

Ask HN: What are these "important problems" we keep reading about? - tfb

It seems a recurring theme throughout a number of articles and blog posts submitted here outline working on "important problems" as something strongly coveted in the software engineering industry.  Most people would probably define these problems differently, specific to their own domain or recent experiences, but I have a feeling there's a fair bit of common ground.<p>To generalize, I would consider any difficult yet solvable (in the near future) problem - that upon solving would ultimately raise some standard of living - to fall into the "important problem" category.  And I would also assume, from my own experience, that these problems are either presently unsolved or their current solutions are less than adequate; and producing an optimal answer would be extremely satisfying to the point of feeling like life as an engineer/contributor to society is one step closer to completion.<p>Conversely, it might help to examine "unimportant problems", ones that might be too monotonous or easy.  Or maybe solving them doesn't quite scratch an itch.  But in solving them, you know you're one step closer to achieving a greater goal.<p>So with that said, what problems do you consider worthwhile?  What are these "important problems" we keep reading about?<p>Edit: I should have been more clear and mentioned where I see the term come up most.  It seems to be mentioned almost weekly on various startups' blogs, most of which are geared towards web apps and the like.  It would be interesting to discuss the non-obvious "important problems" from hackers' perspectives.
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vitovito
Paul Graham defines "ambitious"-important problems differently than others
have. I use Dr. Richard Hamming's version, from his talk, You and Your
Research: <http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html>

_And I started asking, "What are the important problems of your field?" And
after a week or so, "What important problems are you working on?" And after
some more time I came in one day and said, "If what you are doing is not
important, and if you don't think it is going to lead to something important,
why are you at Bell Labs working on it?"_

Hamming constrained important problems not just to global or personal
significance, but also added a factor of _solvability._ You had to have a way
to attack a problem for it to matter, and if you didn't, you should be working
on problems that would lead you there, somehow, maybe, hopefully, indirectly.
Broad experience was just as important as technical chops.

 _If you do not work on an important problem, it's unlikely you'll do
important work. It's perfectly obvious. Great scientists have thought through,
in a careful way, a number of important problems in their field, and they keep
an eye on wondering how to attack them. Let me warn you, "important problem"
must be phrased carefully. The three outstanding problems in physics, in a
certain sense, were never worked on while I was at Bell Labs. By important I
mean guaranteed a Nobel Prize and any sum of money you want to mention. We
didn't work on (1) time travel, (2) teleportation, and (3) antigravity. They
are not important problems because we do not have an attack. It's not the
consequence that makes a problem important, it is that you have a reasonable
attack. That is what makes a problem important. When I say that most
scientists don't work on important problems, I mean it in that sense. The
average scientist, so far as I can make out, spends almost all his time
working on problems which he believes will not be important and he also
doesn't believe that they will lead to important problems._

I tackle important problems for designers in my recent essay, You and Your
Designs, published in this quarter's issue of Distance: <http://distance.cc/>

I give examples of five important problems in design, and explain why:

1\. Responsive web design, because it exposes content and content management
as a first-order design constraint.

2\. A/B testing, because intentionally and purposefully trying different
things goes against how many of us were raised as designers.

3\. The Internet of Things, because it means we can do away with metaphors and
have physical objects that contain their own meaning.

4\. "Big data" and "computational X," because they represent the event horizon
for designer-as-polymath.

5\. "Immersive I/O" and "natural user interfaces," because they remove our
"sensory deprived and physically limited" constraints on interactions with
technology.

I wrote in a different comment elsewhere, the interesting thing about
entrepreneurship is, _you don't have to be limited by your field of academic
research, and your lunch tables of chemists and mathematicians can be those of
any industry in the world. Working on important problems means your work will
have long-term_ meaning.

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kevin_rubyhouse
Couldn't we say that any solution that makes life easier raises the standard
of living? A better interface, faster software, etc... Product & idea
iterations improve the standard of living in the future because their effects
snowball overtime. They are also stepping stones for their creators to move
onto better and "more important" problems.

Truly important problems - the ones where a solution would make an immediate
and significant positive impact in some way for the human race - would be
things like solving multi-planetary existence (figure out how to survive a
lifetime on Mars and grow), ending poverty, ending crime, ending corruption,
ending world hunger... There's a lot. To me, these are the end steps of
whatever these "important problems" solve. For instance, we can't end crime
until we end corruption, have a government system that people don't need to
circumvent for anything, and have everybody be satisfied enough not to commit
even the smallest crime. I once read that in Soviet Russia, people would
illegally offer their repair services to individuals and companies that didn't
want to wait for scheduled maintenance or replacement (or something similar to
that idea.)

The problems we solve today are steps and pieces along the way to reach these
end Utopian style goals (living on Mars isn't Utopian.. but the other things I
listed are.)

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byoung2
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs>

Start at the bottom of that diagram and work your way up

EDIT: Based on the edited original post, let me elaborate. The most important
things are at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of Needs. The "important
problems" as I see them are the ones at the bottom - food, water, health,
resources. If you found a way to hack clean water, food supply, or disease,
those would be important problems, compared to say, a social network, or video
sharing site (these would be at the top of the pyramid).

~~~
vitovito
The trouble with Maslow's hierarchy is that it's a psychological framework
that sounds good, but has no basis in fact.

The "Criticisms" section of the article touches on most of the major concerns,
so if you consider taking this advice, please consider digging into it
properly, not superficially.

~~~
byoung2
The hierarchy is just for illustration purposes. I'm sure you would agree that
a startup that solves problems of food, shelter, health, or resources is
solving a more important problem than one addressing creativity or self
esteem? What would you address first if you were shipwrecked on a deserted
island? This is true regardless of what Maslow said.

~~~
vitovito
Except, it's not true regardless, that's the whole point of the criticisms.

First, we're not all shipwrecked, and I don't think trying to solve problems
for those who are is going to be a valuable enterprise in the long term.

Second, the criticisms specifically circle around both an egocentric and
ethnocentric view of psychology _which has not borne out in testing._
Different cultures in different contexts _prioritize things differently._

~~~
byoung2
s/shipwrecked/third world/

The original poster specifically mentioned that he was looking for problems to
raise the standard of living:

 _I would consider any difficult yet solvable (in the near future) problem -
that upon solving would ultimately raise some standard of living - to fall
into the "important problem" category_

In that context, a startup that made a device that could desalinize water
cheaply would be solving an important problem. A startup that helped me share
files between my phone and computer would not, though it would probably be
more profitable.

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joshschreuder
See here: <http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html>

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tfb
Thanks. Although I was hoping to get some real, personal examples of what
folks here consider to be important problems.

~~~
joshschreuder
Personally, I would say the (probably obvious) examples would be medicine (or
quality of life improvements approaching old age), reduction of famine, and
freely available and easily accessible information / learning.

~~~
tfb
I should have been a little more clear as what I was getting at. I wrote it
pretty hastily. See my edit on the original post.

