- Why is politics so ideological if, according to some, people vote based on performance?
- Why is it that you always need one more Tupperware container than the number of containers you have?
- What do we report mortality rates for mortals?
- Why do publishers like the NYT not sell access to solo articles? The implicit price of an article is the prices of the smallest subscription plus the hassle of unsubscribing. The latter term dominates for me. I wonder about the decision to gate on the second term.
- People tell me they believe in Feng Shui and such. I wonder if they would be willing to donate to a charity that remodels poor people’s houses, including the direction in which the homeless sleep. There can’t be a more efficient way to improve people’s welfare, can there?
- I wonder if partisans will choose something that isn’t Pareto optimal? Will they choose a policy where supporters of the own-party win X and supporters of the out-party win X + 5 over a policy where supporters of the own-party win X-5, supporters of the out-party win X-10?
- I wonder how much effect Donald Trump has had on the productivity of liberals (and others). One way to measure a small chunk of it would be to check the frequency of Github commits on days Donald Trump says something controversial.
- About 9% of American adults are veterans. (There were about 21.8M veterans in 2014.) Is America’s key competitive advantage heroism?
- Why are compliments so few when talk is cheap? It is puzzling because sincerity is likely poorly observed and because people plausibly process compliments in a motivated manner, questioning the sincerity of compliments less. It may be because talking is not perceived as cheap. Or it may be that talk is not cheap because competing instincts, to be honest, to demean, etc., are powerful.
- Why is the food pyramid not called the food triangle instead?
- Why do organizations like NSF etc. not ask for a stake in the patents that come from the funding? The rationale for free money escapes me. The profits could be funneled back into important research.
- From what I have seen, the difference between the sexes in the proportion of the body covered, the discomfort of attire, and the amount of makeup applied is the smallest in Taipei. I wonder why? Do sex differences on these metrics among old people provide good baseline estimates of the politics of sexuality?
- Say X follows Y on Twitter. I wonder if X ‘likes or retweets’ Y’s posts less once Y follows X.
- I wonder why people bristle at the notion that ideological concerns affect what makes it to the news. Here’s a response I got when I pitched Face of Crime,”…I worry that the data you’re offering would take us into uncomfortable territory with regards to how we write about race…” I also wonder if it would not be a useful ‘audit’ study.
- I wonder if intense scrutiny of political nominees has been a net negative. Has it led politicians and political nominees to adopt a careful inert public stance (so you end up knowing less)? And does it privilege people with a thin public record?
- Since cynicism is so often confused with sophistication, I wonder if politicians can credibly cue honesty. If they can’t, does it not mean that incentives to be honest are smaller than they should be?
- Why is politics so ideological if people vote based on (retrospective) performance?
- Why do telephones still have numbers? Couldn’t we have already switched to an email ID like system?