What is the most important global issue today?
The first question that went out as a weekly bounty, in March 2026: contributors in several countries were paid to put it to strangers in the same week. These are the answers the archive holds, all of them from people who were asked on the street with no warning.
Nobody named the same thing twice. The answers run from the price of a place to live to the temperature of the planet to the people who raise everybody else, and the one that took longest to arrive, from a man who had spent twenty minutes on grief first, was a single word.
The answers
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Housing and finding jobs.
“I would say housing and finding jobs.”
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Looking abroad instead of at home.
“I’d say the biggest problem right now is thinking the bigger problems are outside of our country and focusing on, you know, um, international interests instead of helping the people here.”
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Education inequality.
“like the pipeline for social mobility especially in our country”
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Black women.
“at any given time throughout history unfortunately and fortunately is black women … We are mothers even when we aren’t mothers, we are mothers.”
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Global warming, because the Earth is alive.
“And I say that because the Earth is alive. … If the Earth was dead, we wouldn’t be here.”
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The war.
“I would say probably like the war with Israel. Like cuz it’s affecting everybody.”
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Harmony.
“Global harmony. … There’s enough hate in the world.”
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Not an equitable world, for anyone.
“Biggest issue in the world right now, I would just say it’s just not a very equitable world for anyone, you know? It’s impossible. And it’s impossible everywhere.”
Other questions the archive has answered
- Is the internet good for us? 9
- What made you smile today? 9
- What is Ethereum? 7
- What do you think of the United States? 7
- How has the place you live changed in your lifetime? 6
- Do you have a message for the builders? 5
- What would you say to someone under ten? 3
- If you could ask the whole world one question, what would it be? 22
Every answer on these pages is a quote checked against the transcript of the video it came from. To put a question to your own street, see One Question. To find a word across every transcript, search.