tag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:/all?page=19Journal of Brief Ideas: Ideas from the last week2018-11-01T02:49:54Ztag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/5312018-11-01T02:49:54Z2022-03-27T04:14:22ZThe Atlas of human Interestshttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1476306Are the Japanese more interested in nanotechnology than the German? How many people want to become musicians? Are salespeople conscientious? In the Behavioral Sciences, studies on the diversity of human interests are scarce. Comprehending better how different groups of people decide to invest their time and effort by pursuing certain interests instead of others can provide individuals, organizations and policymakers with a valuable tool for decision making. Thus, I propose the creation of the Atlas of Human Interests (AoI). Inspired in the Atlas of Economic Complexity, the AoI will provide a longitudinal catalogue indicating which interests people pursue or desire to pursue and in which degree. First, the AoI needs an initial taxonomy of human interests, then those initial categories can evolve through analytical tools. To collect information, people will report (e.g., via questionnaires) which activities (I) they would rather and (II) they actually spend their time. This data will be combined with other measures (e.g., temperament and personality) to generate a comprehensive map containing analytics, correlations, clusters and patterns of interests regarding age, sex, education, nationality, etc. Data and the algorithms will be public, making this research a precious source of information for individuals and also for educators, organizations and policy makers.Araki, Michaeltag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/5302018-10-27T15:12:54Z2019-02-09T14:08:44ZA Comparative Historical Political Economy Approach to Tariffs and Economic Developmenthttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1476308In his influential book, Kicking Away the Ladder (2002), Ha-Joon Chang explains that developed nations like the US used protectionist policies like high tariffs to develop. This argument is in direct contrast to the view that laissez-faire policies were key. Chang argues that developed countries are now ‘kicking away the ladder’ by encouraging developing nations to not use high tariffs to protect domestic industry. While Chang is correct that the US did have high tariff rates in the 19th century, it is also true that they had an extremely small government. In the US, government at all levels was less than 5% of GNP for most of the nineteenth century. An alternative hypothesis for the high tariffs in the US is that tariffs were the most efficient way to raise revenue given poor property records and the lack of market income for many citizens. The reason why the US grew was not because of protective tariffs, but because government was small and using the most efficient tax available to raise revenue. These competing hypotheses could be evaluated by analyzing the growth trajectories of a number of currently developed countries in a case study format like Hall and Leeson (2007). Hall, Joshuatag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/5292018-10-26T15:49:38Z2019-02-09T14:08:52ZThe Political Economy of the National Historic Registerhttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1476304In 1966, the U.S. Congress passed the National Historic Preservation Act. The Act created the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) to catalog all of the nation’s important historical objects, buildings, and areas. The National Register is administered by the National Park Service and overseen by the Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation, and Public Lands of the U.S. Congress. A body of literature in public choice shows that bureaus respond to the wishes of Congress (Weingast, 1984). This model of bureaucratic behavior is called the congressional dominance model and it predicts that bureaucrats act in a manner consistent with the preferences of legislators overseeing their bureau. To what extent do politics determine listings on the NRHP? Having state representation on the Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation, and Public Lands would seem to be the first place to start for those interested in exploring this topic. Every single listing since 1968, the date it was listed, and its location in available from the NRHP. Many of the state-level correlates can be easily obtained from IPPSR’s Correlates of State Policy at Michigan State. Hall, Joshuatag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/5272018-10-22T20:31:29Z2018-10-22T22:45:41ZTextbook Coverage of Inframarginal Externalitieshttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1469111Externalities are an important concept in economics as they are one of the many potential issues with markets. Negative externalities, for example, occur when costs are imposed on others outside the market system. Air pollution is but one example. The presence of externalities is often used as an argument for government intervention to correct these uncompensated effects on third parties. In 1962, James Buchanan and William Stubblebine published an article in the journal Economica that highlighted that some externalities are inframarginal. Externalities that are inframarginal do not distort allocation decisions at the current market equilibrium and thus there is not any distortion for government to correct. Despite the Buchanan and Stubblebine article having over one thousand citations in Google Scholar, most public economics textbooks do not mention the topic. The one exception seems to be Randall Holcombe’s Public Sector Economics text. Why this important point about the divergence between what is good for individuals and what is good for society has not been incorporated into textbooks would be an interesting exercise given the papers widespread use by scholars. The format could be similar to Johansson “Economics without Entrepreneurship or Institutions” (Econ Journal Watch, 2004). Hall, Joshuatag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/4932018-10-09T15:39:32Z2018-12-09T03:44:10ZThe Economics of Meal Plan Requirements in Higher Educationhttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1464390Many colleges and universities require full-time undergraduate students to purchase a full meal plan as long as they live on-campus. To students this can often feel like they are being exploited, especially given the high average meal cost of university dining plans and the lack of flexibility to scale back from a full buffet experience. Concerns about exploitation in this regard are similar to concerns about about company stores in coal mine towns, where coal miners often were forced to receive a portion of their pay in the form of script that could only be used at the company store. Price Fishback explored the economics of this in his classic article "Did Coal-Miners 'Owe Their Souls to the Company Store'?" (Journal of Economic HIstory, 1986). In that paper he suggests that competition among mines limited monopoly power. He also highlights that many companies owned stores due to the rural nature of the mines and the difficulty of attracting workers to an area where independent stores were unwilling to operate. The same economics seems to apply to meal plan (and dormitory residency requirements) at colleges and universities. The ones that seem to be most stringent in terms of requirements are those that are isolated geographically. Hall, Joshuatag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/4922018-10-07T01:20:40Z2018-10-09T06:00:43ZThe Effect of Smoking Bans on Exercising by Non-smokershttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1451933Smoking bans have shown to have many effects, some intended, some unintended, like Adams and Cotti's (2008, Journal of Public Economics) finding that smoking bans led to more fatal accidents from drunk driving. The mechanism is that smokers were driving farther to find bars located in areas where smoking was allowed. While considerable attention has been played to the positive effects of smoking bans on non-smokers health from not being exposed to second-hand smoke, not much attention has been paid to other ways smoking bans might influence non-smoker health. For example, to the extent non-smokers were frequenting bars less because of smoke, smoking bans should lead to higher bar attendance by non-smokers. Higher bar attendance can be associated with higher levels of alcohol use and decreases in other activities positively related to health, such as exercise. The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) might have the data that would let researchers look at the effect of smoking bans on exercise levels by non-smokers to see if going out is a substitute for working out. Hall, Joshuatag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/4912018-10-07T00:31:39Z2018-10-16T18:49:54ZAlchian-Allen Effect in Higher Educationhttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1451929The Alchian-Allen Theorem states that when there are two substitute goods of differing quality and a fixed per unit amount is added to the cost of the product, consumption will shift towards the higher quality good as it is relatively cheaper. The Alchian-Allen Theorem is sometimes colloquially know as “shipping the good apples out” since the original example used by Armen Alchian and William Allen involved a question related to why all the good apples in Washington State ended up in New York. Once a fixed transportation cost is added, good apples become relatively cheaper in New York and thus are in higher demand. Although the good is flowing in the wrong direction, it seems like higher education is a case of “shipping the good apples out” since parents seem to substitute for quality higher education institutions if they are sending their kids far away. This explains, for example, why students from Alaska who attend school in Wisconsin seem to be well above the median. Hall, Joshuatag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/4902018-10-05T16:12:43Z2018-10-09T06:00:43ZStonehenge A Neolithic Beacon: Design Imitates Star https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1451927When lit from within with one large fire or multiple fires, and observed from above, the standing stones that comprise Stonehenge split the light rays creating a radiating effect similar in appearance to a star.
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Neolithic People did not know what stars were and may have related to them as fires in the sky. Stonehenge may have been created by the Neolithic to call attention to their existence and position, with their own star shaped fire, big enough to be seen by perceived celestial neighbors. Contemporary civilizations do the same with satellites.
Additionally, the ringing of the stones may have also served to catch attention through sound.
This explains the size of Stonehenge, gives purpose to the lintels, and accounts for the foreign remains at the site, as a beacon that large would indeed attract curious people from nearby lands. The fires would also provide opportunity to cremate remains and incorporate ritual. The lunar based motifs present in their art support a preoccupation with the sky.
Neumann, Ericatag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/4892018-10-01T20:00:44Z2018-11-08T04:28:01ZPlant Organismal Development Based Building Design and Perpetuated Constructionhttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1444624This idea seeks to establish a novel conceptual framework to building design and construction that is based on plant organismal development. Firstly lets compare the idea of design as it applies to architecture and plant development. Once conceived, building designs are largely static as they do not necessarily allow building growth and expansion over time. Plants by comparison have in their genetic "plans" the ability to develop over time, undergoing primary and secondary growth which allow for cellular expansion in the soil matrix and in the atmosphere. In theory, it should be possible to also design buildings in such a way that per some unit time they can be expanded upon and added to as sufficient resources are acquired. Rather than having a single period of time where construction occurs, construction could instead be perpetuated and spread out over the entire life of a building. While this particular idea focuses on several facets of plant development and growth, there are many more subcellular processes that could be mimicked and utilized to expand on these ideas. An initial design of this fashion might focus on radial building development in a single plane, adding additional growth planes in future designs.Tucker, Averytag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/4882018-09-19T06:52:52Z2018-09-20T06:01:04ZSocial Jailbreak: a social media aggregator designed to circumvent social media monopolieshttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1421986**Social Jailbreak** (SJB) describes a proposed viral application that would allow social media users to communicate beyond the limits imposed by social media monopolies. Several platforms (e.g. Hootsuite) and some social networks (mainly Friendica) merge their users' different newsfeeds that they have on other networks, to put them back in control and at the center of their entire online presence. Unfortunately, [the most popular social network](https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/) has [disallowed the importation](https://hyp.is/_uNnqLvVEeiorDdKMLuEfQ/www.makeuseof.com/tag/manage-social-feeds-hootsuite/) of personal newsfeeds.
One way to durably escape such social jails is to provide users a technical method to seamlessly share their soon-to-be jailed publications with others. While it is against the terms of social jails to export personal newsfeeds, personal contents can be published outside of the social jail *before* being fed to the social jail, and exchanged through the SJB parallel network, and if all the users appearing in each other's personal newsfeed have installed SJB (in a single click), they will all be able to consult and rearrange their newsfeed from outside any social jail. It will then be possible to merge all social contents (including forum messages, comments left anywhere, etc.).
Social Jailbreak would allow users to train their own algorithms, that would sort contents from those different sources in creative, emancipatory and non-mercantile ways (see MIT's [Gobo](https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/gobo/overview/)), thus breaking the spell of social jails.
Gouanvic, Perig