Prediction Markets work.
Prediction markets are shown to be better than expert at forecasting the future. They convey accurate information about current events better than either the news or political pundits. They even get improve overtime as dumb bets lead to people losing money and exiting the market. It even comes with a niffy new government form as well. Just be careful. The market needs to be somewhat liquid for it to work well.
Signaling
Education credentials seems to mainly be about signaling. While not a great signal, it beats the current alternatives. Are there ways to have less costly methods of signaling, that can also function the same role?
Anti-conformity Training / Epistemics
How does one go from uncritically reading a scientific paper to grappling with it and questioning it? We should have a class or lesson of fake journals, where errors are deliberately placed in the reading that the students must detect. Mixed in with journals, with the students none the wiser. Furthermore, students should go though anti-conformity training. The asch conformity experiment is bonkers. A third to half of groups conform to an obviously wrong answer. To fight back, there should be multiple variations of this type of test given unannounced throughout the year. Things like telling a student something false, and having them give a presentation on it, or having a class beforehand agree on an obviously wrong answer, with a student out of the loop, etc. To drill in the fact that when one says something confidently and it’s wrong, it feels the same as saying something confidently and it’s right. And to train the muscle of going against the crowd. (And being right)
QWERTY
The whole layout was intended to slow you down. If you happen to be young, the switching costs to a better alternative might be worth it. Multiply the small convenience of a better layout by eighty years of using a computer and you get close to a big number.
Income Tax.
Taxing something discourages it. Taxing income means we get less wealth. We should instead use a land value tax. Taxing land doesn’t reduce the amount of land in the world.
Time Lock Cryptography
It’s completely unused relative to it’s potential. Imagine all the secrets that people want to say, but only would reveal after they’re dead. Now they can. Or more seriously, imagine the potential for crypto. If you happen to die suddenly, your private keys are lost forever (along with your fortune) Having a private key time locked for ten years would allow you to pass on an inheritance in the case of death. As long as you keep resetting the lock say every five years, you’re never at risk of losing control.
Sunk Cost Fallacy
Most people can recite the definition but never actually execute. When you buy a movie ticket, and the movie’s terrible, that means you walk out of the theater, right? Right. Try it, it feels like magic.
Explore More.
Say you enjoy Lemonade. You should purchase every single type of Lemonade you can get find. Buy all the brands and flavors you can find. Sit down and try them all. Find your favorite. Cheers. I just saved you a lifetime from drinking your second favorite lemonade. Rinse and repeat with other things you enjoy. (food, soap, condiments, drinks, etc)
Fixing Soccer
The tiebreaker penalty shots should start at the beginning of the match. Whoever wins gets 0.5 points. That prevent the situation where each team place defensively during the end of the match in the hopes of getting to the tiebreaker. Instead, at any point, a team would have an incentive to go on the offensive.
FDA Delenda Est
Remember when the FDA shutdown Covid testing in the beginning as they weren’t considered approved tests? Or when it delayed the Covid vaccine by months as they didn’t have the correct number of meetings? Never forget. FDA Delenda Est.
Beliefs as clothes.