One way to think of the world is not good or bad but underrated or overrated. Switch from binary to fluid.
Reading like a Bayesian is underrated. Jobs theory is underrated. Books are underrated.
Think of Over/Underrated as a normal distribution. Only learning from books or never learning from books are bad. Each could “move up the curve”.
Education, like financial literacy, as a solution is overrated.
Education is a “tight” solution. When my daughter was in elementary school she went to a speech therapist to work on her *th* sound. She had a cast to fix a broken arm. Her volleyball coach helps her with footwork. These are “tight” solutions that fit the larger set.
Drunk driving advertisements like “drive sober or get pulled over” is another tight solution.
But it’s wrong. It doesn’t fit the larger set of circumstances.
A “wider” approach is to think not about drinking but about driving.
The public could subsidize a ride-share happy hour. If people leave home without their car they can’t return home with it. Or, use the marketing money to pay for random rides.
Another option is to change where bars are built. If it’s easy to walk or hard to park, people won’t drive.
Gamblers can “self exclude” themselves from casinos. Can insurance companies offer a drink driving equivalent? Let people save 5% while committing their sense of self?
…
Education is overrated because it’s linear, rigid, and two-dimensional. If X is good, do more of it. If X is good, the opposite is bad.
Not necessarily.
Related: using ambiguity aversion to hint at punishments.
Addendum: Because overrated and underrated are fluid and because times change, the overrated can become underrated.
The Waiter's Pad 