Qs

(These are some questions, which may well be already addressed in the literature, I haven’t checked.)

Should someone start selling insurance against online mob victimization and other “life/career ruining” reputation attacks?

How should a country transition to futarchy, if it starts with a highly corrupt government?

Should children be able to sue parents if they divorce, give birth out of wedlock, etc?

People have a tendency, perhaps intentional, to claim that policies themselves, rather than the policies’ apparent goals, are axiomatic good things. Is this a vulnerability in futarchy, since then they would be voted on as values rather than bet on as beliefs?

Why is betting psychologically safe in finance (that is, trading) but dangerous in casinos? As binary options are prone to fraud according to Wikipedia, what does that say about the viability of prediction markets?

How should we apply and evaluate informal models, e.g. the broad theories of Carl Jung and Stephen Wolfram? Does abstract/vague/informal/subjective/qualitative imply unfalsifiable or is there a way of formalizing the informal?

If the health system is inefficient, how much of the problem is caused by doctors (and their guilds)? Similarly for legal system and lawyers.

Why are “theories” helpful in science but “ideologies” unhelpful in politics?

Was Julian Simon right? What is the real relationship between population and GDP in the short and long run?

People from Bertrand Russell to Tyler Cowen and Peter Thiel have remarked on increasing societal risk/change aversion and the concomitant stagnation – what is best to reboot “dynamism”: Move to a different country? Reform the current one? Seasteading? Form more-dynamic enclave within the country? Work in digital/crypto realm? Is this a farmer-forager issue? Can foragers be dynamic?

If certain mental traits are Zahavian signals that indicate computational resources, does this, pace Miller, predict asymmetry in cognitive abilities between the sex that signals and the sex that chooses, assuming \(P \neq NP\)?

In Japan, finding a defendant not guilty is culturally frowned upon, and the consequences of this are predictably bizarre; see link1, link2. Is there a hidden rationality here?

If tastes in physical beauty change a lot, to what extent can they be explained by sexual selection?

Why are criminals so disliked?

In schools, why do teachers but not students get comfortable office chairs?

Why does Microsoft employ developers in Seattle when they could get them for half price in Vancouver?

What’s the modern appeal of live music? Is there a more interesting way that musicians can perform live than playing rehearsed songs?

Why do people get temporary disabilities (diseases) but not temporary superpowers?