Mechanism Design for Harm Reduction. I’ve just posted a new paper on SSRN:

Mechanism Design for Harm Reduction: Game Theory and Social Choice for Carceral MOUD and Recovery Institutions

👉 Read it here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6173484

The core question: Why do our institutions so often default to punitive, carceral responses to addiction, even when harm reduction and MOUD improve health and reduce mortality?

Using tools from mechanism design and social choice, the paper argues that the “bad” equilibria we see in overdose and addiction policy are not random failures. They emerge from incentive structures that reward visible punishment, central control, and risk‑avoidant bureaucracy over decentralized, evidence‑based care.

A few themes that may interest folks in economics, public policy, and health:

How carceral logics get embedded in funding rules, compliance regimes, and performance metrics.

Why local actors can be systematically steered away from harm reduction, even when they know it works.

What institutional reforms could realign incentives toward treatment, recovery, and community‑based support.

If you work in health policy, criminal justice, behavioral health, or are simply interested in how mechanism design can illuminate real‑world institutional failures, I’d welcome your feedback, questions, and critiques.

Should Politics Be On The Playing Field? . Why has just about everything within our lives become political including sports. Should athletes use this form to be political or should they do it off the athletic field and on their own time?

What's in a question...". Here's a scenario...
I say something. It could be anything but for the sake of argument, "I hope Trump runs for a third term."

People in hearing range are heard to ask (examples):
   - What do you mean by that?
   - Umm, have you read the Constitution?
   - Why?
   - How do you think that benefits the country?

My interest... Which, if any, of those questions might be considered an invitation to dialogue? Which might elicit a defensive or angry response? If we accept a premise that Our country is being damaged by polarization and hostility, how do we engage with one another to explore the why's behind opinions held? What is your base response when someone asks you a question?

I have observed what I think is shift in definition (or perception) regarding the purpose of a question. To some extent, I think the use and nature of questions has been placed in a negative light. And, that is hazardous to Our ability to gather and analyze information as well as Our opportunities communicate about important societal issues.

At a base level, how much does tone of voice matter? Does who asked -how they look- matter? Does the choice of words affect your response? The time or place? How much of your response is determined primarily by how you interpret the question versus how the questioner might have intended it?

Additional circumstances where I wonder about questions and what they mean or do...
   - How often does a politician who represents you ask your opinion before voting on a matter?
   - Are public polls and surveys able to collect opinion fairly? (I.E., Shouldn't there generally be a "None of the above" option for almost everything you've ever been asked? Or, data about who is taking the poll and for what purpose? I am tired of being forced to answer in a way that defines my 'social box' incorrectly.)
   - Particularly with regard to evaluation of programs, we are asked to place ourselves in various classifications. Income, race, faith, address, age - you know what I mean. These "metrics" are quantitative and objective but... Who decides on the ranges?; Who decides on definitions? When we are measuring whether the quality of someones life has improved, do we need more 'humetrics'?

Have I perhaps managed to kindle curiosity in a dark corner ? :-) It seems to me that this is worth thinking and talking about. It may be part of healing and finding our individual agency to affect the world. It might also be a part of solving problems in a way that promotes positive-sum outcomes. 

Great charts on polarization and echo-chambers in the USA. Six-Chart Sunday – Where You Sit Is Where You Stand - by some guy named Bruce Mehlman on Substack

• 90% of Republicans approved of President Trump’s job performance mid-April (~85 days in), tied for the highest own party approval at this point in the term per Hart Research. 

• Much partisan difference in approval of / confidence in presidents results from getting news from different sources

• We wildly mis-estimate the views of those in the other party. As a result of partisan media, online echo-chambers, and demagogic politicians in both parties, we have very inaccurate understandings of the viewpoints of those on the other side. 

California hit the wall? So I live in california and so not a newsom fan. I think his ideas cost us way too much. His taxes are killing us. So to list out a couple points -

1. The "Big Business" Exodus

The Paul Mitchell and Blue Diamond departures aren't isolated incidents; they are part of a trend where the "math" of staying in California no longer adds up for legacy companies.

• The Revenue Trap: California relies on the top 1% of earners for nearly half of its income tax. When a billionaire like John Paul DeJoria moves his HQ to Texas, it’s not just about the jobs—it’s a massive hit to the state's tax base.

   

• The Regulation Wall: Many companies leaving in 2026 cite the state’s aggressive new climate mandates and labor laws as the final straw. They feel the state is making it too expensive to simply exist.

2. The Oil Pipeline & Energy Crisis

There is a major showdown happening right now over the Las Flores pipeline system.

• The Probe: Just this week (February 4, 2026), federal investigators (DOJ and SEC) began demanding documents from Sable Offshore, the company trying to restart offshore oil pipelines near Santa Barbara.

   

• The Conflict: Newsom’s administration has been fighting to keep these lines closed to meet climate goals, while critics argue that shutting down local production just makes California more dependent on expensive foreign oil and drives up gas prices for regular people.

3. The High-Speed Rail "Burn"

The High-Speed Rail remains the ultimate symbol of government waste for many.

• The Money Pit: Despite being billions over budget and decades behind, the state is doubling down. Just last month (January 2026), they launched a new push to find private investors because the state can no longer afford to fund it alone.

• The Deficit Link: It is hard for the Governor to justify spending billions on a train through the Central Valley when he is simultaneously cutting healthcare benefits for immigrants and stripping funding from homelessness programs to plug a $3 billion to $18 billion deficit (depending on whose math you trust).

So i am wondering if Sheriff Chad Bianco ideas would not be good as well?

I myself find it quite conserning that some of these old business are leaving my suspect is high costs.

May I see Your ID Please. AT the top,l et me say I pride myself as being what I call a common sense Centrist, I think good governance is good governance simple as that.  I think Its Good for Gvt to defend our country, pave our roads, help people recover from disaster, provide Limited help to people who need ot be lifted out of poverty. You get the picture.  NOT good for GVT; tell me what books I can read, installing religious beliefs in schools,  basically stay out of my Beliefs.   

Hopefully that qualifies me as a reasonable common sense human.  

Having said that, Lets try this. 

Some form of Identification requirement for Voting is not such a horribe Idea.  

Some support for my Argument.

If I want to FLY, I must provide a Gvt issued ID

If I want to Operate a Motor Vehicle- I MUST have the GVT Issued License.

If I want to go to the library I need a "card" to do So. 

If I buy Tickets for a Show and go to Willcall to get the tix. I need to Provide ID.

The Left says that VOTER ID would discourage Some from Voting.  The Rght says that attitude Proves that the Democrat leaders encourage Voter Fraud AND those fraudulent voters ALWAYS vote Democratic.  There is NO evidence tthat actually Happens in any organized way.  And, Who are these people that want to Vote Illegally, How many of them are out there.  Enough to change the outcome of elections?  Im a cynic on that Idea.

Im Saying it's time to Put this debate to bed.  Provide a State Issued Voter ID.  

In NJ The Motor Vehicle Comission Issues the "REAL ID". It has deep proof of who I am.  If the GVT trusts that and will let me get on a Plane, It seems to me that should Qualify as a way to verify I have a verified way to Vote.   

The Democratic Party should join the GOP to counter MAGA. Today* I helped my family move my maternal grandparents back into their home in Altadena, from which they had been evacuated due to the Eaton Fire in LA for over 2 months. [*I wrote this last week.]

Despite all the logistics of moving two 94 year olds between houses, I managed to find the time to discuss national politics with my grandfather Moki.

I would say that politics has been the most contentious/taboo topic at Thanksgiving dinners since I became political as a college student over two decades ago (in less than 2 years I went from politically apathetic and socially vanilla to leading the Green Party at Stanford, and moving into a vegan activist co-op—mostly because I came to believe that problems like war, famine, and climate change would be surprisingly easy to solve, were it not for “political feasibility issues”).

Today I was pleasantly surprised to find myself agreeing with Moki on everything he said about economic policy and politics.

After today I would guess that he and I both agree on a handful of important things:

• Democracy needs to be strengthened against the rising threat of misinformation and populist fascism in America.

• Conservation of our natural resources, wild lands/waters, and organic ecosystems has been extremely valuable for America and we want to be doing much more of it.

• Peace and non-violence is good for Americans and all beings. Hubristic foreign policy risks instability and gratuitous fear and economic contraction. Everyone is better off as old rivals become new friends.

• Patience makes our country and world safer, especially in times of fast technological, political, social, and spiritual change.

• Free markets are unaligned superintelligent organisms. We can still align them. We can train the ‘one track mind’ markets to respect our deepest shared values.

• The 48th President will serve America and Earth better as they embrace true conservative values (moreso than the MAGA politicians of today).

Examples of how this Neo-GOParty platform will improve upon MAGAin ways that Moki will love:

• Liberty thrives when we invest in free and open elections, free speech, free public education (including optional college), and separation of powers (including with churches). Fascism, while not inherently evil, tends to consolidate power, which directly contradicts and undermines our Founding Fathers’ intention with the Constitution.

• Capital alignment to our deepest shared values is critical to a healthy modern civilization, since economy and trade are the engine of our joint creation. We will demonstrate that the invisible hand can yet be heeled. Pigouvian subsidies and fees, for example, can be balanced to have net neutral impact on taxes (if desired).

• Precaution is the heart of conservatism. We will not assume changes and technologies are safe until proven as such. We see Pareto improvements everywhere, so we have the patience to wait for super-majoritarian support before taking radical actions.

• Allies will be rewarded for their loyalty, and everyone will be treated not just with ceasefires (which are a massive improvement over hot war) but also with compassion and honesty.

• Rivals like China will be offered as many good faith opportunities to cooperate as we can find. We will not expect any institution to show more graciousness than we are ready to show ourselves. We will make it obvious what our rivals can do to earn our trust, and what we are willing to do in return. We will keep good faith regardless of others’ behavior, and we will secure our camels before helping our allies and rivals secure theirs.

• The DOGE hack job will evolve into a benevolent parasitic process: NeoGOParty-DOGE will be funded entirely by a fraction of the savings it executes in the federal bureaucracy, but it will respect the important work those bureaucrats are doing by not cutting any services unless those services were never requested by  Congress, or Congress updates its request. Similarly, if DOGE increases revenue (eg by improving the efficiency of IRS collections) it captures 5-20% of that revenue for its own discretionary budget.

• National Parks are the Crown Jewels of North America. We are lucky to have an army of rangers cultivating our most beautiful lands and waters for pennies on the dollar. NeoGOParty will reinstate all rangers purged in 2025, and double the budget for purchasing and cultivating our lands for public purposes, including paying our rangers more fairly. Think of it as a stock buyback for our public lands/waters.

Good faith concession (example)

• From my reading of national news [last week when I wrote this], Biden gets half the (American President) credit for Gazan ceasefire (where we all are still looking for a more permanent peace), and Trump already gets the other half credit for Gaza ceasefire plus full credit for Ukraine ceasefire proposal. My current best guess is that MAGA legitimately wants peace, so perhaps that is not a difference with the Neo-GOParty platform. It would be really nice if both American parties in the future are fighting for dovish credit. (What some would call a “race to the top”.) We issue a friendly challenge to the 47th president: negotiate peaces that are Pareto Improvements among those that did not choose war (including Ukraine and Ukrainians, Israelis, Gazans, and Russians).

Taken together, these observations gesture at the potential for a new American (and hopefully global) political movement—showing our opportunity to counter-balance MAGA's fascist consolidation of power before it turns America into a single party state, undermines the Supreme Court, and shreds the Constitution.

For example, even though I led protests against Hoover and Bush while I was a student, I now love the idea of building a coalition with open minded GOPers, Democrats, Greens, and Libertarians. For the first time I can easily imagine supporting someone like Condi (the Philosopher Queen) to defeat the 2028 MAGA Party candidate. The name of the party that hosts this new alliance isn’t nearly as important as whose support it recruits, but my starting proposal is that we all join the Republican Party on the condition that it stops enabling MAGA fascism. This does not require booting Trump from the party, but I’m guessing Trump would quit the GOP in frustration since he wants more control over everything.

In fact, I'm starting to believe that the best thing liberals like me can do to temper the rise of American fascism is to admit that in today's political/technological/social/spiritual climate, we are classical conservatives (if we wanted to name-call, we might say the MAGAins are “CINOs”). The GOPartiers, Democrats, Greens, and Libertarians that oppose fascism all want to protect the Constitution from MAGA and Russia. Perhaps it would behoove people like me who are not used to allying with Republicans to drop our egos and make it as easy as possible for antifascist (“true”) Republicans like Moki and Condi to stand up to MAGA—forming a new alliance based on patience, open mindedness, freedom, peace, free markets, and potty-trained politicians.

Who else feels ready to put aside their differences and come party in a big tent? What would make it even easier, more fun, or more efficient? Let's have a new grand old party 🥳

#DeepTakes

Hot take: Greenland's Masterstroke. Greenland agrees to voluntarily join the United States on the condition of immediate statehood. It then uses that leverage to push the US government towards more sane governance, including the impeachment of Donald Trump, the reinstatement and strengthening of institutional guardrails, and the repair of ties with the EU. Once those objectives are achieved, Greenland then secedes, gaining full independence with the consent of a future US administration.

AMA with Liv Boeree on incentive traps, game theory, and win-wins. AMA with Liv Boeree -poker champion with a background in astrophysics here to slay Molog- & Jordan Myska Allen on incentive traps, game theory, and win-wins | UpTrust launch event | #heywait, can we do better?

The Democratic Party should join the GOP to counter MAGA. Today* I helped my family move my maternal grandparents back into their home in Altadena, from which they had been evacuated due to the Eaton Fire in LA for over 2 months. [*I wrote this last week.]

Despite all the logistics of moving two 94 year olds between houses, I managed to find the time to discuss national politics with my grandfather Moki.

I would say that politics has been the most contentious/taboo topic at Thanksgiving dinners since I became political as a college student over two decades ago (in less than 2 years I went from politically apathetic and socially vanilla to leading the Green Party at Stanford, and moving into a vegan activist co-op—mostly because I came to believe that problems like war, famine, and climate change would be surprisingly easy to solve, were it not for “political feasibility issues”).

Today I was pleasantly surprised to find myself agreeing with Moki on everything he said about economic policy and politics.

After today I would guess that he and I both agree on a handful of important things:

• Democracy needs to be strengthened against the rising threat of misinformation and populist fascism in America.

• Conservation of our natural resources, wild lands/waters, and organic ecosystems has been extremely valuable for America and we want to be doing much more of it.

• Peace and non-violence is good for Americans and all beings. Hubristic foreign policy risks instability and gratuitous fear and economic contraction. Everyone is better off as old rivals become new friends.

• Patience makes our country and world safer, especially in times of fast technological, political, social, and spiritual change.

• Free markets are unaligned superintelligent organisms. We can still align them. We can train the ‘one track mind’ markets to respect our deepest shared values.

• The 48th President will serve America and Earth better as they embrace true conservative values (moreso than the MAGA politicians of today).

Examples of how this Neo-GOParty platform will improve upon MAGAin ways that Moki will love:

• Liberty thrives when we invest in free and open elections, free speech, free public education (including optional college), and separation of powers (including with churches). Fascism, while not inherently evil, tends to consolidate power, which directly contradicts and undermines our Founding Fathers’ intention with the Constitution.

• Capital alignment to our deepest shared values is critical to a healthy modern civilization, since economy and trade are the engine of our joint creation. We will demonstrate that the invisible hand can yet be heeled. Pigouvian subsidies and fees, for example, can be balanced to have net neutral impact on taxes (if desired).

• Precaution is the heart of conservatism. We will not assume changes and technologies are safe until proven as such. We see Pareto improvements everywhere, so we have the patience to wait for super-majoritarian support before taking radical actions.

• Allies will be rewarded for their loyalty, and everyone will be treated not just with ceasefires (which are a massive improvement over hot war) but also with compassion and honesty.

• Rivals like China will be offered as many good faith opportunities to cooperate as we can find. We will not expect any institution to show more graciousness than we are ready to show ourselves. We will make it obvious what our rivals can do to earn our trust, and what we are willing to do in return. We will keep good faith regardless of others’ behavior, and we will secure our camels before helping our allies and rivals secure theirs.

• The DOGE hack job will evolve into a benevolent parasitic process: NeoGOParty-DOGE will be funded entirely by a fraction of the savings it executes in the federal bureaucracy, but it will respect the important work those bureaucrats are doing by not cutting any services unless those services were never requested by  Congress, or Congress updates its request. Similarly, if DOGE increases revenue (eg by improving the efficiency of IRS collections) it captures 5-20% of that revenue for its own discretionary budget.

• National Parks are the Crown Jewels of North America. We are lucky to have an army of rangers cultivating our most beautiful lands and waters for pennies on the dollar. NeoGOParty will reinstate all rangers purged in 2025, and double the budget for purchasing and cultivating our lands for public purposes, including paying our rangers more fairly. Think of it as a stock buyback for our public lands/waters.

Good faith concession (example)

• From my reading of national news [last week when I wrote this], Biden gets half the (American President) credit for Gazan ceasefire (where we all are still looking for a more permanent peace), and Trump already gets the other half credit for Gaza ceasefire plus full credit for Ukraine ceasefire proposal. My current best guess is that MAGA legitimately wants peace, so perhaps that is not a difference with the Neo-GOParty platform. It would be really nice if both American parties in the future are fighting for dovish credit. (What some would call a “race to the top”.) We issue a friendly challenge to the 47th president: negotiate peaces that are Pareto Improvements among those that did not choose war (including Ukraine and Ukrainians, Israelis, Gazans, and Russians).

Taken together, these observations gesture at the potential for a new American (and hopefully global) political movement—showing our opportunity to counter-balance MAGA's fascist consolidation of power before it turns America into a single party state, undermines the Supreme Court, and shreds the Constitution.

For example, even though I led protests against Hoover and Bush while I was a student, I now love the idea of building a coalition with open minded GOPers, Democrats, Greens, and Libertarians. For the first time I can easily imagine supporting someone like Condi (the Philosopher Queen) to defeat the 2028 MAGA Party candidate. The name of the party that hosts this new alliance isn’t nearly as important as whose support it recruits, but my starting proposal is that we all join the Republican Party on the condition that it stops enabling MAGA fascism. This does not require booting Trump from the party, but I’m guessing Trump would quit the GOP in frustration since he wants more control over everything.

In fact, I'm starting to believe that the best thing liberals like me can do to temper the rise of American fascism is to admit that in today's political/technological/social/spiritual climate, we are classical conservatives (if we wanted to name-call, we might say the MAGAins are “CINOs”). The GOPartiers, Democrats, Greens, and Libertarians that oppose fascism all want to protect the Constitution from MAGA and Russia. Perhaps it would behoove people like me who are not used to allying with Republicans to drop our egos and make it as easy as possible for antifascist (“true”) Republicans like Moki and Condi to stand up to MAGA—forming a new alliance based on patience, open mindedness, freedom, peace, free markets, and potty-trained politicians.

Who else feels ready to put aside their differences and come party in a big tent? What would make it even easier, more fun, or more efficient? Let's have a new grand old party 🥳

#DeepTakes

Engage or Enrage. It is likely that we have family members or friends that we differ with greatly when it comes to politics, healthcare, etc.  I am no different.  When the inevitable hot topic arises, do you recommend flight or fight, engage or enrage?  How do you respond when this occurs?