Many global challenges arise due to collective action problems or incentive misalignment

November 16, 2020

Many of the biggest challenges that we face in society are due to one or both of these types of problems: (A) Collective Action Problems, where many individuals or groups are currently better off taking action X, even though they'd be better off in the long-term if everyone agreed not to take action X. Some of the big challenges with Collective Actions Problems are (i) getting people or groups to agree to stop the behavior in the first place, and then (ii) creating a v...

The three big strategies I see for combating climate change

September 14, 2020

Change my mind: I currently think that there are only three big potential strategies for effectively preventing substantial human-caused climate change in the next 40 years. Climate Strategy 1: Government Collaboration If we collaborated, China, the U.S., India, and Europe could engage in substantial climate emission regulation (e.g., by taxing carbon, using cap-and-trade systems, setting deadlines by which certain industries must be carbon neutral, building cleaner power generation f...

Low-Hanging Fruit Policies That Don’t Get Implemented

August 23, 2020

Some policies seem like low-hanging fruit to benefit the US and its people, yet don’t get implemented. Why? It’s probably a combination of: • political wars that pull things back and forth instead of moving forward • voter confusion • voters prioritizing other topics • collective action problems • they’re blocked by the few who are made worse off by them • they are bad ideas, I’m wrong about them, or people’s values around them differ too much Regardless of the reason, here...