For social technology, I think we have been consistently disappointed by various attempts to reform education. Specifically, think about interventions like direct instruction investigated under the Follow Through project and, maybe, intervention tested by Gates Foundation.
In a somewhat similar vein, it would be great to have a centralized database for medical records, at least within each country. And we know how to do this technically. But it “somehow doesn’t happen” (at least anywhere I know of).
A general pattern would be “things where somebody believes a problem is of a technical nature, works hard at it, and solves it, only to realize that the problem was of a social/political nature”. (Relatedly, the solution might not catch on because the institution you are trying to improve serves a somewhat different purpose from what you believed, Elephant in the Brain style. EG, education being not just for improving thinking and knowledge but also for domestication and signalling.)
For social technology, I think we have been consistently disappointed by various attempts to reform education. Specifically, think about interventions like direct instruction investigated under the Follow Through project and, maybe, intervention tested by Gates Foundation.
In a somewhat similar vein, it would be great to have a centralized database for medical records, at least within each country. And we know how to do this technically. But it “somehow doesn’t happen” (at least anywhere I know of).
A general pattern would be “things where somebody believes a problem is of a technical nature, works hard at it, and solves it, only to realize that the problem was of a social/political nature”. (Relatedly, the solution might not catch on because the institution you are trying to improve serves a somewhat different purpose from what you believed, Elephant in the Brain style. EG, education being not just for improving thinking and knowledge but also for domestication and signalling.)