The Drafts Folder is Out of Control, Help Us Clear it Out!
A quick reintroduction and PLEASE FOR THE LOVE GOD HELP ME DECIDE!
We have a problem. A good problem, but still a problem.
As I am typing in the now icy road wasteland that used to be Houston (which was before a hot road-y wasteland), the drafts folder has gotten out of control. 42 pieces in various stages of completion, all competing for the same limited writing time.
So instead of guessing what you want to read, I’m asking. As a side benefit, it gives new readers an introduction on what Governance Cybernetics is about.
The short version: It’s all about system quality. Whether the system is a city government, a regulatory agency, a market structure, or a social safety net, the question is the same: does it deliver good outcomes for the people it’s supposed to serve? And if not, what’s broken in the mechanics? If GDP is growing, why did child poverty rise and college grad employment decline?
While it is clear on stuff like education and environment, why would pronatalism fit? It is because low fertility is a symptom of system failing people to achieve their family goals, and often times cities and even provinces achieve higher fertility rates by improving service quality and benefits to families. Why would we care about how many car companies in a county? Market concentration affects industrial policy and the relationship with governments on a local, provincial, and national level. Housing, education, infrastructure, industrial policy. They’re not separate topics. They’re different pressure points on the same machine.
Below are the candidates. DM me or just leave a comment with the numbers of the 3-5 pieces you’d most want to see first. Winners get prioritized; losers stay in the backlog until their time comes.
On that note, if you have an interesting article idea and want to write for Governance Cybernetics (or just want a blog post trade), reach out.
Urbanism & YIMBYism
1. Why pretty buildings are a YIMBY’s best friend
2. Why accounting and finance is critical for YIMBY and urbanist goals
3. Kei trucks, EV carts, and what 15-minute cities actually require
4. Texas Municipal Utility Districts: how developers build infrastructure now in Texas
5. Japan vs America on restaurants and stalls, and what it reveals about policy priorities
Family Policy & Pronatalism
6. “Childless” vs “childfree”: why the distinction matters for policy design
7. Apple’s ecosystem strategy applied to pronatalism
8. Job security, wage growth, and birth rates
9. Low-hanging fruit: cheap ways cities can improve family quality of life quickly
10. How are we going to finance a baby boom?
Government & Implementation
11. Consolidate the tax-advantaged accounts (and add new features)
12. Incentives, punishments, and training: three ways to scale policy and human capital
13. Pensions, savings, and fiscal mutualism: how China and Japan evolved the model
14. Procyclical fiscal policy (like Colorado’s TABOR) degrades state capacity
15. The Army Corps of Engineers builds infrastructure faster than anyone, why don’t we copy them
Education
16. Estonia and Singapore use ed-tech well, America doesn’t, here’s why
17. Mississippi vs Oklahoma: the implementation capacity theory of education
18. How the Pentagon runs schools better than most states
19. How California built the world’s best public university system, then forgot how
20. Oyster festivals and school closures: what adaptive reuse looks like in education
Economy
21. AI isn’t causing layoffs, something else is
22. Texas has more generous unemployment benefits than California (for now), and the global decay of UI systems
23. Young workers are right about the job market (again)
24. Why forcing retirement is a bad idea, and what “retirement jobs” should look like
25. Universal basic income (and especially universal high income) are lies
Environment
26. Turning trash into land and energy
27. The first Trump administration’s quiet success with Superfund sites
28. The increasing case for solar geoengineering
29. Las Vegas cut water use while growing its population, how they did it
30. Getting energy cheap as possible is key to cut emissions and reduce pollution
Industrial Policy
31. The role of small bankers in industrial policy
32. The role of mid (and low)-level investment bankers in industrial policy
33. China is achieving operational alpha over America
34. America is still the agricultural superpower (despite Liberation Day), and what we can learn from the Netherlands & Japan
35. Taiwan’s semiconductor dominance didn’t happen by accident
Business & Politics
36. China (and Amazon) is getting rid of IBM, Oracle, and EMC
37. Why did Best Buy survive but not Joann Fabrics? Revisiting the retail apocalypse
38. Boeing, baby formula, and Tesla Autopilot walked into a bar: the recent history of trusting companies with safety
39. Canon’s “Mother Factory” and why nanoimprint lithography doesn’t need to replace EUV
40. Longevity and what zombie companies actually are
Meta
41. Most of today’s problems already have solutions, we just don’t implement them
42. Why variation matters: the case for asking “why does it differ” before “what should we do”
How to Vote
Reply with 3-5 numbers. Add a sentence on why if you want.
If there’s something NOT on this list you’ve been waiting for, or something you want to research and write yourself, mention that too.
Thanks for reading Governance Cybernetics.
8, 23, 21, 30, and 7 please.
2, 7, 15, 16, 31-32.
While these 5 should be prioritized, please know that I want to read almost all of the topics you've mentioned.
Thanks for the good work Dave!