
Ask HN: What do we get when applying root cause analysis to humanity's problems? - manx
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?
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noobie
You always end up with humanity's existence as the root of humanity's
problems.

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afarrell
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/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/) Is a
very interesting illustration of it.

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hutzlibu
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population](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 ...

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tmoullet
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys)

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

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id122015
Sexual Dimorphism I think its best explained by Turd Flinging Monkey in:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6LE250Y3XM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6LE250Y3XM)

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joeclark77
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

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

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

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adam419
The fact the global population is far too large

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stray
Global population has always been a function of available energy.

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

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Rainymood
Balance, or rather the lack thereof.

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jonah
Greed/Selfishness

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stray
The love of money.

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Ginguin
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.

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JeffreyKaine
a headache.

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okket
42

