Open Questions | Kevin Quinn
A living document of unresolved questions about modern life's systemic inefficiencies—from suburban waste to OSS sustainability—that challenges you to question the status quo rather than accept it.
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TLDR
• Suburban life is wildly inefficient: everyone owns duplicate lawn mowers, tools, cars when peer-to-peer sharing could work (but doesn't scale)
• Brilliant people waste potential shuffling stock market numbers instead of solving real problems—incentives are broken
• OSS sustainability crisis: critical internet infrastructure maintained by unpaid volunteers who don't want it to become a job
• Education system trains decades of failure-averse adults who lost curiosity—how do we rewire them to embrace learning?
• Massive tech/wealth disparity: self-driving cars exist while millions don't know if they'll eat—collective brainpower should solve this
In Detail
This is a public thinking document that catalogs unresolved systemic problems the author finds fascinating but hasn't solved. Rather than offering solutions, it models intellectual curiosity by making questions visible and collecting relevant resources over time. The questions span from micro (suburban neighborhoods where everyone owns duplicate equipment) to macro (global wealth disparity where some have self-driving cars while others starve).
Several themes emerge around broken incentive structures: talented people trapped in finance instead of solving real problems, OSS maintainers supporting billion-dollar companies for free (and often not wanting payment because it would turn fun into obligation), and education systems that trained millions to fear failure rather than embrace learning. The author questions why we accept these inefficiencies—why don't tool libraries or peer-to-peer rental services take off? Why can't we retroactively rewire adults to be curious again?
The document also tackles infrastructure problems: link rot threatening internet knowledge preservation, inadequate recycling systems paired with rampant consumption, and the challenge of bringing tech literacy and security to non-technical populations. The underlying argument is that we live by unspoken rules and accept the status quo without questioning whether better systems are possible. The value isn't in the answers—it's in the framework of collecting open questions and refusing to pretend everything is fine.