My current curiosities
I’d rather save this list than forget it, and rather make it public than private:
1. Art
Public & private funded art
Why? Influencing what others think is critical to affecting the world in positive (or anti-negative) ways.
Pricing, modeling supply + demand, marketing, & auctions
Why? All art is financed in some way–whether under a formal capitalist system or not. If you want art then it must be paid resourced.
Tactics and strategy of content-creation, collaborative creation (e.g. Wikipedia)
Why? Because this is where the fun happens 😊
Situations that create captive audiences (i.e. airplane flights)
Why? These are precious moments in the lives of humans–there is so much un-met demand for good art in these situations.
2. Economics
Limits of capitalism, monopoly, monopsony, economies of scale
Why? The limits are where there is systemic risk–to subjugation/enslavement of humans or revolutionuray communism and the absolvement of property rights.
Risk-free profit (arbitrage)
Why? These profits free humanity to pursue art, empathy, & explore the universe of experiences
Tax law, optimization, & enforcement
Why? Wealth re-distribution is essential to supporting a sustainable, optimal civilization. Tax avoidance provides compounding rewards to unethical components of civilization.
Telecommuting, remote work [1], [2]
Why? I discussed this post-COVID here
Games of imperfect information, the evolution of cooperation
Why? They illustrate the framework underlying social and biological behavior.
3. Social
Self-control, addiction
Why? Studying these topics can better explain what behaviors (if any) are “free-will”
Team/group activities
Why? “If you want to move fast, go alone. If you want to move far, go together”
Costly-signalling, ritual behaviors
Why? Understanding what purpose they serve, how to identify them.
Measuring skill
Why? What role do they serve in hiring/vetting talent? How does this influence the labor pool/human behaviors?
4. Physiology/Biology
Performance-enhancing drugs, like nootropics, steroids (PEDs)
Why? They exist, there are ethical reasons to use them.
Gender, hormonal systems
Why? These are fundamental building blocks for a high-trust society.
Strength/endurance sports, weightlifting
Why? They are a lot of fun
5. Software
Methods of verifying software quality & risk reduction (of software failure)
Why? Software is essential to all human activity–to protect human welfare software must work as expected within certain error allowance.
Technical debt
Why? TBD
Drop me a line, I’m always curious to chat about people knowledgeable or also interested in these topics.
