Ask HN: What do we get when applying root cause analysis to humanity's problems?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11301080

by manx • 10 years ago

12 18 10 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

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?

stray2• 10 years ago

The love of money.

Ginguin• 10 years ago

While 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• 10 years ago

adam419• 10 years ago

The fact the global population is far too large

stray2• 10 years ago

Global population has always been a function of available energy.

Once the oil is gone, much of that population will soon follow.

jonah2• 10 years ago

We've always had problems, even way before the population was too "large".

jonah2• 10 years ago

Greed/Selfishness

hutzlibu• 10 years ago

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• 10 years ago

You always end up with humanity's existence as the root of humanity's problems.

BjoernKW• 10 years ago

Politics: Powerful parties manipulating others into thinking that the goals of those in power are beneficial to society as a whole.

tmoullet• 10 years ago

My 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

andriesm• 10 years ago

Sociopathy (1 in 25 people are diagnosable as APD) and stupidity (low IQ but even more importantly - flawed reasoning patterns and weak thinking skills)

JeffreyKaine• 10 years ago

a headache.

afarrell• 10 years ago

Greed, 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/ Is a very interesting illustration of it.

joeclark77• 10 years ago

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

Rainymood• 10 years ago

Balance, or rather the lack thereof.

lgieron• 10 years ago

Ego - i.e. the need to have high status in a group.

id122015• 10 years ago

Sexual Dimorphism I think its best explained by Turd Flinging Monkey in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6LE250Y3XM

Ask HN: What do we get when applying root cause analysis to humanity's problems?

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