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A comment on Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas. Parent comment

Re:Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas by nostrademons on Saturday March 10, 2012 @01:21AM (#3687222)
An idea I've been musing on: is there a fundamental set of problems of humanity from which all economic activity is derived? For example:

"Shrink the world": couriers, seafarers, caravans, riders, roadbuilders, railroads, telegraphs, automobiles, steamships, dockworkers, truck drivers, aviation, telephones, email, social networking, videoconferencing.

"Organize labor": lords, finance, education, recruiting, HR, management, information systems, law, accounting.

"Keep us safe": militia, pikemen, shamans, legions, samurai, knights, musketeers, standing armies, chemists, doctors & nurses, the military/industrial complex.

"Food and shelter": self-explanatory.

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Re:Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas by lisper on Saturday March 10, 2012 @01:28AM (#3687229)
http://rondam.blogspot.com/2009/10/catalog-of-wealth-creatio...
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Re:Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas by jodrellblank on Saturday March 10, 2012 @09:02AM (#3687786)
"Money for primarily good feelings, not stuff": charity, religion, theater, tv, films, gambling, music, story books, fashion, holidays, tourism.
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Re:Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas by philwelch on Saturday March 10, 2012 @01:31AM (#3687236)
"Find stuff to burn" is a pretty big chunk too.
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Re:Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas by zem on Saturday March 10, 2012 @02:39AM (#3687363)
"Control more energy than your body can produce"
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Re:Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas by itmag on Saturday March 10, 2012 @07:31AM (#3687679)
The "sex & war" category seems to be a great catalyst for innovation. These days, "sex" of course means "Internet porn".
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Re:Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas by nameless_noob on Sunday March 18, 2012 @03:04AM (#3719307)
Don't know if you'll get this,

but it's cause we all want to grow. To keep the gains from growing, and insure it's invested. We intrinsically don't want to see kids starve, why?

That answer's the perspective, I think.

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Re:Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas by nandemo on Sunday March 11, 2012 @09:31PM (#3691955)
Not sure if this answers your question, but the fundamental problem from which all economic activity is derived is scarcity.
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