The "with family" option in the "living with" question is ambiguous for those of us with children. I suggest changing it to "with parents or guardians[1]", changing the partner/spouse option to "with partner/spouse (and children if applicable)", and adding an "other" option for less traditional living arrangements.

Questions in the mental health section are inconsistent about whether they're referring to whether you have ever suffered from a condition ("have you ever been diagnosed...") or whether you are currently suffering from it ("...I personally believe I have it"). Some are lifelong conditions, but others like depression are temporary.

Questions on feminism / social justice / human biodiversity don't distinguish between what you think of the concept itself and what you think of the movement around it. (Or is this the point?)

[1] Is this a Britishism? Feel free to change it to the equivalent in US English.

As a little side project, I entertain myself with the idea of writing fiction that blends fantasy and mega-structures engineering.
The first step will be to ideate a consistent magic system, but of course, to make the story interesting, I'll have to come up with interesting characters and their conflicts. Do you know about any good story, long or short, that revolves around or has as background mega-structures, that I can be inspired from? Fantasy or extreme science-fiction would be the best.

I'm an EA and interested in signing up for cryonics. After cryocrastinating for a few years (ok I guess I don't get to say "after" until I actually sign up), I've realized that I should definitely sign up for life insurance, because of the ability to change the beneficiary. I place a low probability on cryonics working right now, but I can claim a charity or a Donor Advised Fund as the beneficiary until I place a sufficient probability on suspension technology working. In the future, I can change it back if I change my mind, etc.

Any issues that might come into this? If no one sees any flaws, I'm committing to sign up for life insurance with this plan in mind by or during the next open thread, and making a more prominent post about this strategy for any EA+Cryonics people.

task scheduler does it, but it's a ton of steps - not something I would want to set up dozens of times a day.

Lots of people are arguing governments should provide all citizens with an unconditional basic income. One problem with this is that it would be very expensive. If the government would give each person say 30 % of GDP per capita to each person (not a very high standard of living), then that would force them to raise 30 % of GDP in taxes to cover for that.

On the other hand, means-tested benefits have disadvantages too. It is administratively costly. Receiving them is seen as shameful in many countries. Most importantly, it is hard to create a means-tested system that doesn't create perverse incentives for those on benefits, since when you start working, you will both lose your benefits and start paying taxes under such a system. That may mean that the net income can be a very small proportion of the gross income for certain groups, incentivizing them to stay unemployed.

One middle route I've been toying with is that the government could provide people with cheap goods and services. People who were satisfied with them could settle for them, whereas those who wanted something more fancy would have to pay out of their own pockets. The government would thus provide people with no-frills food - Soylent, perhaps - no-frills housing, etc, for free or for highly subsidized prices (it is important that they produce enough and/or set the prices so that demand doesn't outstrip supply, since otherwise you get queues - a perennial problem of subsidized goods and services).

Of course some well-off people might choose to consume these subsidized goods and services, and some poor people might not choose to do that. Still, it should in general be very redistributionary. The advantage over the basic income system is that it would be considerably cheaper, since these goods and services would only be used by a part of the population. The advantage over the means-tested system is that people will still be allowed to use these goods and services if their income goes up, so it doesn't create perverse incentives.

Another advantage with this system is that it could perhaps rein in rampant consumerism somewhat. Parts of the population will be habituated to smaller apartments and less fancy food. Those who want to distinguish themselves from the masses - who want to consume conspiciously - will also be affected, since they will have to spend less to stand out from the crowd.

I guess this system to some extent exist - e.g. in many countries, the government does provide you with education and health care, but rich people opt to go for private health-care and private education. So the idea isn't novel - my suggestion is just to take it a bit further.

As far as Cognito being an income-generating proposition, you should approach it from the perspective not of CFAR complement, but instead look to the tutoring/test-prep/college-app-prep industry.

I know, I know, that's not the business you're looking to get into and it's not one you admire the impact of, but they have found ways to sell education (or something related to it) to families at all income levels. Thinking directly in terms of the near-term value proposition for the families, and how your services could be made to appeal to a family dropping $5K on test-prep, are the most reliable ways to get to sustainable profits.

If this turns your stomach, think of it in terms of how much better a value you can provide than that $5K of test prep!

This perspective also indicates how you should start thinking of marketing efforts.

s/nut hope/but hope/

I recall there being some kind of credit card that automatically rounded the price of your purchases up and donated the difference to a charity of your choice. Does that ring a bell for anyone?

It seems to be known under the name of the equal treatment fallacy in various blogs and articles, although none of them are from particularly respectable sources. Other examples are the right of homosexuals to marry a member of the opposite gender, the right of soviet citizens to criticize the president of the USA, and Anatole France's famous statement that "in its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread".

I agree to an extent, but if taken to the level described in the linked article I think it would have a net negative effect because it creates an incentive to conceal information. To take an example from the link, two friends are discussing whether a certain restaurant is/isn't open, and one (let's call him "A" and the other "B") has previously visited the same restaurant at the same time of day. "A" is better off not revealing that fact, so that "B" will give better odds (or agree to take the bet). An environment where you're betting against each other all the time could quickly change from "put your money where your mouth is" to "take advantage of inside information".