Ask HN: What are some real problems that need to be solved?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822610

by chr15 • 15 years ago

18 23 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I know this is a very broad question, but I want to take a step back from working on and reading about the latest social-mobile-gamification app. I'm curious to learn more about real world problems, especially in healthcare and developing nations, that need more attention. I believe getting vaccines is a well addressed problem. It can be a small problem or a large problem.

For example, I'm pretty inspired by what charity:water is doing, providing clean water to developing nations (http://charitywater.org). Also, Khan Academy in education.

The problem doesn't have to be related to developing nations. It can be something simple that helps you do your job.

The more specific you are with your problem the easier it will be to think about a solution.

fwdbureau• 15 years ago

Something 'simple' and not related to developing nations (or maybe related): Making internet access independent from the telcos

geekam2• 15 years ago

How to make shady areas safer, esp for women and children?

creativeone2• 15 years ago

How about adding shaded areas in general? Here in israel the sun can get terribly hot, shade becomes an oasis that people cling too. A whole sidewalk could be found empty, and the other wide packed of people just because of the shade.

Maybe install solar panels that act as shade during the day and light sources at night. Two birds, one stone.

chr152• 15 years ago

"Shady areas" in this context refers to unsafe/dangerous areas ;)

icefox• 15 years ago

By the statement of the question that answer is easy: get rid of all of the men. When a boy hits 18 he is killed for the safety of the women and children. Problem solved. But before doing that perhaps reading up on the various sci-fi that has explored this to see how it turns out.

sixtofour6• 15 years ago

We can already get a hint from real life, in Asian countries that have an artificially high male/female live birth ratio, in part due to China's One Child policy. This is the opposite of your "solution," in that men are favored for survival, but it has serious social consequences, including unreported pregnancies and increased mother and child mortality at birth due to birthing secretly at home, potentially severe social and mental health problems due to large numbers of men unable to marry, increased kidnapping of women for marriage and prostitution, increased HIV infections, the "4:2:1" problem and other interesting phenomena.

When you poke at something as large and complex as "people," you sometimes get what you want, but you also sometimes get what you didn't expect.

This article is worth the read: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMhpr051833#t=article

The 4-2-1 problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy#The_.22four-tw...

rellimluap• 15 years ago

Finding new ways to organise caring for our elders is a big one for me.

sixtofour6• 15 years ago

- Hunger.

- Access to clean water.

- Homelessness.

- Poverty.

- Access to health care beyond (in the US) access to anyone-who-can-get-rich-can-afford-it access.

- Joblessness; Employability.

- War as it affects people living in a war.

- War as it robs the war waging society of other amenities.

- War as it distorts local and global economies and relations.

- Mutual ignorance and fear of groups, cultures, religions and nations that allow people to be manipulated into supporting bigotry, terrorism and war.

- Access to meaningful post-secondary education in the developed world.

- Access to education in the developing world.

- The gradual and never relinquished erosion of privacy and civil liberties from citizens to the state.

blackboxxx• 15 years ago

Urban sprawl. Wildlife is being forced into closer proximity with humans because of suburban developments and golf courses. Land developers make a quick buck and wipe out natural habitats.

If you see a bat or raccoon on your property, realize that it doesn't have a choice. There needs to be compassion and awareness.

daimyoyo2• 15 years ago

Now that IPV4 addresses have run out, the conversion to IPV6 will represent a major technological opportunity.

glimcat• 15 years ago

Human suffering. Dwindling biodiversity. Exhaustion of natural resources. The nature of the universe. The meaning of life. The sound of one hand clapping.

It's a good sort of question to ask, but it helps to narrow your domain.

sixtofour6• 15 years ago

I think it's more interesting to see how people respond to the open question, rather than the OP limiting the scope. You can now look at any of the responses for various and possibly surprising narrowed domains.

Detrus• 15 years ago

- Simulation games: how to make realistic, educational games interesting without cheesing them up in order to make gameplay tolerable. For example Sim City, Rome Total War, Battlefield 3 and other FPSs, Farmville etc. If you're wasting your life playing a videogame, might as well learn something about the real world.

- Journalism and PR: how to provide objective journalism through new tools like data analysis, computer models, simulators etc. Use historical analysis to put events in context. Get rid of sources of drama, like writers and editors and focus on charts. Those can be read and debunked quicker, various opinions/biases could be compared more clearly. A report about a murder should be a chart that includes the murder rate in nation, city, area, show population growth, poverty etc. A report on political affairs would show money paid to politicians, estimate # of lobbyists involved, size of affected market, etc. Reduce talking heads and drama to minimum.

- Suburban Sprawl: popularize condos instead of individual homes to contain suburbia. Better mortgage rates for condos, advertise urban services, cost of living without car, etc.

- Family planning site: encourage a smaller population. Give coupons to small families. Many governments have such programs, you'd make them easier to use at least.

- Obesity: coupons, money saving for buying proper food instead of processed carbs and fast food.

- Internet addiction: psychoanalyze internet users through traffic stats etc. Figure out how to get them off, maybe through exercise program, nature getaway, new experiences.

Personally I'm suspicious of attempts to solve problems in the developing world that aren't part of some all around solution. Making it easier to grow food, access to water without a simultaneous plan to lower population size seems like a dangerous game. And a lot of charity programs are undermining local economies by handing out free food.

sixtofour6• 15 years ago

Excellent list.

I disagree with getting rid of drama, writers and editors in journalism. It's often drama that makes a story compelling enough to bother to read, and then care. It's also drama that gives some victims the only remembrance they might have. Few people beyond the geek-sphere are going to want to pore over charts and graphs.

Absolutely include those (interactive) charts and graphs along stories, I've liked this trend since I noticed it.

Here's an example of a dramatic story that made me care about a murder case and the people, both cops and victims, involved:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/06/the-laza...

dstein• 15 years ago

Technology use in government and healthcare administration -- actually any office that uses paper. So many offices are so horribly out of date, think about all the papers you have to fill out for everything -- pen and paper, writing down your same address a million times on a million different papers sent to a million different offices. People reading your address and hand translating it into a million different databases or manually cross-referencing it to other papers.

It's enough to drive you crazy. These people are doing office work as if computers don't even exist.

So called "smart phones" aren't capable of solving this problem. For whatever reason, we lack the software capability of using our technology to really make these mundane tasks of sharing information easier.

sixtofour6• 15 years ago

I haven't seen it yet, but you can apparently apply for some jobs with a linkedin button.

Would be nice to have a similar set of health data, under my supervision, that I can submit to a new doc or hospital.

EDIT: Looks like an opportunity for someone to fill the role of LinkedIn for health data, instead of employment data. The various more or less stove-piped doctors, hospitals and agencies are going to take a long time to coordinate their data, and get it correct, if ever. I, however, am very motivated to keep my data up to date and available.

I recently saw a new doctor and was pleased that she had online history forms. I filled them out with pleasure. Then at my first visit ... wait for it ... I filled out paper forms with the same information. gack!

daimyoyo2• 15 years ago

I have another idea from a bad experience today. Why is it we are still using the same check routing system from the last century? The routing transit system was created a CENTURY AGO! Does anyone here use a candlestick phone? Do you get your stock quotes off ticker tape? How's the fuel economy on your Model T? There is absolutely no reason it should take days to process a check when I can send a text message anywhere on the planet in a matter of seconds. There are billions of electronic payments made each year and they total several hundred billion. If you can invent a system where payments are made instantaneously, the world will beat a path to your door.

sixtofour6• 15 years ago

My uninformed assumption is that there is no technical reason why this couldn't happen for most banks tomorrow. It's the way it is because they want it that way.

One_adm12• 15 years ago

I would support that assumption. Been there done that, banks are not excited about touching any of their back end systems. They are mostly still written in COBOL and haven't been touched since the '70s.

kayhi• 15 years ago

Improving basic research. The pricing of chemicals and supplies can vary 10x with most researchers not having the time to find reasonable providers.

Beyond the practical aspects of the problem is watching people work so hard to raise funds for research knowing that it is 'wasted' in a single purchase.

Ask HN: What are some real problems that need to be solved?

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