can unlock what is effectively limitless power a lot of problems become far more tractable. Everything else is a distraction. We need cheaper and more available power. Every physicist and engineer in the world should probably try dedicating at least one or two month of their life to figuring out fusion. If humanity could pay a trillion dollars to instantly unlock fusion it would still be considered a bargain. And yet we don't treat research into that field as something with such a potentially massive impact.
  • leptoniscool 3y ago
    Is fusion really that great? Decades of research and billions of dollars later it's still not commercially feasible. Whereas solar power is cheaper than coal now. Also on the horizon is thorium reactors.
    • azan_ 3y ago
      The funding is really not that great, we are on the funding level described as "fusion never" (https://benjaminreinhardt.com/fusion-never/ https://benjaminreinhardt.com/fusion-never/)
    • PartiallyTyped 3y ago
      Fusion really is that great, but we could also use more efficient processes that recycle the byproducts of fusion.
  • mynonameaccount 3y ago
    "We need cheaper and more available power." Based on your requirements, this is already solved. Pull more oil out of the ground. Burn more trees. AND, throwing money at a problem will definitely solve fusion. Give people cheap energy and people will use it up. Just look at cryptomining. Then you are back to needing more energy. People will do just fine with expensive energy. They will adapt.
    • erik_seaberg 3y ago
• Toast_ 3y ago
  Reducing propaganda and breaking-up banking.
• ferociouskite56 3y ago
  Xanax/benzos are the most effective psych medicine, deserve to be over the counter, but can be fatally overdosed. All mental drugs and others such as chemotherapy need to be precisely targeted at limited part of an organ. 2030 4 high-NA EUV fabs will have 1.4 nano RiscV chips; rollable microLED; solid state battery. That's still not paper thin all day phones. 1 passenger, only autopilot drones should transport snakebite victims in dangerous countries.
  • leksak 3y ago
    In my experience benzos are effective in the same sense alcohol can be. They don't really solve anything, not to mention are highly addicting. I'm sincerely doubtful that being able to target their impact more tomorrow the brain alone makes a reasonable difference. Getting at the mental health crisis might take a multipronged approach but I'm not sure this is an essential prong but I'm open to arguments to the contrary.
    • jacknews 3y ago
      They also have a debilitating effect on IQ and coherence (just temporary I believe), which is maybe in evidence here.
  • pg_bot 3y ago
    There's absolutely no reason for benzos to be over the counter. They're extremely addictive, can have really bad side effects and contraindications, and can be fatal during withdrawal. You should be under the supervision of a physician if you're taking them.
  • atmosx 3y ago
    No. These are harmful drugs if not taken with care. In the long run they can very easily have the opposite effect, like cause or accelerate depression.
  • samuellevy 3y ago
    How big of a problem are "snake bite victims"? I live in Australia, one of those countries that people would class as "dangerous" with regards to snakes, and... There's only been about 40 deaths in the past 20 years... It's just a really strange thing to ping as a "big problem to solve", and such a bizarrely expensive solution to the problem, too. I think that a much better solution would be improving development and access to antivenin
• rajanaccros 3y ago
  Reports released by IPCC and other organizations [0] indicate that we have 15 years to take drastic action on the environment. This tracks with the extremely accurate prediction from The Limits to Growth [1] published in 1972. If we do not take action on climate _now_ then _nothing_ is going to matter. We will enter into an irreversible feedback loop that causes human extinction, yet it won't be apparent until it is literally on the doorstep for people to realize. If you are not quitting your job and working to advance the existential threat of climate change and the main driver of the catastrophe (capitalism and perpetual growth) then you are wasting your (and your children's) time. An excellent book on what needs to be done is Less is More by Jason Hickel [2]. This is the only problem that matters since literally existence depends on solving it. The time for deep concern is over. Action is needed and it is needed now. Education, degrowth, reuse, technology. So put everything else aside or you are laboring (and living) for nothing. [0]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01157-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01157-x [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth [2]: https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more
  • leksak 3y ago
    Did you quit your job? And how are you working on climate change now? > If you are not quitting your job and working to advance the existential threat of climate change and the main driver of the catastrophe (capitalism and perpetual growth) then you are wasting your (and your children's) time. Or did you decide to waste your time (and possibly the time of your children?)
    • rajanaccros 3y ago
      Yes. I did quit my job and am looking for climate careers actively through climatebase.org and climacareers.com (not associate with either but where I have been searching). I have transitioned to veganism, raise the AC of my house to a very high level to where I am spending $7 per week, bought a bike to commute around the city, have stopped buying clothes and am now buying only through thrift stores, reading (and trying to educate) everyone I can on this subject.
• dakotasmith 3y ago
  I’ve got a second grader and myself & other parents are wondering how useful a public school education will be in 10 years when they are graduating
  • culopatin 3y ago
    It never was useful, people differentiate based on the choices they make outside of school and the people they meet. Public education is there to level out the childhood trauma and normalize things. It’s a big sander that levels down.
    • palata 3y ago
      It is not my experience at all, but I suppose you implicitly mean "in the US"?
• john_max_1 3y ago
  The world population is collapsing at a rapid pace. Our economic growth is based on a growing productive population. Our economic prosperity is based on a growing productive population. Different parts of the world are dealing with population collapse. Look at Japan, a xenophobic country facing population collapse. The total GDP has remain stagnant over the past 20 years. Look at UAE, a country facing population collapse and acknowledging reality by handing our long-term residency permits to affulent immigrants, mostly Indian Hindus. They are even building the first Hindu temple in Islamic middle-east in Dubai! Look at Africa, where the population growth combined with sectarian warfare is making for a troublesome living - https://pudding.cool/2018/07/airports/ https://pudding.cool/2018/07/airports/ South Africa is even regresssing. Rich businessman of Asian Indian origin who have lived for generations are already heading for UK/Canada. And with them tax base would collapse like Uganda (90% tax revenue came from Asian Indians in Uganda in 1972 - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36132151 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36132151). Look at USA/Canada/Australia, all of them have low birth rate but compensate by being genuinely immigration friendly. They will grow while sucking even more productive population out of rest of the world. The Europe would keep importing cheap labour (by choice) and welfare-loving immigrants from middle-east & Africa (by virtue of proximity). And they would transform Europe, how they tranformed Lebanon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WubIe3c5NGc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WubIe3c5NGc, further imagine how the voting blocks would look like when whites are rich & old while non-whites are poor & young. Why would they not demand higher taxation and lower welfare policies? China would have same fate as Japan. Xenophobia with a collapsing population. China would appear a lot of more timid. 12,000 years ago, when sea levels rose, Tasmania lost connection to mainland Australia, and this lead to decline of knowledge and tools over time. We might see the same in our world. So, I believe population collapse is a huge problem.
  • defrost 3y ago
    World population is still increasing. It's climbed from 2.6 billion in 1950 to 7.8 billion in 2020. If world poulation halved we'd still be at 1975 population levels .. a time when the world functioned. > Our economic prosperity is based on a growing productive population. We live on a finite planet with limited resources, the notion of unlimited growth being essential for continued status quo is flawed thinking. Our greatest challenge as a species on this planet is to learn how to live well within our means.
• gravypod 3y ago
  Some things I'd love to work on if I could make it work. 1. Food: Current farming practices emit a lot of CO2, hurts local ecosystems (nitrogen runoff), and consumes a lot of water/fertilizer. Currently proven methods could fix many of these problems. 2. Housing: Bringing modern technology to the construction of homes/apartments could dramatically lower costs. Kit homes are an example where only focusing on the tech and not the zoning/social issues doesn't improve the issues. I think realistically we could build a lot of high efficient, safe (much safer than codes require), and comfortable housing and drive down rental prices substantially while turning a huge profit (if you can sort out zoning). 3. Programming: Working in a large monorepo is amazing. Many people who work at a big tech company which has one will tell you about the amazing stuff you can do in this environment. Open source does not have one and most developers only ever see the multi-repo approach to software development. Building a parallel SWE-tooling stack which was "the monorepo of $FAANG but open source" would allow OSS devs to collaborate and build really cool things. 4. Compute: Non-profit compute infra for common good. Right now everyone is focused on decentralized apps and it's possible these are just too complicated for end users (I certainly am confused but I don't know if I'm just too old). If there was a not-profit-focused compute infra which gave out free compute/bandwidth/storage to open source public commons software that might be a good thing.
  • erik_seaberg 3y ago
    Monorepos put us in the blast radius of a lot of premature commits we could have avoided. I'd rather have a git submodule UI that isn't meant for aliens to operate, and use known-good dependencies.
• slushh 3y ago
  A website or app that turns exactly this question into action. This post will fade away in a day or two. However, there could be a place where the answers are condensed into targets to which all available information is added. Structures could form that provide education, information and resources which lead to answers and implementations.
• poisonborz 3y ago
  It reads like this was both asked and answered by AIs.
• gmuslera 3y ago
  Climate and the reason that nothing significant have been done regarding that in 40+ years. Problems will not stop to appear while that is not solved. The whole system becomes fragile, and minor disturbances will become major ones.
  • bequanna 3y ago
    > The whole system becomes fragile, and minor disturbances will become major ones. Why would this be the likely outcome?
    • jamilton 3y ago
      Summary by NPR: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/09/1147805696/climate-change-makes-heat-waves-storms-and-droughts-worse-climate-report-confirm https://www.npr.org/2023/01/09/1147805696/climate-change-mak... Report they're summarizing: https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/explaining-extreme-events-from-a-climate-perspective/ https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/publications/bulletin-... It appears to be the case that heatwaves and extreme storms are becoming more likely.
    • palata 3y ago
      Do you mean that you don't understand why climate change is a major problem? That's a genuine question: I guess it is fine, but respectfully I think you should look into it. Because where we are headed now looks pretty bad, both for the half of humanity that will have to migrate because it won't be possible to survive in the outdoor conditions and for the half of humanity that won't want the other half to come to their country.
    • gmuslera 3y ago
      https://how.complexsystems.fail/ https://how.complexsystems.fail/
• samtho 3y ago
  My wild-ass guesses of where the future is going and its associated problems: I think we are going to see additional polarization in online discussion and we will continue to see this spill into the physical world as violence. This level of division has not been seen at this level in modern western societies. More people have taken on their political sports team as the very thing they identify with and their opposing team(s) have been painted as conspiratorial psychopaths, preventing discussion across the aisle from even happening at a meaningful level. In the US, we will see a clear bifurcation of states where any remaining purple states will solidify their leaning during the 2024 election and we won’t see this shift again in a meaningful way for at least a few election cycles. We are going to see massive, non-collateralized debt defaults and financial companies will attempt to claw back that money, with those who continued to borrow above their means and were hit with variable APR that doubled or tripled interest on their accounts, minimum payments go up, and it becomes unsustainable. We will see a 50% rise in bankruptcies over the next 18 months and a 100-200% increase over the next 5 years. Student loan default will be rampant as payment of these loans will become due again in October, destroying any hope of credit access in the near future to these people. Banks will foreclose but not be have the bandwidth to repossess all the property, leaving empty shells of neighborhoods. The labor market will sharply flip in favor of the employers and labor will lose a lot of bargaining power or other gains received over the last few years. Rent will go up, private equity will buy houses for cheap, mortgage rates will stay just under 10%. China’s one child policy that began 40 years ago is starting to be felt, with only half as many people at their full earning potential (30s-40s) trying to support an aging population. The bottom has fallen out of their labor force, the CCP’s grip on the people is becoming tighter, but one day they are going to flip the light switch in their home and will be without power. Their strong, centralized government will falter and diminish or outright just fail, the north China plateau will revert to its wasteland type state, formerly propped up by will of the government. Tianjin will be the only city to survive and will receive the majority of refugees from the northern areas. Tianjin, Shanghai and Hong Kong/Shenzhen will revert to city states and will self-govern. Fragmented China will become a huge consumer of global food as they will be incapable of growing their own, with the supply of nitrogen fertilizer and potash being clinched by the Russo-Ukraine war and reserves dwindling, global food shortages will be occur within the next two years. Russia will continue sending every able bodied man into the nato-powered meat grinder of Ukraine until a proper overthrow of Putin occurs or they run out of people. This will create an absence of men in this generation which will be worse than their losses sustained during WWII. The vacuum of power within the hollowed-out Russia will not last long and I worry to think who will rise up as the next leader. Ukraine east of the Dnieper river will be mostly leveled by then, further exacerbating the food shortages. Ukraine will eventually join NATO, Russia will attempt to create the USSR 2.0 from mainly the west Asian countries. We may be see a collapse of generalized globalization if the US Navy decides it’s not in its best interest to keep peace on the high seas causing insurance rates to skyrocket and shipping via international waters becomes a dangerous prospect. A lot of our production will move to Mexico where there is an educated and motivated population that is already producing goods of higher quality than China. Trade between the US-Canada-Mexico will become increasingly important due to access to both resources and labor that all 3 bring proped up by agreed upon free trade. This transition will be long and will come with challenges. The EU will lose more membership and if Germany is unable to fully replace its energy needs, the EU as a whole will diminish. The Anglosphere may create its own free trade agreement, maybe even going so far to allow for free travel amongst the group (but this will be symbolic as very few counties share land boarders). This will create tensions with N. American free trade and Mexico, perhaps prompting Latin America counties into creating its own Schengen-type zone. America-Mexico relations will sour but the trade relations will be to solidified to do anything.
• pieter_mj 3y ago
  Storing excess renewable energy, which means solving the hydrogen problem. Emphasizing metabolic (mitochondrial) holistic health approaches in medicine.
• mikewarot 3y ago
  Unpopular opinion: One of the biggest challenges facing humanity in the next 2 decades is avoiding a catastrophic "Great Simplification" as we run out of oil. If this were allowed to happen, we'd suddenly be unable to practice industrial scale agriculture, and I'd estimate 90% of humanity would starve to death. The US produces large amounts of oil via fracking, which requires more resources to drill and produce than previous methods. At the same time, the wells tend to decline at 40% per year. These wells are making up a larger percentage of our fossil fuel production as time goes by. At some point the energy and resources required to drill a well will match the possible production, and new wells won't make sense, leading to collapse. Without fossil fuels for transportation, and especially as chemical feedstock to creating fertilizers, food shortages would quickly appear world-wide. We need to transition away from fossil fuels to avoid this fate. In doing so, we'll also help reduce, and perhaps eliminate the addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, which is a far more immediate concern in the minds of many.
  • palata 3y ago
    YES! Peak of conventional oil was in 2008, Europe feels it economically. Global peak oil is around now. We are facing a big energy problem, and we don't have any viable alternatives (renewables are just not up to the task, even nuclear is not). > We need to transition away from fossil fuels to avoid this fate. Yes, IMHO that involves degrowth: do less with less. Doesn't mean living like in the Middle Age, but make technology that helps degrowth. That's a big technical challenge that is not in fashion (because we love to jump on ChatGPT APIs and feel like we are productive making prototypes using it).
    • MaxHoppersGhost 3y ago
      > Global peak oil is around now. Source?
      • mikewarot 3y ago
        Production peaked a few years ago[1]. Additionally, the energy required to recover a barrel of oil from shale, etc. is far more than from traditional sources.[2] [1] https://data.oecd.org/energy/crude-oil-production.htm https://data.oecd.org/energy/crude-oil-production.htm [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment
• mikewarot 3y ago
  Unpopular opinion: Secure general purpose computing isn't available for the masses. In fact, most people here on HN don't have access to it either. Our current crop of widely used operating systems all share the same flaw, the ambient authority granted to any program that is run to access anything that the user account is permitted to access. This causes a host of problems, and almost nobody is aware of them, or incorrectly assigns them to other causes. This results in a patchwork of "solutions" like virus scanners, signatures on executables, and a need for users to be exceedingly cautious about what they do with their computers. Because of this need for caution, users don't feel free to experiment with novel programs or web sites, lest their computer be infected with malware, etc. Imagine your house without circuit breakers, or fuses. Imagine that there were no widespread use of them. The first shorted cord could potentially take down the power grid, and plunge millions into darkness. We can generally agree that circuit protection is a good idea. When you run a program, you could explicitly specify the resources it is to have access to, instead of giving access to all of your files and folders. In fact, it doesn't even have to work differently in many cases, just replace the calls to file selection dialogs with equivalent calls to "power boxes" which return file access capabilities for the calling program. This allows the user to quickly and easily work in the manner to which they are accustomed, while simultaneously preventing malicious or just buggy code from accessing anything outside of the wishes of the user, no matter how evil the code is. Spreading awareness of such systems, incorporating capability based security, is a worthy pursuit over the next decade.
  • s1gsegv 3y ago
    Yes, there's much more work to be done here in the open source community, and I think it might have to be done there due to lack of aligned incentives otherwise. For instance, on platforms such as Android that are meant to be secure in this way, I can't block an app from accessing the internet anytime it wants. Of course, the reason for that is that blocking internet access would also allow blocking ads, which Google has a negative incentive for. Large corporations always take advantage of the sandboxing for anti-user features as well. In many apps I can download videos on desktop whether they want me to or not using inspect element etc, but this is often tricky or impossible on Android. Again, corporate incentives are aligned against the user.
• pabe 3y ago
  Creating an open source graph of health symptoms, illnesses, medications etc. so that there can be statistical models / AIs that do a valuable pre-assessment to inform clients and support doctors. If we had something like this, maybe risk factors for critical immune reactions on COVID vaccination would've been known earlier and that could've prevented unnecessary deaths.
• peter-m80 3y ago
  Fake news and mass media control. And their effect destroying democracy
• t312227 3y ago
  imho. with the perspective of 2023, there are only 2 major problems; * (real) war eg. "large" ones between superpowers ... not decimating goat-herders equipped with not much more than ak47 & towels around their heads somewhere in the lesser developed areas of the planet. * climate-change eg. taming the resource-hunger of capitalism.
  • PraetorianGourd 3y ago
    “Towels around their heads” is derogatory and offensive phrasing. Please refrain from that language.
• nojvek 3y ago
  Grand problems for any decade until there are figured out. - General artificial intelligence - being able to effectively model how the world works, and search for solutions in that model. - Energy - nuclear fusion, cheap artificial photosynthesis, cheap solar such that we can have solar on almost every surface facing the sun. - Molecular assembly - figure out how to custom program DNA from scratch to build what we need. Imagine building more efficient trees where it captures CO2 and sunlight into gasoline, or strong timber directly. Each of these can go quite wrong if not developed with safety in mind. I call it the Mind (intelligence), Body (molecular assembly), Energy (putting energy to work) problems.
• ecks4ndr0s 3y ago
  Survival. No /s intended.
• GirishSharma643 3y ago
  The biggest threat is health. The whole world have become helpless in front of Corona. World class medical institution, labs, scientist, colleges were weeping like an orphaned child. Don't think other than health. If we will remain, then we will think and work. For anything else human life needs.
  • soultrees 3y ago
    For inspiration what are some easy problems to solve and then what are some of the more difficult problems to solve on the same path?
    • GirishSharma643 3y ago
      In my personal opinion there is no big issue other than human health. I will repeat - for anything else human life requires.
• nosmokewhereiam 3y ago
  Soil. It's more of a "how do we get along of people on board to take 5-20 years to rebuild what they have or are near". Soil scouts, with patches for an acre that sequestors x amount units of carbon, or another that rewards those that have y ppms of living microbes. If someone could recruit, deploy messaging, and enable long term action, at a minimum it'd be symbolic. In tandem it could be hopeful, and with success could be valuable. Part biology, part humint. See: JADAM and Korean natural farming.
• revskill 3y ago
  Javascript of course.
  • flir 3y ago
    I thought there was nothing left to port it to?
• ntfAX 3y ago
  [dead]
• dndn1 3y ago
  Climate change is a problem. Bret Victor did a good subdivision into sub-problems for a technologist here - which probably suits this audience: http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange
• 1attice 3y ago
  - Figuring out how to build resilient, long-lasting kinship structures capable of surviving reduced state and market capacity. This means comms platforms that are encrypted, easy to set up and use, decentralized, and safe. - Novel food sources (we just had the four hottest days on record, in succession) - Adversarial health care (e.g. getting an abortion in a dominionist state)
• whobre 3y ago
  As someone who grew up in the 1980s, I find very amusing how no one seems to be worried about the nuclear war. Even though NATO is de facto in a war against Russia and could face China as well soon.
  • deleted 3y ago
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• slavapestov 3y ago
  The Riemann hypothesis.
• thelastgallon 3y ago
  Renewable power production is wasted due to curtailment.[1] All this free power is being wasted, which could be used to charge cars. The US has 2 billion parking lots, 290 million cars and cars are idle 23+ hours every day. All we need is a cable from nearest building to parking lot to charge electric cars. The technology exists. This is a win-win opportunity, accelerate renewables and wean off of fossil fuels. I'm working with middle/high school kids on improving charging: HOA managed parks (a LOT of them), parks, schools, utility poles, apartment garages, all new construction ready for EVs (residential, retail and commercial). curtailment is the deliberate reduction in output below what could have been produced in order to balance energy supply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtailment_(electricity) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtailment_(electricity)
  • nine_k 3y ago
    So basically the battle to fight here is overcoming various regulations and restrictions on laying or hanging cables? A quest for a true hero. The company, of course, needs to employ highly efficient, least-invasive, fastest ways to lay cable. But it's a serious power cable, it can't be easily snuck together with other existing cables or pipes, like it's done usually with fiber cables. Some technical innovation can belong here.
  • solardev 3y ago
    I don't think it's solely a matter of getting more electric cars connected. Basically it's a mismatch between production and consumption by time (peak vs base loads) and so storage (whether electric cars or otherwise, like home storage solutions) acts as kinda a buffer. But so would utility scale storage (pumped hydro, giant battery farms), demand time shifting (smart water heaters, HVAC, dryers, etc.) or fossil fuel/hydro peaker plants. But a big part of it isn't just the engineering but the human and consumer psychology. You can build all the infra, but convincing households to abide by your time of use schedule is challenging unless you force them into it (which many utilities do). People want to use their stuff whenever they want, not when it's most efficient for the grid. That's where the storage is nice, letting the utility manage those fluctuations, but we can't produce enough battery capacity at a good cost right now. And there's geopolitics too, China controls a lot of the raw materials, and production of the downstream products are often limited by the Japanese and Korean battery manufacturers. It's a multi faceted problem, not just something we can throw an infinite amount of EVs at.
• version_five 3y ago
  The rise of authoritarianism. We need computing, banking, communication and other solutions that are more robust to governments and people generally that want to control what people can do. Decentralized (I don't mean anything to do with crypto nonsense) and simplified methods are needed, e.g currently any nontrivial computer and internet use require relying on a bunch of parties that could quickly turn hostile.
  • Rodeoclash 3y ago
    You can't "software" your way out of authoritarianism.
    • pschuegr 3y ago
      You can't software yourself out of most meaningful problems.
• ioisar 3y ago
  Fresh water
• habitue 3y ago
  Actually unpopular opinion: Existential risk from AI. I think people think "AI is overhyped" etc, but there is a difference between there being too many low value AI startups right now (a bubble) and whether a few top labs will produce an AI that threatens humanity. Even if it's a ten percent chance, it's a huge problem that we need to address.
  • Madmallard 3y ago
    That's not what's going to happen.
• serjester 3y ago
  Phone addiction. I know plenty of people that average 10+ hours a day of screen time. Teenagers are even worse. We have tons of worrying signs and for now we’re not doing anything about it. Unfortunately not a problem that’s easily solved and the algorithms are only getting better.
  • madrasman 3y ago
    I have been thinking more of this problem recently. Excess phone use seems to be affecting vitality, presence, connection, sharpness, and happiness, with older adults too. Can you share any more insights on the problem or ideas?
• deleted 3y ago
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• deleted 3y ago
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• bradlys 3y ago
  As much as we are all about laissez-faire when it comes to dating and romance - I think we’re getting to a point that might cause some real strife in the western world. Seeing 60%+ of young men be single when only 30% of young women are single - it’s… worrying. There’s no simple solution when we’ve become such an atomized society and so hyper individualistic. It’s a problem that we rarely care about as well. As soon as someone is no longer alone, they no longer care about this problem that society is going through. As long as the majority of people are getting together (even if it’s a slim majority), nothing will be done. I think the fall of romantic relationships is a contributor to society becoming more individualistic. I’m not worried about birth rates like everyone else. I’m worried about our happiness. Being single and alone and without any intimacy is a very unenjoyable existence for most people - and I don’t think there’s ever going to be a cure for it other than to be with someone who loves you.
  • orlin_georgiev 3y ago
    [dead]
• creer 3y ago
  Government. Someone threw in the rise of authoritarianism. The issue is much broader. It's one of efficiency; understanding and respect of technology and science (past, current and potential); influence of religions, mobs and fads (including scientific fads and mobs); understanding and respect for economics (mostly taken as a joke and molded to other obsessions); understanding and respect for time scale including the power of engineering at scale (as opposed to the next election or coup). In general humanity has tremendous resources and potential power - and makes sad and shitty use of it. Yes, different people have different ideas on what is the right thing to do, but that's where the problem is. We need to become more effective at sorting that out. It's hopefully not simply a question of "enlightened authoritarianism can do it". This all deserves work and progress and our systems are dated and don't seem to be progressing currently (I mean over the past 20 years). And corruption (in broad terms, not just money), and alignment, etc, etc.
• hermiod 3y ago
  Amazed not to see Biorisk in the comments. A pandemic brought a ton of global infrastructure to it's knees, and it could have been so much worse. What if that happened again?
• Madmallard 3y ago
  Rapid increases of health problems we haven't dealt with for decades already that we need more information rapidly to figure out better solutions. Mast cell disorders are a good example here. Autoimmunity as well.
• riezebos 3y ago
  Here are a few that an organization would be able to work on right now according to the researchers at Charity Entrepeneurship. They might even take less than a decade to solve if things go well: 1. An organization that addresses antimicrobial resistance by advocating for better (pull) funding mechanisms to drive the development and responsible use of new antimicrobials. 2. An advocacy organization that promotes academic guidelines to restrict potentially harmful “dual-use” research. 3. A charity that rolls out dual HIV/syphilis rapid diagnostic tests, penicillin, and training to antenatal clinics, to effectively tackle congenital syphilis at scale in low-and middle-income countries. 4. An organization that distributes Oral Rehydration Solution and zinc co-packages to effectively treat life-threatening diarrhea in under five year olds in low-and middle-income countries. 5. A charity that builds healthcare capacity to provide “Kangaroo Care”, an exceptionally simple and cost-effective treatment, to avert hundreds of thousands of newborn deaths each year in low-and middle-income countries. 6. An organization that aims to reduce stock-outs of contraceptives and other essential medicines by improving the way they are delivered and managed within public health facilities. Source: https://www.charityentrepreneurship.com/post/announcing-our-2023-charity-ideas-apply-now https://www.charityentrepreneurship.com/post/announcing-our-...
• nickd2001 3y ago
  Surely working on Carbon capture dwarfs anything else we could possibly be worried about?
• lakomen 3y ago
  Such a low effort post. What do you expect?
• Balgair 3y ago
  Outside of the 'tech' realm: China's path in International Relations. The next decade is decisive for China's future. She must make her moves soon or is very likely to be shut out of any path to hegemony for the century. What will be the response of the NATO+ countries to Chinese moves? Essentially, are we finally, for really-real-reals this time, going to see the 'end of history'?
• s-kiel 3y ago
  Addressing climate change and sustainability is crucial. Investing in renewable energy, promoting circular economy practices, and developing innovative solutions for waste management are worthwhile endeavors.
• MaxHoppersGhost 3y ago
  Finding compatibility between America’s gun rights and the growing mental health/mass shooter problem.
• shortrounddev2 3y ago
  AI will upend the economy before we create skynet. All the people worried about AI destroying society are looking in the wrong direction: they think some evil AGI will somehow hack the nukes and kill us all, but we'll kill each other over the increasingly scarce share of global wealth as our jobs are eliminated one by one.
• CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  Some of these? They're not problems to be solved, they are dilemmas to suffer. Your ingenuity is not all-powerful and it's about time someone knocked the "software will eat the world" ego trip out of this crowd. Technology is not going to "save" humanity. It raised standards of living, and it created problems where previously there were none. This crowd has a habit of saying that technology is neutral, that the positive and negative consequences that come from it are people problems. Technology is a people problem, but besides that, they take the hypocritical stance of taking credit for the positive consequences of technology yet pushing the responsibility for negative consequences of technology onto individuals - individuals who react to emerging technology, not create it. Parents are supposed to limit a teen's phone time to prevent addiction but only lip service is paid to disincentivizing the psyops that Big Tech use to create the addiction in the first place. Swap your stats, trade a little intelligence for wisdom. How many times here have people brought out the could-vs-should quote, completely oblivious to the fact that they were the scientist fools, I've lost count. The fascination with technological solutions and the marrow-deep, if well-hidden abhorrence of nature will kill us all, and sooner than many here think. How hot are the waters off Florida? How long is Arizona's record breaking heatwave? How many floods did we have this week? You. Won't. TeChNoLoGy. Your. Way. Out. Of. These. "Problems". Patterns hold, until they don't. Population isn't going to keep growing forever just because Malthus was wrong in his time. Progress isn't guaranteed just because you wished really hard to santa that the singularity would happen in your lifetime. "Humanity has never suffered an extinction event, so it never will" is an abysmally stupid sentence that anyone here should be ashamed of unironically spewing from their mouths. Humanity also couldn't harness nuclear power, until suddenly it could. On the existential threats humanity faces - as many here are so fond of sneering at AI-doomers, reality isn't fiction, so we're NOT guaranteed a plucky hero who clutches victory from the jaws of defeat, as the media that brought us Skynet would have you believe. Making money the be-all end-all of business and then making business encroah on every other sphere of life is why standards of living are dropping, and every time you feed the beast with rent-based economies you make life worse. When you maximize profit, it comes at the cost of everything else, up to and including your life. Growth isn't infinite, except for the stupidity of hopium smokers here. Please explain how a planet made of finite mass and energy can keep GDP going up, up, up forever? Based in reality, please. Limits - they're okay to have. The obsession with breaking all limits, with optimizing for maximum efficiency, are biological edicts taken to an extreme too far to walk back from. "One of the more annoying and least explicable features of life in the 21st Century is our hubris in glibly assuming that because we have better technology, we are smarter, wiser, and more virtuous than our ancestors." (and also immune to the things that brought down civilizations in the past. History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.)