Ask HN: What things in the world are increasing at the fastest rate? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What things in the world are increasing at the fastest rate?

25 pointstikkun30 comments

AI progress is one. The amount of software that exists may be another. Electric vehicles is another. Amount of video content produced perhaps.

What’s growing at the highest percentage per year?

View on HN

Suicide rates increased 30% from 2000 to 2016 [1]

Depression among teenagers increased 59% from 2007 to 2017 [2]

Income inequality in the US is at its highest point in 50 years. [3]

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db309.htm

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/12/a-growing-n...

[3] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/07/6-facts-abo...

Might as well add inflation to the list

High inflation time periods don't quite overlap with that data set though.

I'd do up to the 2020, but it's surprisingly tough to find recent data drawn over time. Suicide rates have dropped a little with COVID but the pandemic/lockdown caused all kinds of weird correlations.

Some, not all, of that depression is just the hyper-medicalization of normal human emotions

Well, can't say the same about suicides.

It probably peaked now, but smartphone adoption rate must have been enormous in the last 15 years.

Available CPU/GPU power increased a lot - mostly following Moore's law.

For extremely high growth percentages super-popular apps like TikTok might win.

Tropospheric R-134a has grown faster than the S&P 500. (It's a early-stage startup pollutant, which IPO'd relatively recently, after the Montreal Protocol).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1,1,1,2-Tetrafluoroethane

What has grown about it? Value? Production? Abundance in the atmosphere?

People coming to grips that drastic things actually need to be done now to fight climate count.

At the meta level there has been science and policy activity around these "positive tipping points towards sustainability" as well.

I don't see this at all. Extremely few people actually make drastic changes.

Smartphone use: https://leftronic.com/blog/smartphone-usage-statistics/

More and more people being useless attention seekers? :D

But seriously and on topic, we kind of forgot a lot of real-life meat-space skills so I'd say "ignorance of the physical world". I am willing to work a bit harder so I don't worry about money and then work on regaining those skills.

Amount of energy or power storage obtainable (which are not the same) per unit of currency.

- Militarisation. Countries are spending a lot of defence.

- The move towards reverting globalisation(with rising unemployment, countries are looking inwards)

- Inflation (this is not going to end in the near future; inflation is the result of quantitative easing that was done multiple times. Here is a good explanation of that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_nGEj8wIP0)

- Differences among citizens of different countries are becoming prominent (the reason is the same as point #2 above)

USD money supply

smiling emoji with teardrop

Not sure about yours, my my emoji is crying

Average world wide temperature.

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hotte...

> Modern human civilization, with its permanent agriculture and settlements, has developed over just the past 10,000 years or so. The period has generally been one of low temperatures and relative global (if not regional) climate stability. Compared to most of Earth’s history, today is unusually cold; we now live in what geologists call an interglacial—a period between glaciations of an ice age. But as greenhouse-gas emissions warm Earth’s climate, it's possible our planet has seen its last glaciation for a long time.

I don't think it's fair to compare it to before it was habitable by humans. Whenever someone brings up the topic of climate change, it's to discuss the changes making the world less habitable for present day living beings.

Some people need to justify a very difficult situation as normal. It helps reduce the anxiety and mental pain of the alternative. It's a defense mechanism. We see it regularly in society.

Unfortunately it makes it that much harder to fix the problem. Now we have to fix the problem and convince the deniers that it's a problem . Which is close to impossible since the more evidence they see the more they will try to normalize it.

My point is that climate change will happen regardless of our efforts, even if we get the current situation under control.

I'm not worried because earth and life will be fine despite our trashing the planet. However to claim that things are extraordinary discounts historical records, even back a few million years.

Right, but the rate at which the world is warming is a lot higher than it has been before. You are looking at point in time measurements and not comparing how we move between those measurements. If things heat up too quickly, evolution won't have a chance to keep up with the changes.

https://xkcd.com/1732/

Quantum Computers are still early but rapidly improving.

Progress also seems to be steady in the pursuit of room temperature super conductors. The temperature at which we're able to achieve superconductivity keeps getting higher.

You mentioned AI. That's probably the best bet.

* Used bicycle prices. Seriously people, a barely functioning bike from the 90 (vintage) is not worth $300.

* Skiing related cost (lodging, traveling, food).

Internet adoption/availability.

Information exchange per second.

Addiction to digital content, video games, television, or apps.

Depression in teens and young adults.

Inflation.

ADHD diagnosis in adulthood.

SEO spam.

Total copies of the SARS-CoV-2 RNA sequence in existence.

Data transmission and creation

Delivery of consumer goods

Reply on news.ycombinator.com