Create incentives to catch misconduct seems the simplest solution
That effectiveness of this solution depends, in particular on what other incentives are there.
Imagine a poor crime-ridden neighbourhood where police put up "Rat on your neighbours -- we pay for tips!" posters. That's "incentives to catch misconduct", but even if you collect the tip you still have to live in the neighbourhood and I expect that being a known snitch carries a heavy price.
but even if you collect the tip you still have to live in the neighbourhood and I expect that being a known snitch carries a heavy price.
I don't see how this point carries over to the problem at hand.... what's the heavy price for the scientist snitch?
Monopolies are the reward for innovation (~COMPETITION can be bad for business, and monopolies drive progress)
I am going to disagree vehemently with the notion that monopolies drive progress.
Telkom spent a long time as a fixed-line telecommunications monopoly, and South Africa still has terrible fixed-line internet costs as a result.
Monopolies, as far as I can see, will almost always relax once their monopoly is secure and just keep doing things the same way all the time, holding onto their monopoly. (Sometimes they will even attempt to squash competitors before they grow large enough to threaten said monopoly). Companies in competition, on the other hand, will improve their offerings and/or lower their prices in order to attract more customers. Therefore - and this is borne out by the Telkom example - I conclude that monopolies lead to stagnation, while healthy competition is more likely to lead to progress.
You're right, monopolies certainly don't drive progress. But the possibility of a monopoly can.
Progress requires R&D, and R&D is expensive and unpredictable. No one would want to do the type of long-term research that invigorates the economy or even creates brand new industries if they won't take in the lion's share of the profits. So it would be a bad idea to implement a policy of breaking up any and all monopolies, despite the fact that it is better in the moment (similar to Newcomb's problem). In fact, we actually institute monopolies using government power, via intellectual property.
... well... because it is a massive violation of the preferences of the slaves, and the writer takes those preferences into account to a significant extent?
I'm not sure why you deemed this question interesting enough to ask. Would you disagree with that answer?
ETA: why was this downvoted? Welp (for I will not assume the downvote was from welp) didn't say what e meant. What e meant was what e said below, which would have been much clearer. This appears to be a reasonable answer to the given question.
It strikes me as strange to designate this as "rational" rather than say, "moral", and then use this as the example of the difference between "rational" and "reasonable". If this is considered rational simply because it's a direct, one-step application of your moral values, then the real difference here lies between your terminal values and the terminal values of the general population; both you and the general population are acting rationally. There are surely better examples to use, where your terminal values coincide with society, and your actions optimize them while societal norms do not. Charity for instance.
For example, it was deemed “unreasonable” to free African-Americans from slavery because slavery was deemed necessary for the economy of the South.
Why do you deem it rational?
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I'm surprised to see this at 45% positive. I wonder if someone is mass-upvoting this, or if people are just upvoting it as a satire. If it is a concerted effort to mass-upvote, what is the point? To make Less Wrong seem crazy?
I suspect mass-upvoting. Look at the amount of upvotes they've previously got for comments of empty praise