Why problems that people want fixed haven't been fixed

Don't know how long this will be. I only noticed one submission without a url in three pages, but putting this on Pastebin wouldn't change the content.

First, we have evidence that people want problems to be fixed:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf_jl7C9kC0mvbvGhqkz1TrCU3zTWPi9nwONH7CZJekoG_MTw/viewanalytics

(You can take the survey, if you want, by changing last part of url to viewform.)

We look at one of the few unanimous results: given two options, harvesting fewer fish from the oceans now or harvesting fewer fish in the future after fishing stocks have been further depleted, everyone who answered that question chose harvesting fewer fish now.

Yet overfishing continues. Fishing is a serious business: there were the Cod Wars in the North Atlantic, and many poor people rely on fishing, like 'slaves' on Thai fishing boats or people in Gaza. In these last two cases, fish have become depleted, yet they continue fishing.

It doesn't take much to conclude that there wouldn't be overfishing if people had better jobs and nations agreed to protect fishing grounds. It's just that if you asked someone to list the top five problems in the world, overfishing would probably not be one of them.

The questions in that survey are based around the effects of a different way of calculating compensation from work. Summarized, "Work up to 24 hours each week is paid at 1.2 times the normal rate. Work after 24 hours is paid at 0.7 times the normal rate."

Compared against the major systems currently in use, overtime and salary, here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdaNFsis2_s65aMU3aFUWKBYeXD00JjTfUiXlcAPz09Z9g3Dg/viewform

1/3 of people chose this method over the others.

Requirements for people who use, and work less, it could vary: it could increase "work done per unit of money spent on wages", if they complete a given amount of work in less time than expected, or it could increase wage spending, if the increase in hourly wage is more than the increase in efficiency. Macroeconomically, wages increase.

This is accompanied by things like gasoline/petrol prices going up, the different questions in the first survey.

I should link this explanation of how rich people working less helps poor people, in case it isn't clear: https://pastebin.com/1UN45Und

The cultural effects are at least as complicated as the economic ones. The first survey asked, "war or no war", because the other negative effects of no war should be mitigated. Those possible effects are described here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeW6aSJbDNIY7h4nlZq6S4OKroDDQr3bxZt8dCo74TCZ7wXqw/viewanalytics

I hope those reading this understand statistics. The data only represent(s) the populations surveyed, but standard deviation for p=0.5 and n=30 is just 2.7 samples, or 95% chance of being ±18%.

The data does not conclusively show that someone who wants war to end should try to end unemployment. I guess, as the survey creator, I could look at the raw data and see if people from the US answered differently, but we can just look at the protests against the Iraq war in 2003. 6~10 million people protested and did not stop the war. Majority may not be enough to prevent war.

Note that this survey, which says "There is a 0.0000075% chance you'll be in a passenger plane that gets shot down over a war zone.", was made several days before a passenger plane was lost over Iran.

Can only summarize here: "immorality" with no war is due to people not feeling like they're part of a group, where playing "cooperate" in a prisoner's dilemma is best for the group and will somehow help people you care about. You can also look at the benefit of grouping up, including hidden groups, in a competition involving multiple entities, and how the benefits of grouping up can diminish as the group size becomes too large.

The solution, without war, requires addressing both smart and stupid thinking. You eliminate prisoner's dilemmas where you can, and you convince people who act based on whether other people are 'nice' that people are worth helping. The economically well-off in the world may sometimes convince themselves that they are helping the poor and disadvantaged, but problems remain. The best way to show that you care about fixing problems is to fix them.

The third question references "depression". You may have guessed that both answers are supposed to describe Japan, which like many countries with developed economies like Germany and Singapore, has low birth rates. The problem here is supposed to be "lack of challenge and affirmation of abilities from overcoming important challenges." People find challenging things to do, but it's hard to find things that benefit society when you do them. Japan has a word for "death from overworking"; Korea may as well. But all that hard work just led to a "lost decade" or even "Lost 20 Years" and the rise of terms like "hikikomori", "freeter", and "NEET".

The economic system described leads to two conflicting goals, which lead to challenge: 1) make lots of money 2) have high earnings per hour. To increase the first, you must decrease the second, and the tendency will be for people who make lots of money to choose to work less time. This is in contrast to the current situation, where people with greater educational attainment work more hours per week.

There are challenges, of course. It's harder for someone living in the mountains in the middle of a continent to interact with the world economy than someone living next to the coast.

The title says this is why problems haven't been fixed yet. That's up to you. Is it because the solution is hard to understand?