Ask HN: What Problem Would You Solve with Unlimited Resources? [May 2025]
3 hedayet 18 5/3/2025, 11:56:38 PM
I love the innovative ideas and unexpected insights from HN citizens. Let’s go deep—what challenge would you tackle if you had unlimited resources, like boundless funding, talent, or time?
Why would you choose to solve it? Do you actually need unlimited resources to start?
As a result, I came to the creation of a new programming language based on the C language. I realized that the C++ language was an evolution, but incorrectly implemented. The mistake is that a person is forced to write classes. But a person is not able to write a correct class. Only a translator can do this. I started doing this in my work https://github.com/azhibaev/c3 but I do not have enough funding.
I plan to build a parser for the C language https://github.com/azhibaev/c_parser , and create a new grammar. I plan to support the old grammar for Python and JavaScript. In general, you will be able to write strings in these languages inside a C program.
I am inventing new ways to automatically generate programs. One new way is the ability to call a non-existent function from a program with a non-existent data structure that should be created automatically when compiling the program. I'm looking for a job, but work takes up all my time and I can't do this project then.
I would want to solve this because unhoused people are suffering, and downtown (as a neighborhood) has been sort of hollowed out by business choosing to leave for practical reasons (WFH) and because of the perception of "too many" unhoused people. I love downtown, it's just not a pleasant place to spend time, especially at night.
I do not have the resources nor the political acumen for these kinds of initiatives, and I think it would take a great deal of resources to not only buy the land but demolish or renovate the buildings. It would create a lot of jobs (construction at first) but I think there's a large amount of activation energy required to get started.
[1]: https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/legal-action-taken-a...
It's very twee of people to believe that solving homelessness is a matter of resource allocation, or if we were all just more philanthropic, or if only there were more services and we could get to people where they're at.
But it's never a matter of these things. Being homeless has many advantages, many perks, and indeed there are non-negligible percentages of homeless people who prefer to be that way. And if you try to talk them out of it, they will resist. And there are also non-negligible percentages of homeless people who don't know how to be anything but, and when it becomes a way of life for them, they are technically feral, and it is simply a monumental effort to change them into "housed people" who can actually manage a stable household. That's a big ask for so many people, including those who do not struggle with mental health and addiction issues.
The root causes of homelessness are manifold and varied. There may be a dozen identifiable root causes here; are you going to attack all of them equally? Even your unlimited resources cannot. You need to work with a willing population here. Many homeless people are simply unwilling. Many others are not so selfish that they wouldn't share those resources with others, and that's a huge problem. Section 8 regularly chases people out after they've let in undesirable guests. SNAP has to close out people who are sharing their food resources. If you've got unlimited resources, then who's going to tell you that you need to allocate them judiciously to get the best impact?
One huge reason that people are out on the streets is because, 50 years ago, they may have been institutionalized. And that can't be done presently, so they are held by "virtual restraints" such as drugs and clinics. And so, if you really wanted to get people off the streets, would you ramp up imprisonment and incarceration? Would you lower the standards, to institutionalize people who cannot care for themselves?
What sort of mass labor camps and imprisonment looks attractive to you at this point, Mr. Unlimited Resources? Would you also pay for the trains to cart them off to wherever they are designated? It doesn't feel so good to "get people off the streets" when your realistic alternatives have an unsavory edge to them.
Complex problems require layered solutions, but difficulty is not equal to impossibility. Also, not trying kinda makes us a tiny bit more evil.
Homelessness is tractable when we understand that basic/fundamental needs precede behavior change ^^
Frankly, if the solution was to develop some technology that destroyed all the technology that overly connects us, I'd fund and build it. We need to put our phones away.
Mine asteroids, build giant habitats in Earth and Solar orbit. Explore and colonise the Solar System.
Lack of kindness.
There is no way to solve it.
No amount of resources, talent, funding or media can solve it.
It's a very simple problem with no solution.
Trust me, this problem has no solution.
Kindness will be gone, and no one will ever notice.