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...

Incentive misalignment and conflicts of interest

May 26, 2018

Written: May 26, 2018 | Released: June 11, 2021 In my view, fundamental incentive misalignment affects many parts of society. Companies: There are many ways to make money that are net harmful to the world (e.g., see here for 13 ways). Non-profits: (1) The people that sponsor the work of a non-profit organization aren’t the ones that benefit from it. (2) Donors can’t easily tell how much benefit their donation caused the organization to create. (3) Th...

The Costs and Benefits of Guilds

March 8, 2018

Written: March 8, 2018 | Released: July 2, 2021 Guilds are common and enormously influential today. We're so used to the way that society is organized that it's easy not to notice what a "guild-based" society we have. While guilds provide major benefits, they also come with societal costs that I think are almost always under-appreciated. What I'm referring to here are professional groups that have achieved a monopoly or near-monopoly on providing a certain type of service. (Note: I'll be ...