The post proposes a general rule: everything decays unless a system has incentives pushing against it. It extends 'incentives' beyond humans to physical and biological systems, using examples like science’s prestige economy guiding truth, aging from weak late-life selection, and markets creating wealth only under stable rules. The upshot is that order and prosperity are products of incentive design, not natural drift.
— It reframes governance and science policy as incentive engineering to resist natural decay rather than assuming progress is the default state.
Robin Hanson
2025.09.13
64% relevant
Skinner’s core prescription is to design cultures that reward behaviors which sustain the community’s survival—explicitly noting the need to make 'the survival of a community important to its members.' Hanson highlights this incentive‑engineering thrust as the essence of culture design.
David Pinsof
2025.09.09
100% relevant
The author’s 'Big Law'—'Everything goes to shit, unless there’s an incentive for it not to'—illustrated with tornadoes, toddlers, scientific prestige, and evolutionary selection.
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