[thelastquestion]

General infrastructure that benefits humanity in a goal agnostic way, e.g., related to energy or compute seems like a meaningful thing to get behind. This could be novel technology or logistics and efficiency improvements, but these are things that can augment everyone's ability to do the things they want.

Socially, there are a lot of things that seem "silly" (euphemistically), and it's a blight on civilization that they are tolerated. That people in my country (USA, but can apply to many countries in the world) are homeless or starving is silly; if you were running a country, ensuring the citizenry have food and shelter might be an obvious top priority. The world can seem really complex at times and our systems become so convoluted that people rationalize why the things that seem obviously silly are too difficult to solve or worthwhile tradeoffs. I think it's generally a good heuristic to avoid doing things that seem obviously silly and fix the things that are (that is, it's often better to be naive about it!).

This portion of the comment is not a direct answer to the question but a related thought others may have further insights about. Practically, a situation in which you don't need money rarely materializes instantaneously; it usually arises from circumstances that have constituted a great deal of your life and identity. As a consequence of this, I think ego can become a real challenge that prevents people from pursuing possible "ideals". If you've been in a certain kind of position for a long time, there can be psychological barriers to pursuing something in a way in which, e.g., you are a true beginner or have less control. This tends to be something that can dissipate with age but can be especially difficult for people who've achieved financial success well before standard retirement age.

[aaronrobinson]

You’re absolute right in some respects on your last point. You need to seize the day. So many people delay retirement too long for fear of not being financially protected to age they probably won’t last to, meanwhile their physical and mental capacity are typically deteriorating.

[CMCDragonkai]

I don't think the US's strategic goal is to solve homelessness. In that between maintaining world dominance and solving homelessness, homelessness is way less important. Nations choose their sacrifices based on their priorities same as individuals.

[thelastquestion]

Let’s assume that world dominance is the root priority. Your statement implies that solving homelessness wouldn’t be in service of world domination. That might be true, but there’s clearly a minimum effort here: an entirely homeless and starving population would disrupt production, military, research, global economic power in a way that would be detrimental to the goal of world domination. Further, if the population gets too unhappy, revolts will occur that would hinder world domination efforts of those currently in power. So where’s the inflection point and why? To say the inflection point is the status quo feels intuitively wrong since what are the odds we happen to be in the optimal place with respect to homelessness, food insecurity, and civilian unrest? I tend to believe that it’s likely further investment into the population will produce a citizenry base that would aid in sustained world domination efforts. If you let the citizenry fall behind or become too unhappy, you’ll be overtaken by other countries. Curious what you see as the opportunity cost of that investment.

[soyverde]

(Largely, but almost certainly not completely) solving homelessness would also require solving a massive amount of mental health issues. But I still think that fits your argument (one I happen to agree with). If you want your country to be stronger and more productive it seems like basic common sense to (attempt to) solve hunger, education, health, etc. issues, so your citizenry is more prosperous and productive. I can't think of any way in which the 'rising tide lifts all ships' doesn't at least somewhat benefit most citizens of a country, including those already in power.

But of course that requires a significant level of investment, which is generally the limiting factor, as people who build fortunes are generally disinclined to part with any portion of them. Even for those so inclined, it is hard to get people to agree on what the 'greater good' really is, much more so these days when vast amounts of information is thrown at us often seemingly only in service of dividing us.