World Solve

Some inequality is often seen as a natural result of differing effort or luck, but there's no agreed threshold for when it becomes unjust. Different political philosophies answer this question in fundamentally incompatible ways.

Gig work can offer flexibility but often comes with unpredictable income swings that make financial planning difficult for workers. A system that offers more income stability without eliminating flexibility remains unresolved.

Resources like fresh water, fertile soil, and certain minerals are being used faster than they can replenish, yet markets often don't price this depletion accurately. Building this cost into economic decision-making remains largely unresolved.

Small businesses often struggle to access recovery funding quickly enough after disasters, leading to permanent closures that could have been prevented. Faster, more accessible recovery financing remains an unresolved gap.

In many regions, a lack of real competition among providers allows companies to charge more than a competitive market would allow. Enforcing genuine competition in these industries remains a persistent regulatory challenge.

GDP growth doesn't capture things like wellbeing, environmental health, or inequality, yet it remains the default measure of a country's economic success. A broader, widely adopted alternative measure remains unsettled.

High student debt loads are pushing back decisions like buying a home or starting a family for many young adults. Rebalancing the cost of education against its long-term benefits remains a persistent economic problem.

Farmers, especially in developing countries, often receive a small fraction of the final retail price for their crops, while large intermediaries capture most of the value. A fairer supply chain structure remains largely unresolved.

Migrant workers often pay steep fees to send money to family in their home countries, cutting into wages that are frequently already low. Cheaper remittance systems could meaningfully improve financial security for millions of families.

As AI boosts productivity in many industries, the resulting financial gains tend to concentrate with business owners rather than being broadly shared. A fairer distribution mechanism remains a significant unresolved economic question.

Many well-paying, in-demand jobs don't require a four-year degree, yet vocational paths still often carry less social and economic status. Rebalancing this perception could ease both skills shortages and student debt burdens.

New, fast-growing markets often attract inexperienced investors right before major price crashes, leading to significant personal financial losses. Protecting newer investors without stifling innovation remains an unresolved balance.

Caregiving and household labor, disproportionately done by women, largely goes uncounted in standard economic measures like GDP. This makes an enormous amount of real economic contribution effectively invisible in policy decisions.

Housing price bubbles tend to form, burst, and disproportionately hurt lower-income buyers and renters each cycle. Preventing this pattern from repeating remains a persistent economic policy challenge.

Access to affordable business loans is heavily skewed toward people who already have assets or established credit, locking out many capable entrepreneurs. A fairer lending system remains an unresolved economic gap.

Trade deals can boost overall economic growth while still leaving specific groups of workers worse off, often in the same country. A consistent, fair way to support those workers remains politically unresolved.

Local elections often receive far less security attention than national ones, despite being just as vulnerable to disinformation campaigns. Extending stronger protections down to the local level remains incomplete.

Indigenous land rights are frequently overridden by governments or corporations pursuing resource extraction or development. Meaningful, enforceable control over ancestral land remains unresolved in many countries.

Sending money internationally is often slow, expensive, or restricted depending on where you live, despite living in a supposedly connected digital economy. A truly borderless payment system remains unbuilt.

This period, known as cosmic inflation, is widely accepted as a concept but the exact physical mechanism driving it remains unproven. Confirming it would close a major gap in our understanding of the universe's first moments.