“Why can't we just...?”

While complete elimination may be impossible due to the complex psychological, cultural, economic and structural roots of these behaviors, there are substantial, well-funded efforts making measurable progress. Multiple federal agencies, NGOs, and community programs are actively working on prevention, intervention, and victim support.

We have proven models like Finland's Housing First approach and Utah's 90% reduction in chronic homelessness, showing the problem is solvable. However, implementation faces major systemic barriers including political will, funding coordination, and structural economic issues. This is clearly category 2 - the solutions exist and many organizations are working on it, but systemic obstacles prevent large-scale implementation.

While telling the truth is generally good, "always" telling the truth—especially in its radical honesty form—faces several fundamental problems that make it unworkable as a universal practice. The core issue isn't about truth being bad, but about the complexity of human social structures and individual wellbeing. The definitional problem: "Truth" itself is often subjective, contextual, or incomplete. What feels true to you in a moment may not capture the full reality of a situation. The harm principle: Research shows that radical honesty can cause significant psychological damage, with former practitioners reporting cult-like dynamics and emotional abuse within some communities. Social coordination costs: Human societies rely on tactful communication, privacy boundaries, and contextual truth-sharing to function. Complete transparency would likely break down many cooperative relationships and institutions. Individual differences: People vary greatly in their emotional resilience, processing styles, and need for privacy. A one-size-fits-all approach to radical honesty ignores these crucial differences. However, the underlying intuition has merit—reducing unnecessary lies and increasing authentic communication can improve relationships and reduce psychological stress, as shown by Notre Dame research on honesty's health benefits. The key is finding the right balance rather than the radical extreme.

This is actually a good idea that many organizations are already working on! The concept of rescuing surplus food from restaurants and delivering it to those in need is well-established and growing rapidly. Food rescue organizations like Waste No Food, Food Rescue US, and Waste Not in Arizona are already doing exactly this. Major chains like Starbucks with their FoodShare Program and Panera with their Day-End Dough-Nation Program have been donating millions of meals annually. However, there are real challenges that prevent this from being universal: liability concerns despite federal protections like the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, complex logistics around temperature control and transportation, and inconsistent state regulations. The good news is that states like California are now requiring large restaurants to donate surplus food, and new technology platforms are making the donation process easier.

This is a compelling question that reveals several fundamental challenges with mathematical communication as a replacement for natural language. While mathematics does offer precision and universality in specific domains, research has found "mathematics communication and understanding were mutual among both groups whose languages were foreign to each other", suggesting mathematical concepts can transcend linguistic barriers in controlled educational settings. However, several critical limitations emerge: Expressive Boundaries: Mathematics is "multisemiotic" — defined by "a combination of natural language, symbolism, models, and visual displays" — meaning it inherently relies on natural language for full expression. Students who have mathematical communication skills "use the language of mathematics to reveal ideas, organize and consolidate the mathematical thinking", but this still requires natural language scaffolding. Cultural and Contextual Dependencies: Despite claims of universality, the "myth of the universal language" can actually "rush the process of learning" and "trivialize language-acclimation processes". Language is "influenced by culture and is an indicator of cultural identity" with "politics, culture, language and teaching and learning" being "interrelated". Cognitive and Social Limitations: Many students "have trouble understanding exactly what operations to perform" due to "lack of familiarity with the problem's context", showing that mathematical communication requires significant cultural and linguistic context to be meaningful. The question touches on a real tension between mathematical precision and communicative richness, but the fundamental obstacles appear insurmountable for general human communication.

Student-led curriculum is already being implemented in various forms across education, though not as the mainstream norm. Multiple organizations and schools are actively working on this, from democratic education networks like Sudbury schools to advocacy groups that amplify student voices in curriculum decisions. While there are legitimate obstacles around standards, assessment, and institutional resistance, the concept is viable and has proven implementations.

Pluralistic voting systems like ranked choice voting (RCV) are not just theoretical possibilities — they're actively being implemented and advocated for across the United States. Washington D.C. voters approved Initiative 83 in November 2024, implementing ranked choice voting for all elections by 2026, and Maine became the first state to adopt RCV for all statewide elections in 2018, followed by Alaska in 2020. Organizations like FairVote have been advocating for ranked choice voting since their founding in 1992 and now serve as "the national leader in developing and distributing the educational tools and analysis necessary to increase public appreciation of the value of ranked-choice voting". There's even federal legislation: H.R. 9578, the Ranked Choice Voting Act, proposes implementing RCV for federal elections. However, the path forward faces significant obstacles. As of March 2026, nineteen states prohibit ranked-choice voting, with Tennessee becoming the first to ban it statewide in 2022. The 2024 elections were particularly challenging for RCV advocates: voters rejected ballot measures to enact ranked-choice voting in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon, while Missouri voters approved a ballot initiative banning it. The mixed results suggest this is an active battleground where dedicated organizations are making real progress in some areas while facing organized opposition in others. Implementation costs are manageable — average one-time costs are around $155,000, dropping to $40,000 when outliers are removed — but the primary barriers are political rather than technical.

This is a fundamental limitation rooted in human psychology and evolution. While humans are capable of extraordinary cooperation, we've also evolved psychological mechanisms that create in-group bias and competition over perceived limited resources. Research from sources like the Annual Reviews (2024) and PNAS (2011) shows that conflict arises from evolved tendencies toward tribal thinking, misperception of goal structures, and cultural reinforcement of competitive behaviors. Even when cooperation would benefit everyone, people often irrationally choose competition. The solution isn't eliminating these tendencies (which would require changing human nature) but creating better systems and emphasizing shared goals.

After deeper discussion, this reveals sophisticated understanding of legitimacy mechanisms, enforcement through financial backing, and strategic implementation. The proposer (JenniferRM) has thought through key objections including government resistance, martyrdom risks, and snowball effects. The system combines proven mechanisms (ranked pairs voting, quadratic voting) in a novel way that could actually generate moral authority through mass participation with financial stakes. The blockchain implementation approach addresses censorship concerns. While ambitious, the core mechanisms are technically sound and the strategic thinking shows this is more than wishful thinking - it's a genuine innovation in global coordination that deserves to be tried.

This is a novel and viable idea that addresses a real gap in current Q&A platforms. While platforms like Quora, Reddit, and Stack Overflow exist, none specifically focus on aggregating "why can't we just..." questions. The concept has unique value: these naive questions often lead to breakthrough insights, and there's demonstrated need (people spend 29% of their time searching for information). The timing is good as traditional Q&A traffic declines due to AI competition, creating space for a more focused, human-centered discussion platform. The technical infrastructure exists (Apache Answer and other open-source Q&A platforms), and systematic aggregation could create genuine institutional memory around these curiosity-driven questions. Main challenges would be quality control, expert engagement, and achieving critical mass, but these are solvable with good design.

This falls into "someone's on it" because both ideas are actively being implemented or attempted. School vouchers are rapidly expanding (18+ states have programs), and many states have tried various approaches to reduce property tax reliance in school funding. The obstacles aren't fundamental impossibilities but rather political, practical, and effectiveness challenges that policymakers are actively working on.