Burning Man Issue Tracker

@jacobcole list public extra-exports jacobcole-net systematicawesome Updated 2026-02-12

Burning Man Issue Tracker

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IssueTracker.world • started by [email protected]
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World Issue Tracker (issuetracker.world)
IssueTracker.world See also: openproblems.connectr.site
We think the biggest reason people don’t work on impactful things is that they are simply not aware how many low hanging fruit they could be working on today. If they knew about those things they would be getting up and working on them.
Important neglected problems. Issues we would like to see more brainpower, talent, or contribution being poured into in locales we are familiar with. Also: vetted, meaningful, high-impact initiatives contributing toward these goals.

What are the things that need to get done? Make a list! Knock them out and complete them? How few people could do it? #inspiring #lifegoal

General Issue Feed (Add Here)

Tags:, worldSuggestion, Wellness, classes, in, prisons, Suggestion, Lifeproject, worldsuggestion, lowhangingfruit, prisonReform, <>, would, improve, diet, in, prisons, indirectly, <>, guy, from, thekrake, class, who, was, being, fed, food, he's, allergic, to?, <>, theory, around, prison, as, punishment, vs, growth?, how, do, different, parts, of, society, think, about, this?, foucault?, what, would, satisfy, both, camps?, hardcore, training/teaching,, shaolin, monk, like?, <>, goenka, vipassana, meditation, in, prisons
#worldproblem mass penguin die off Mass die-off strikes endangered emperor penguin chicks across 4 of 5 West Antarctica colonies | Live Science — https://www.livescience.com/animals/penguins/mass-die-off-strikes-endangered-emperor-penguin-chicks-across-4-of-5-west-antarctica-colonies#:~:text=A%20massive%20die%2Doff%20has,year%2C%20a%20new%20study%20finds.

By Country

Mongolia

Context:

~50% of Mongolians live in the capital, Ulan Bator. A large yurt village, called the Ger district, surrounds the official city. which is very cold in the winter. Yurt dwellers burn coal to survive. See: also: Issue Graph

Good Initiatives

Issues

“Low-Hanging Fruit” Problems

-

Youth want more access to quality tech education #UntappedPotential
  • Evidence: desire to learn coding/data science #bigmarket: dean of engineering from stanford came to mongolia lately; data science seminars - seminar was fully booked
  • No specific tutoring for coding

  • idea

  • idea HackMongolia -- no large scale hackathons in Mongolia #idea ~Battushig

  • idea FIRST Robotics / FIRST Lego League for Mongolia

  • No MOOCs in the Mongolian language – most mongolians don't speak english well enough to participate in a MOOC

  • needs: tech input, education input

Opportunities

-

Recently modernized ecobuses/electric buses in city center

-

Mongolia has recently gained wider cell data infrastructure.

-

Mongolia has strong and effective protest culture/free speech

“Wicked Problems” / Long term Challenges

-

Air pollution from coal burning (largely for yurt heating)
  • people living in Ger districs (districts circling outskirts of cities not connected to central electricity grid --> burning coal to survive. -30C in winter PM2.5 levels 30x recommended amount) (? from coal mining as well)
  • not enough apartments to house people in Ger districts; so if they want to move in and not contribute to air pollution they can't

-

Poor water drainage in summer → flooding when heavy rain #SeasonalIssues
  • when first planning city, had enough drainage; areas were supposed to be bare/full of vegetation - people buying land legally or illegally and building apartments/infrastructure #SeasonalIssues
  • government corruption and lack of enforcement allowed this - drainage bases blocked by apartments

-

Outdated energy infrastructure - coal power plants outdated; wanting energy independence
  • dependent on Russia for energy

-

Transportation expensive from Ger districts – hard to get into city center
  • bus networks don't reach that far. have to walk in the cold in the winter 30min-1hr to nearest bus stops to get into city center

-

Food prices have gone up since Ukraine war
  • up -eat lot of meat/dairy; 10x more livestock eg sheep than humans but not reflected in price of meat
  • food sourced from russia
  • Covid
  • flooding when heavy rain
  • todo

-

Poor infrastructure / city planning; lack of roads / paths; not easily walkable →  everyone has cars
  • traffic jams all year long

-

Hard for people with disabilities (e.g. wheelchair, or hearing/sight problems) to get around
  • poor infrastructure

-

Category: #SeasonalIssues

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USA / Global

Context

America currently faces a higher degree of mental health challenges and homelessness than most other developed countries. Political polarization remains high, while economic fundamentals remain strong. Low hanging fruit underserved needs, especially on the long tail, and for the disabled. There are many issues that are technically easy to solve but aren't good venture fundable multi-billion dollar businesses these are often neglected.

Good Initiatives

  • impactlabs.io

  • Needs: ?sponsors (change if not correct), speakers for next years summit

  • volunteerforce.jacobcole.net

  • Needs: engineering volunteers to build things, project ideas

Issues

“Low-Hanging Fruit” Problems

-

Widespread pharmaceuticals contributes to mental health challenges[a]

-

Epidemic back pain
  • Svaroopa Yoga Is not well known can potentially address the epidemic of back pain

-

Gen Z is bored by corporate life & sees potential for it to be more playtested
  • Create more fun and engaging content – knowledge transfer from modern social media influencers, e.g. have face present during productivity software tutorials

-

Food deserts - in poor urban areas, in native american reservations
  • http://actualfood.com/

-

Public schooling not effective in many places

  • Lack of teaching of critical thinking, too much focus on rote

  • Finland and UAE do this well

  • Lack of good lectures

  • 3blue1brown could start its own university/public high school

  • Start with linear algebra course? #suggestion

-

Need for more emotional / contemplative public education
  • More Social Emotional Learning - NVC (Nonviolent Communication) could be taught in elementary schools

-

Assistive technology

-

Quadruplegia
  • Full hands-free interfaces for computers

-

RSI (Repetitive strain injury)

-

Low Vision

-

Support for Neurodiversity

  • More studies on Integrative healing/Chinese medicine for Tourettes

  • Widespread unprocessed trauma

  • Need for more caring “mom energy” / “extra families” for kids and young adults especially

Opportunities

-

Lots of great embodied healing arts teachers created content online over COVID

-

Chinese medicine/acupuncture/qigong is Understudied/not well known in the West and can potentially help physical and emotional problems
  • Svaroopa Yoga Is not well known can potentially address the epidemic of back pain

“Wicked Problems” / Long term Challenges

-

Political Polarization (NVC could help bridge the gap and get both sides to understand where each other are coming from, and stop talking past each other)
  • people living in Ger districs (districts circling outskirts of cities not connected to central electricity grid --> burning coal to survive. -30C in winter PM2.5 levels 30x recommended amount) (? from coal mining as well)
  • not enough apartments to house people in Ger districts; so if they want to move in and not contribute to air pollution they can't

-

Homelessness in SF
  • Not legally allowed to create new housing for homeless like in NYC
  • That being said, SF’s problem is not that it has homelessness, it’s that the city has a ton of homeless.
  • This of course is really obvious but worth stating nonetheless. Now, SF has a ton of homeless for three main reasons: typical issues (e.g. mental illness, disabilities, etc.) which plague other cities with much lower cost of living, desire to be homeless in a city which minimally limits their freedom, and of course people pushed on to the streets by the regional housing crunch.

  • In the second category, I include folks who are truly hopeless addicts, folks who became unsheltered elsewhere but moved to California for the weather, extremely mentally ill people (the screaming type) who won’t be bothered in California due to people generally minding their own business, what have you.

-

  • Culture that worships money vs empowerment of others
  • Bureaucracy in power structures

-

Rare disease

-

lacks the financial incentive for pharmaceutical companies to spend large amounts of money figuring out and solving.

- Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (TNXB, Vascular)

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[New issue: edit me]
  • Highly polluted water supply (see difference between places closer to mountain water sources vs near the coast)
  • Drug addiction (exponentiated by dehumanizing drug policy)
  • War driven economy encourages never-ending wars
  • Overgrowth of consumerism such that it becomes entangled with the meaning of being human

  • School systems often perpetuate trauma

  • Requires students to sit still for many hours a day, which is unhealthy to require of a human body

  • Doesn’t follow or encourage the spark of aliveness, students have to rediscover

  • doesn't really help learning or meet needs for movement play creativity socialization.

  • Selfishness and lack of helping (bootstraps mentality)

  • Cruelty towards those unable to care for themselves, eg chronic illness sufferers, those with mental health issues. A feeling that people in general don’t have a right to housing, food, etc and that they need to earn it (indoctrination by capitalism disguised as a call to agency).

  • Society punishes u for resting or building things that aren’t maximally productive. Minimal incentive to screw around and make cool stuff, or to make art that isn’t immediately well-loved.

  • American exceptionalism and lack of global collaboration overall

  • ‘America, world police’ is the wrong vibe. United Nations is directionally correct. Global civilization of sharing, caring, and love is the right vibe. Need to find a way to co-exist despite competing ideologies, for starters we need to ALL agree on basic human rights. Ideally try very very hard to exhaust non-violent means of coalescence on agreeing to basic human rights.

  • Stroads, cities built for cars.

  • Look to Sweden and Netherlands and Barcelona and how they built walkable mega blocks that get a sense of thriving and real livability in their cities.

  • Failure of suburbia and the atomic family to provide for social needs.

  • Left brain-dominant, feeling-repressing epidemic.

  • Gendlin’s focusing can help (really surprises people when they get in touch with their emotions, realizing they were only connected with a shallow facsimile of their true emotions, which feel true and strong and deep and alive.)

  • MDMA can help (see MDMA on clinical trials for PTSD to see its massive impact on emotional dysfunction and trauma)

  • Attention economy and engagement algorithms rather than empowerment algorithms.

  • Tiktok

  • Obesity representative of emotional numbing & short term dopamine loops, loss of overall purpose and narrative of meaning of America, of raison d'etre.

  • Sitting epidemic killing people due to desk jobs. Excavate the embodiment graveyard.
—-

Africa: Tanzania

https://ideapad.io/tanzania-issues-issuetracker/

Context

See ideapad link ^
Context on Tanzania: in the Capital of Dar es Salaam, substantial group technically capable young people exist, largely running free software like Ubuntu, and often machines that are 10 years out of date and may not support modern software. In remote villages, many people have feature phones, few people have smartphones (You couldn't always easily charge them anyway). Many people live in simple mud brick buildings. Country is a mix of Muslim and Catholic, with largely peaceful coexistence.
Many parts of Tanzania have highly fertile soil it's theoretically easy to cultivate. Some locals note coordination issues, corruptions, and other problems lead to scarcity despite this.
Cultural differences (not necessarily problems): less culture of queuing in lines; people move as a herd. Generally low expectations/consistency around scheduling/show up on time, especially in remote areas.

Common Peace Corps interventions to improve quality of life (after mandatory 6mo non-intervention period): Health education (handwashing, sanitary placement of latrines relative to gardens and water supplies), sharing know-how on permagardening. Sex education, prevent unplanned pregnancies.

Questions: How were living conditions in these remote areas pre-colonial times vs now (better? What know-how has been lost? And what context has changed)?

Good Initiatives

  • US Peace Corps
  • Tanzania-MIT Telehackathon

Issues

See ideapad link ^

Africa: Kenya

https://ideapad.io/kenya-issues/ #WIP

Context

See ideapad link ^

Good Initiatives

-

Issues

See ideapad link ^

Africa (General)

https://ideapad.io/africa/  #WIP

Context

WIP

Good Initiatives

Issues

See ideapad link ^

“Low-Hanging Fruit” Problems

Build more feature phone apps (SMS), e.g. text crop and location to get fair price in market
Build easier, secure means of reporting government corruption

Opportunities

Widespread feature phone access has untapped potential

“Wicked Problems” / Long term Challenges

"During the continent’s colonization by European superpowers, many of its countries saw their natural resources depleted by those countries, which were undergoing periods of industrialization. Many of those net effects have just come up in the last half-century. Deforestation has turned many areas into “heat traps” for the sun (which can hit hard in countries around the Equator), and desert areas have become more vulnerable to frequent floods since their terrain isn’t designed to absorb water." https://concernusa.org/news/hunger-in-africa-explained/

Hunger in Africa: How did it get so bad?

Donating people mosquito nets to prevent malaria undercuts local production capacity / economy. EA / Givewell failure mode

THE UNDERLYING CAUSES OF THE FOOD CRISIS IN AFRICA
Malnutrition in the history of tropical Africa

Burning Man

Issues
- Bad Porto conditions

  • Poop on seats
  • Often lacking tp
  • Lingering porto smell over the top of the chemical air de-smelly-ifier

  • Every porto could have a reminder to close the lid (reduces the lingering smell) and to lock the door

  • It’s hard to navigate burning man

  • Road signs keep being stolen(ppl are putting up signs saying pls dont steal)

  • Food camp portions are small and lines for food are long

  • Wow this sounds like communism but hey, free food. That’s why radical self-reliance is a thing. And your camp feeds you well generally.

  • HBGB healers are constantly booked out even right after being refreshed

  • Events constantly getting canceled
  • Hard to find out about exclusive events. I knew someone was hosting an orgy but didn’t find out when/where until it was already over
  • Sparkleponies
  • Aggressive solicitors w megaphones trying to get you to go to their events, kinda uncomfortable vibes
  • Plug-n-play camps defeat purpose of event

  • Burning man gate radio gives little to no weather updates even when it rains black swan level (most in a decade). Should focus more on information during emergencies rather than being whimsical 24/7--it’s there to disseminate information.

See Also

Quests.world (http://worldquestguild.connectr.site/ ) • http://volunteerforce.jacobcole.net/ • http://favorverse.jacobcole.net/

Burning Man Theme-Camps of the Year 2029: From Replicator to Rainbow God (1/2)
- Part 2/2

World Issue Tracker Graphs
- Mongolia Issues
- (See root level relations: https://ideapad.io/world-issue-trackers-issuetracker-gestaltlist/)

Global Idea Bank
- Ideabank.global

  • http://globalideabank.jacobcole.net/

  • https://startupideas.jacobcole.net/

Meta doc: Gestalts.world
- http://worldproblems.jacobcole.net/
- http://easilysolvableworldproblems.jacobcole.net/

Notion for this project

Thoughts:
- US Peace Corps Philosophy of “Live in a country for 6 months as an inhabitant before trying to make any interventions.”

  • this helps us not fall into the mistake of donating large amounts of mosquito Nets to a country in Africa and then accidentally undercutting all local production capacity - the result being long-term less sustainable

  • By contrast some issues are well solved simply by giving people money and resources. Relates to  givedirectly, microlending

  • FutureVision #Utopian The fun creating a “spaceship bridge” for the world – the bridge of spaceship earth: what are the challenges today for our heroes to solve?

[a]this makes no sense