How can we benefit everybody as much as possible? I really don't know. But this is a very important topic (to me) that I love to discuss. The answer might depend on how we define the word "benefit". Well being? in a long-term view or short-sighted monetary/comfort sense? Shouldn't our aim in society to benefit everybody? I'm with you. 100%. But in order for something to last, it shouldn't be the main focus but something that comes as a side-effect (emergence?). And, this is just my opinion. Some questions can't be answered easily. And, some can't be, at all (not from a defeatist mindset, but seeing right in the eyes of something that seems unanswerable, gives me pure joy!). To me, keeping these questions in mind while going through our life is the key. One can always find a reason to do/not-do. If you ask me, it's the question of well being and intelligence. Well being of an individual or everyone? If you see deep enough, there exists no individual without others and vice versa. To be more direct: we're embedded in our environment and focusing on one's own (depends on how greedy (in RL/CS sense) you are) life is just being short-sighted.

Two points: We can start rolling out the lightest part of it - the tip - right now! The strength required by the tether is not the same across its length - to minimize weight, it has to be tapering off towards the Earth's end, with very light tip. So, let's find a suitable geostationary sattelite in orbit already, and bring some tape (tether) to it. Space junk that's already in orbit, is great for the counterweight construction. It requires much less fuel to lift the junk into the geostationary orbit, than to lift it up from Earth surface.

I think this might be a bad aim for individuals. For example, suppose I have a child. If I were to aim to benefit everybody, then I would have to neglect my child. I think that maximizing (benefiting everybody as much as possible) also might not be a good aim: we need rest and leisure, time to ourselves, in order not to burn out.

I think this might be more complicated than keeping a diary or even than monitoring the body’s response to a given food using technology. There are at least two reasons why I think this is more complicated than either of those processes suggest: (1) such a process presupposes that the body’s needs are static. But, this is not the case. If I go for a run one day, my body’s needs that day will be different from what they are on another day when I do not go for a run. Likewise if I am sick. And, as our bodies age, of course, our needs change, too. (2) such a process presupposes that the body’s way of processing food remains static. But, this is also not the case. The micro biome, for example, changes through time, and this has an effect on the kinds and amounts of nutrients that are available to the body after eating. Likewise regarding the age of cells/organs. So, I think using a diary or technology can be very useful and informative—but, it also can be misleading if we do not keep the above in mind.

When I realize that the incessant cleaning of surfaces in Japan is a homeostatic fight against proliferation of bacteria in humid air, rather than just an aesthetic preference, it makes me realize another problem that these hive capsules would solve: making the air continental-climate-dry inside the capsules would automatically increase the public hyghiene.

One way to start selling quicker, is to focus on selling the simpler "independently-useful-components" of a modular product. For example, if your product is an electric toothbrush, you might develop an end-effector for existing devices, and start selling it first. I'd call this approach -- an "functional modularization" of products. In case of Hivica, it could be viable, because the "hive cell" because it has multifunctional components, that the unique kind of door, that doubles as a bed. However, to enable people to incrementally buy components of a hivica, the entire car needs to be prototyped with a long-term vision in mind, because once initial components are sold, it is harder to modify its dimensions in the future (without recall of products, sending new versions to all the customers). Additionally, with the approach, where the customer self-assembles the car, by incrementally buying its independently useful parts, manufactured locally in each country, based on the provided drawings, by using supply chains in those countries, it becomes an imperative for the entire sale process to build a specialized app, that connects the part ordering with consumer orders. It requires maintaining partnering supplier network, similar to how people choose the delivery method, or payment method, they would be buying instance of the product to be made based on drawings, and able to choose the manufacturing shop, that will make and send the product. In such buying process, added complexity comes from the fact, that each single-part product has to be matched with different supplier, that specializes in one or other specific type of manufacturing. In general, developing a buying experience of: "pay for our drawings, we'll submit them to your local manufacturer, and you'll receive the product" is worth a separate startup on its own. However, it's the kind of sale experience that I'd like to provide for the HiveCell buyers...

The reason why I thought of this is because I recently created this Hacker News Comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34614497#34618834 People upvoted me. Why isn't everything on a computer as easy as going to a website?

I thought -- today, we're often loading the whole app, as a matter of opening a website. E.g., open GMail, and you're loading an entire app. Pinning apps, or wrapping them with Electron instances of browser, was an obvious thing, and people do that. However, what you're presenting here, is a lower level, and I like it. The protocol, like config;// for the OS looks neat! I see it being useful for organizing system resources.

After watching numerous videos about floating bridges, I still think the idea I've described has merit...

The link to the project's repo is telling more than the summary. Let me see.

Welcome back, [Niamh]! I'm quite surprised how good a match is your project to the Infinity community, and I'm practically interested in the cognitive benefits it could create. For example, I find myself really innovative in certain states, perhaps it's Theta waves (?), and I'd be curious about flexibilities in self-modulating one's brain with a tool like you described in the science section. When you say "I would do it myself if I had app building skills. Instead, I have a background in psychology, neuroscience .." -- it makes an impression that you had already played scientifically with these sound modulations using some tools or environments, where you had found that to work. If so, could you elaborate on that? I think, the simplest approach could be to start with something like JavaScript-based web page (such as this one, using the pizzicato.js library), where people could interact with sounds.