Why would you choose to solve it? Do you actually need unlimited resources to start?
So, since then, my answer is modern day slavery. Wherever and however it exists.
Don't need unlimited resources to start, just to make a living.
Would likely need unlimited resources both monetarily and legal to actually attempt to tackle it, though.
If I had any real idea of how to start, I'd have done so yesterday.
This is one I have personally donated to, but there are others: https://www.barnabasaid.org/gb/latest-needs/free-christian-f...
If you wanted more hands-on, I'm guessing there is room for expansion in ending inter-generational debt bondage.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/pmjrdg/is_th...
Why?
Because it's already killing people every day. And is slowly but surely making our environment entirely unstable. But as a typical consumer we don't have much power to stop it.
Do you need unlimited money? Not necessarily, but there are so many different possibilities when it comes to dealing with it. Carbon capture, green energy, (fusion?!), energy storage, planting more millions of trees, phasing out fossil fuels, holding companies accountable for their use of fossil fuels, the list goes on.
Looking at any one of these would be an expensive endeavour. Hopefully we can find small but very impactful methods in dealing with our climate troubles. Because as someone who turns 30 this year, it isn't looking promising for the next 30 years.
- Completely circular material lifespans. I'm out of my depth here, but there _must_ be a way to gasify/liquify any type of object and filter its contents through a membrane, the same way desalination plants separate salt (NaCL) and water (H20).
- Replacing first-past-the-post voting with proportional representation.
[1]: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/1/15/2105805... [2]: https://www.iut.nu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Limited-Profit...
In my eyes the greatest challenge is to find a way to enable humanity to live in a way that does no longer destroy the ecosystem it relies on.
Unfortunately, the solution won't be just technological but rather social, educational and political.
We must find ways to stop overconsumption, overpopulation and to teach children (and people in general) the value of our natural environment.
It'd be great to see the beneficiaries of tech wealth commit to building intentional, public physical learning spaces (again [0]).
Libraries may look different in the 21st century, and have more than books, but their purpose of making knowledge accessible remains the same and as important as ever.
Computing efficiency - The fact is that most of the transistors in a computer sit idle, waiting for their 15 nanoseconds of fame. A first principles review of what is actually possible leads me to suspect we can run LLMs and other large compute loads for 1% (or less) of the current energy requirements without new process nodes, using current fabs.
The Supply Chain - We need to have a publicly documented and tested second supply chain for everything in our society. Less efficient, and more robust ways to make every essential tool and material required for a modern society should be developed. Even if it's 1000x more expensive, it's still better to have that backup rather that being completely without options.
Radio Mesh networking - I'd set up a system in which everyone, everywhere, could stay in touch with everyone else. Governments and other organizations would handle the fiber backbone for big stuff, but a low bandwidth system that could work slowly, and globally, without it should be the thing we can all own.
Think of it as using circuit breakers, instead of the current approach (in Linux, MacOS, Windows, etc) of just giving applications access to everything by default, and counting on them to be correct, and non-evil.
I'm not speaking about trusting the application code. This is obviously not safe. I'm talking about trusting as few lines of code as possible, including the OS itself.
In other words, security-critical code should be minimized. For GNU/Linux, it's tens of millions of lines of code. You rely on their correctness. For Qubes it's about 100000: https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/security-critical-code.
Within the field of energy storage there are two important sub-fields... grid-level storage (cheap, long-lasting) and high-density (for transport applications). Both fields are already making good progress but I think I'd focus on grid-level first. Success here means basically being able to make the whole world's electricity grids "green". It will also be a massive economic stimulus because electricity will get very cheap.
No, you don't need "unlimited" resources for this, like I said, rapid progress is being made right now, it's just not quite rapid enough for the urgency and more focused funding and stimulus could definitely accelerate things. So if I had a lot of money and top talent I would distribute those among the handful of most promising approaches that are already being tried and keep funneling them there until it's "solved" for what we need.
With unlimited resources you can build a global power grid, which will completely remove the need for any energy storage. "Just" move the abundant generated electricity from the sunny and windy parts of earth to the dark and windless parts.
Wouldn't it be interesting if we could witness geniuses honing their unique thoughtcraft over millennia? Just how much advanced culture are we missing due to ephemeral, short-lived, desperate nature of our best and brightest?
But I'd counter there are biochemical reasons the best work comes during such a short span.
It'll likely end up being easier to extend that neurologically peak productive period further into late middle age, than stretch an entire lifespan (which may or may not extend that period anyway).
Hard to admit that wouldn't be cool.
Along the way we’ll be solving for energy, jobs, resources, environment and existential risk.
What do you propose to do with life on Earth while you put all your unlimited resources into your flight plan, let it burn?
And you're being unnecessarily adversarial. The comment you're replying to didn't say anything about disregarding the well-being of life on Earth. Interpreting it that way is uncharitable.
'Fit' cannot be meaningful unless 'unfit' too is, and the unfit are set to some real disadvantage. Trying to attain equality over both fit and unfit is detrimental when taken collectively. Having ethics defined in a way that in practice, those who follow ethics suffer more while those who don't follow have higher chances of success, is not good.
Edit: Reading up on Social Darwinism on Wikipedia, Britannica and History.com, I guess not. Social Darwinism seems either not well-defined and/or assumes that the fitness functions that natural evolution worked out need to be taken nearly as it is. I am not saying the latter.
I am saying there needs to be more clearly defined fitness functions (call them performance criteria, KPIs, etc.), defined for the modern times, which then need to be more consistently followed. This isn't much different than using gradient descent algorithm where some weights are changed in accordance to their impact on the chosen loss function.
First, a clarification over what I am not challenging with the status quo. In nature, some organisms are higher up in the food chain and freely kill others. We do NOT define 'fit' in the way where those who are better at killing other humans are favored for survival. We have already set this right by creating laws that punish homicide. This bends the optimum from favoring more physical strength to favoring people to make good overall social contributions, which can be intellectual as well.
The value society should provide to an individual should (generally) be based on the value they provide to the society. This is already majorly the case. However, I challenge inheritances where someone may just be born with a lot more than others without having made those contributions to the society. There are debates present online on this alone, and I cannot claim that the social choice should be exactly this way or that way.
In a democracy, people (except children, etc.) are given equal right to vote. I do not find this optimal. People who understand social dynamics, policies and promises of various parties well (which does not include me) should have more influence on which party should get selected. I do not know how this could be implemented. Perhaps a quiz along with the vote?
I know these are not good and realistic examples. I'll need to think more. However, I do often feel that people who do good and think for the society struggle more while those who put themselves higher at the cost of the society often end higher up.
All laws must have a stated intention, a review period, and a mechanism to report and review unintended consequences.
I suppose convincing people that evidence based policy is the correct course of action could be considered a resource.
Simple provide every country with sufficient number of nuclear weapons and delivery capacity to destroy any potential evil adversary.
Side effects would be enough nuclear powerplants to solve lot of fossil fuel dependency.
And well, in that case emissions globally would go down. So climate change would slow.
There aren't many countries run by dictators these days, but they exist.
I'd be a lot less comfortable in their making rational decisions not to use The Button. (After having moved their wealth and/or person offshore)
Does someone already running their country into the ground for personal enrichment, and vacationing in places {not their country}, really care about their country?
I would get rid of first past the post voting scam and change to proportional representation.
Labour won at the last election with just 33% of votes, not 33% of the population of the UK, this is not representative of the people.
Only about 50% (35 million) of the entire population voted. So about 10 million people out of 70 million people decided who should run my country. Thats why they do not represent me or us.
I would charge every person in the UK just £1 to vote.
This money, say £50,000,000, would be shared equally among political parties. They would then sell us their proposals and we would vote on them.
Instead of our Government working for big business, government would be working for the people.
get rid of lobbying and business money influencing politics.
A minumum tax of 75% on the rich.
stop private ownership of housing specifically to generate profit. you can buy a house to live in not to rent it out.
A local housing project recently built near me, was sold as affordable housing, to help wth local homelessness etc.
It was very affordable for the rich, One guy I know bought 19 of those brand new properties on a huge mortgage, and rented them out at extortionate prices. He raked in a tidy £30,000 a month profit! Plus the accrued increase in value of the properties each year.
Private renters generally pay the house owners mortgage, its a scam.
The renter pays the mortgage and the house owner walks away with the tax free profit.
Tax unearned income on profits on housing.
The bigger the house the more tax you pay.
get rid of the BBC
I am a socialist, which for me means, to create an equal society
Honestly, unlimited anything is a trap: unlimited destroys. It's the limited that makes things great.
If you need unlimited, try space, or the heart of the sun.
Something, something the allegory of the Krell...
I’ve always loved the Star Trek spin that once you have unlimited energy, a lot of human dynamics cease to be exist. Capitalism is one of them.
Healthcare for all ($2.8T/y), housing for all ($2T/y), UBI for all ($2.8T/y), and end fossil fuel usage ($1T/y) (= $8.6T/y or 29% of GDP) if every billionaire and most corporate profits were suddenly liquidated for the benefit of people. Probably not doable to such extremes, but doing less or nothing in some areas (like healthcare) is also probably net economically less efficient than assuring everyone else lower-cost, effective healthcare.
poverty.
cancer.
explore ideas like UBI, modern Cybersyn, a renewed US Digital Service, various election algorithms/methods (e.g. Condorcet)
a new PARC
a new Bell Labs
Replacing the layers of patchwork technology that have accreted onto each other, with clean, direct architecture (reminiscent of earlier days) and more sensible abstractions. Reliability and security baked in from the start. A focus on clarity of intent - not just through documentation (for which the quality bar would be set exceptionally high) but also how the code is crafted and structured. Tending toward mental models that are friendly for humans to grasp and reason about. Basically, designed according to the same opinionated, high standards that I bring to my own development work.
Then one of the things I'd use that stack for would be to introduce a legitimate competitor to Apple and Android smartphones.
That disposes with the harmful games the incumbents play when it comes to user control, privacy, advertising, and the many dark patterns engineered (by them and publishers on their platform) to drive their revenue ecosystem. There are more humane and decent means to carry on the business of building a successful and modestly profitable platform (and one of the great constraints of unlimited resources is I wouldn't feel compelled to optimize along the $ axis). Fostering a culture that genuinely cares about its users, the prime guiding principle would be to remain a worthy custodian of their trust, by making decisions that consistently put user interests first. Maybe reminiscent of how early Google wanted to be when they still tried to practice the 'dont be evil' mantra.
Next I'd work on the problem of identity on the web (and in the digital world), by pivoting it into one of reputation. It wouldn't rely on government issued ID, age checks, KYC partners, etc. Rather you'd spin up a new identity (with a choice whether or not it remains anonymous) and work to build up reputation for it in a manner that builds value along a metric you care about - eg. social media engagement, forum posts, GitHub contributions, Pokeman collected, whatever. The key game theory behind this is it's something the corresponding user cares about. That way they are motivated to preserve their reputation and not undertake offenses that would 'burn' it. The solution here isn't as clear a vision as my other initiatives, but the idea is to devise a primitive that can then be used to solve all sorts of other problems when strangers need to interact digitally (eg. I can trust this vendor because they have a history of delivering what's promised and honouring returns, I can trust the information provided by this human as they're recognized as an expert in their field of Pokemon hunting, etc). Maybe tack on some kind of zero-knowledge, six-degrees vouching mechanic as well.
Finally, I'd work to improve how civilization practices politics.
I was lucky to be born to a time where I got to witness the birth of the Internet and see how it impacted and evolved nearly every industry. How we communicate. How we collaborate. How we trade/shop/bank. Yet democracy is still run in a similar fashion as it was when first invented in the era of the printing press. Oh what the founding fathers might have envisioned in a world where every inhabitant has a rich, two-way channel directly to their institutions, their representive politicians, and each other.
I'd start by creating a space on the web committed to gathering solid background knowledge and opinions on issues (from all sides) and surfacing the best and most important facets in an easy to digest fashion. Something like a cross between Wikipedia and StackOverflow, but for political/civil issues. We'd take on all issues - from the mundane, to the most divisive. With a means to promote discourse that relies on transparently sourced facts, and a moderate emphasis given to subject matter experts (based on their reputation in a specific domain - see above). The aim is for the most informed or insightful arguments to float to the top, and the vitriol to sift to the bottom. So average Joe can pull up an issue, digest the top opposing viewpoints in bite sized chunks in a matter of minutes (after all, these are modern day attention spans we need to cope with!), and dive deeper into the rationale, facts and supporting data behind each should they wish to become more informed.
Then have a mechanism where you can "tune in" to matters you care about and even cast votes or otherwise influence the outcome. Eg. Get notified when local matters come up, or matters you've marked an interest in (for me, that would be topics like right to repair, copyright, privacy, etc).
Provide tooling to decision-makers, eg. to run an ad-hoc poll, pull in data from outside sources, etc. A simple example use case would be collecting citizen pothole reports, visualizing them on a map (with color-coded severity, photos, etc) and prioritizing which ones to fix - with an incentive for me to vote not just based on which roads I use personally, but also with empathy for sensible arguments like "that one poor Jim reported is in really bad shape" or "this is next to a school bus stop and could result in a kid getting injured". Don't care about the minutia of roadwork? That's ok, leave it delegated to your civil servant and those fellow citizens who are passionate about that topic.
Some of this has materialized already in various forms - eg. Twitter can be a powerful tool to call out and correct corporate bad behavior - but we need to figure out incentive mechanisms that put more emphasis on empathy in interactions and contribution to effective outcomes, than to superficial metrics like likes and fake popularity.
I don't have all the answers, but would love to gather like-minded people (in terms of ethics and intrinsic motivation, not political views!) with unlimited resources to work on these challenges.
Oh, and one last bonus - if those unlimited resources included a greatly extended lifetime in which to operate - I'd study advanced physics and work on cracking warp drive to spread our civilization to new frontiers. That'd be a childhood dream come true.
My thoughts around identity mirror your own, as fundamentally it needs to be a difficult to automate and unique function, if we keep optional anonymity (which I'm strongly in favor of!).
I think there's a lot of unexplored opportunity in federated opaque attestation. I.e. this service attests that this user has this much value on it (where value is history + quality), but no additional information. Then that can be aggregated as proof for new service user bootstrapping. Done well, you could do away with captchas.
Similarly, the communication prerequisite for healthy democracy has become apparent over the past 30 years. Without accurate and digestible information, enough people make dumb decisions that democracy produces bad outcomes. Something that realigns {what I want} with {what will make that happen} would be incredibly valuable.
- replace ownership of productive means from capitalistic to cooperative
- ban any ownership of goods that are not actively used (eg one home, one car for everyone)
- all high ranking politician positions are unpaid and voluntary
- some more details...
Pick random people, empower them with access to staff and information, have them serve their term, then repeat.
100 citizens are chosen at random to advise government on certain things every now and then.
Theres some noise in news sources now calling for the next president to be elected via lottery as well. Note the Irish president is mostly ceremonial, and nothing like the democratic dictatorship in the US.
* I would create software licensing. This would identify persons capable of writing original software and assuming business ethics and liability for the products they create. This a massive gap in software. You can’t do any other professional job without a license.
I have a sneaking suspicion society would get a big boost if you filtered sociopathic tendencies out of middle management. I.e. license to have direct reports