Questions

2016-11-14: Increasingly thinking that questions are a better way to focus my energies than ideas. Ideas are often solutions searching for a problem. Questions focus us on what we want to find out, not how we want to get there. They provide a better structure — it is no coincidence that SCQA is oriented around a question. Questions also avoid getting our ego involved — asking a question has less status than having a solution.

Long-running open questions, moved here from a private notebook (QUESTIONS.md, 2016–2024). Newest first.

• 2024-12-17 — Does maternity/paternity leave impact long-term child outcomes
• 2024-01-21 — How much of our resources do we spent on building nice buildings or religious monuments compared to say medieval time
• 2022-07-02 — Is there an open source carbon footprint calculator
• 2022-06-28 — How do we evaluate when a technology is promising or not? e.g. often hear re blockchain that even if not working now, will work someday just like X tech before which was unpromising at the beginning
• 2021-10-17 — What tools combines spreadsheets with text (and images) i.e. csv + markdown + images
• 2021-09-30 — How many monastics are there in different traditions and how has that changed over time? (and can one account for quality somehow)?
• 2021-09-19 — Brain dump of questions (2021)
• 2021-09-19 — Personality and temperament and polygenic scores - is there a relationship?
• 2021-05-01 — How have the number of intentional communities (raw number, total members etc) fluctuated over time? Is it growing? Was there a big jump in the 60s?
• 2020-10-04 — What would a wise educational program for children look like?
• 2019-05-25 — How many immigrants (1st, 2nd gen etc) are there from what cultures in countries in Europe and US
• 2019-02-13 — What went wrong with public procurement?
• 2019-01-12 — What affect did women entering the workforce have on house prices etc
• 2019-01-12 — How much extra must a divorced fmaily spend compared to a together family
• 2018-05-13 — How much does government spend on infrastructural project?
• 2018-05-13 — What is evidence on relative efficiency of privatised vs governent run infrastructure?
• 2018-02-19 — What is relative burden of psychological illness vs physical illness?
• 2018-02-19 — Have Kibbutz's failed and why?
• 2018-02-19 — Did Privatization esp of key transport and telecommunication infrastructure improve performance and welfare?
• 2018-02-06 — What is to be done about the NHS? And healthcare generally?
• 2018-02-06 — The wages of naievete: What examples are there where near-term good intentions (lack of "toughness") resulted in lots of pain down the road?
• 2018-02-05 — What are my top three priorities for the next five years?
• 2018-02-05 — What is the role of culture in shaping being? What potential values could we have and how do these vary across cultures?
• 2017-11-27 — What is driving such high property prices in main urban centres
• 2017-06-20 — How big was the middle-class where one middle class guy supported a two-car family on his salary? And how much is explained by simple competition for resources?
• 2017-03-22 — Who owns telecommunications infrastructure (copper wires, satellites) and how much would it cost to build your own
• 2017-03-10 — Measuring Power Inequality (vs e.g. Wealth or Income Inequality)
• 2017-02-12 — What is Open-Mindedness, and How Could We Assess It?
• 2017-01-06 — Gov contribution to open software
• 2017-01-06 — Music industry revenues and how much goes to creators (or to creative work)
• 2017-01-06 — Why do airlines (and eurostar) do dynamic pricing but most trains and buses don't?
• 2016-12-04 — Stability and speed of web browsers
• 2016-11-30 — Price of airline flights
• 2016-11-18 — What was role of fundamentalist christians in Reagan election in 1980
• 2016-11-14 — What is the exact situation with climate change in terms of C02, temperature and already noticeable impact?
• 2016-11-14 — Is there a fairly comprehensive open bibliographic database out there?
• 2016-09-03 — Sources of Growth (and growth of what)
• 2008-01-11 — Path-Dependent vs. Ergodic Systems
• What evidence is there on changing patterns of community and frienship, esp as it relates to geo mobility etc?
• What extent of "western" wealth is due to resource extraction and/or colonial exploitation?
• Are we really so much better off than people in 1910