Ask HN: What do you want life to be like in 10 years, and how can we help?

19 points by miej 4 years ago | 25 comments

Or without character limit:

What do you want life in the world/your country/your local area/etc to be like in 10 years, and what specific, discrete actions can the rest of us take as individuals in order to help make that vision a reality?

Please interpret as you like wrt geographic scale, topic, etc. Mostly just interested in collecting/understanding what sort of specific actions I (or others (un)/like me) can take in order to actually effect that change.

I believe that simply discussing particular topics with friends and/or sharing links to articles is very underwhelmingly effective with the modern focus on commoditized attention and FOMO dynamics, so I'm hoping for suggestions that are more tactical/discrete than that.

speedgoose 4 years ago |

I want to work a lot less. We currently work 40 hours a week and I would prefer around 30 hours. I could of course do a part time job but it involves being paid less which is a problem to afford housing in my area, and it's perhaps not good for my career. So if everyone is working less, everyone is more productive and happy and paid about the same.

ixacto 4 years ago |

-Ranked choice voting in the United State for federal elections

-At least 5 different political parties

-UBI Yang-style $1000/mo with a 10% VAT tax to fund it

-Much lower taxes on the first 100k of income, government files taxes automatically

-Much lower regulations to start a small business or work independently, having to forecast 1099 income for quarterlies is idiotic and politicians don't care...

-10x NASA budget targeting a colony on the moon & mars within 10 years

-10x budget to NIH, study how to have longer healthier lives

-Medicare for all, for citizens and non-citizens this is accomplishable with sales based taxes and switching from income based taxes

-Get rid of most zoning in most cities

-Get rid of most border controls, mostly open borders but more severe penalties for violent crime

-Nationwide fibre network, 1000/1000megabit connection is standard to all homes

-Forgive all student loan debt, and stop giving government-funded loans

-Less social media use

thorin 4 years ago | |

Just move to Europe and most of your problems with go away :-)

tcbasche 4 years ago | | |

Yes I can’t help but feel a lot of these are uniquely USA problems

armchairhacker 4 years ago |

I think the way most individuals should help society, is just by trying to make the world a better place than if they weren't here. That's by doing small things: being nice to people, picking up trash, buying sustainable and donating when they can, and not using their money towards bad interests when they can.

Unfortunately the world can be a very very cruel place, and there are a lot of broken systems that aren't going to be fixed anytime soon. There are a lot of bad people in power, and a lot of good people who spend their lives suffering, and there's nothing you can do about it. But as terrible as the world is, people overlook that it can also be a nice place. There's just too much complexity to figure out anything in the global, grand scheme of things, so you have to focus on local, gradual changes.

ssag2 4 years ago |

I want everyone to have the freedom to say anything they want online without the worry of being destroyed by others for having said it.

bluewalt 4 years ago | |

Just don't read the answers to your comments :p

u03c6 4 years ago |

I want to see more communities with people building things together instead of a lot of people just consuming what a few influencers do in some far away fantasy land. I thinks a lot of the tech elite trying to build the next big thing to sell and save themselves could try to build the next big thing that allows people to work closely. Think of it as Stackoverflow vs Instagram, the first allowed a lot of people to help each other, the second just made a lot of consumers and a few big scale sellers.

nextweek2 4 years ago |

I'd like the waters around me to be cleaner. I read that New York used to be clear water because of all the oysters. This same natural process is being tried near me in the UK. But I think more funding is needed to scale up to a billion shellfish.

I'd also like to setup a charity that buys land and turns it into woodland. Effort for that is happening but not within 100 miles of me.

These two things would massively improve my life and those around me.

gregjor 4 years ago |

I’d like less virtue signaling and Utopianism.

The last savior with big ideas like “Do unto others…” and “Judge not…” had some great ideas for making the world better, but you know what happened to him.

schwartzworld 4 years ago | |

Pretty sure Jesus wasn't the last person to preach tolerance and love.

dyeje 4 years ago |

I would like the world to stop barreling full speed towards climate disaster and societal collapse.

Irongirl1 4 years ago |

-I'd like a platform where non-tech folks can get honest, reliable help with things like buying crypto and setting up the secure section on a Samsung Galaxy.

-I'd like the ability to buy insurance as needed. Imagine that you are going to a new neighborhood and you are worried about being harmed and you were able to buy short -term catastrophic insurance that lasted for a few days.

-I'd like a platform that listed independent bankers (financing pros etc) who could help you buy businesses, create proposals for M&A without all the crap of LinkedIn, or large projects.

-I'd like a way to contact professionals who could answer questions about products I'm interested in building that wouldn't get them in trouble. Like Codementor but for everything.

Those are just the first four, but I have no idea how/or even whether or not anyone and help with these things. Each platform seems to quickly turn to yuck...overrun with crappy ads and tons of bad actors who don't actually seem all that interested in helping anyone but themselves.

giantg2 4 years ago |

I would like to be financially independent (highly unlikely). This would give me the ability to get more exercise, enjoy hobbies, and take a lower stress part time or gig job. I dont think there's really anything to be had for help in this area.

To answer the question in the context that I think you have in mind... I would like to see a lower birth rate, less construction, less congestion, more green tech, and more sustainable practices.

muzani 4 years ago |

I'd like to see non-usurious finance make a comeback. Basically the idea that when you borrow $N, you pay back $N*inflation. You can give $X in addition to the amount you're required to pay back but it wouldn't be contractual. We've done these loans to fund some local companies and they were profitable despite not having contractual interest.

Does it scale? I don't think it should. Debt is deeply rooted in our society but I don't think it actually improves things. People overestimate what they have, buy things they don't need, and it raises the prices for the thing artificially. Being locked into credit card debt is nasty and should never be allowed by a responsible society; it makes people as helpless as slaves.

The VC model is awesome: you give $N and take M% of equity, but also take some of the risk.

I suppose the question is how we can transition to a society less reliant on debt.

bluewalt 4 years ago |

No cars in the center of the cities, only bike lanes, pedestrians, places. In cities like Paris, cars are completely useless.

voisin 4 years ago |

I would like to see more nuclear, solar, and wind, and less coal and natural gas.

I would like to see less industrial scale, mechanized farming and more bio-intensive, more permaculture, more sustainable ag. More kelp farming too.

I would like to see less money in politics and political discourse. Scientific discourse too.

mikewarot 4 years ago |

I want computer security to be solved. You should be able to buy a computer and just use it, updates should be a rare thing that happens once a year or so.

I know things that won't help. Blaming users, Microsoft, hackers, programming language choices, all won't help.

thorin 4 years ago | |

Security often comes from adding many many features, often ones no one ever uses if you look at a list of backdoors etc. If you want your own self contained machine I wonder if flavors of Linux or Chromebooks etc would be better.

readonthegoapp 4 years ago |

I want the temperature to not regularly shoot past 100F

And I want it to drop precipitously like it used to at night

kubanczyk 4 years ago |

I want there to be five or ten political parties with distinct ideas. I want people to think and talk about these ideas.

I want people to vote on these parties without fearing whether "their" option is going to "lose".

mikewarot 4 years ago | |

Do you feel like ranked choice voting would be helpful in getting there?

ashishtilak 4 years ago |

I want to see less cars, more trees. But I don't know how to reduce number of cars! Anyone can suggest how you can convince someone to not use the car.

thelastinuit 4 years ago |

I want to have interstellar adventures. Help? no, you can't and that's ok. I'm going to die centuries before that.

billylo 4 years ago |

Popularize and celebrate simple/loving lifestyles.

I believe this is doable and will have high ROI.