The Life and Errors of Molly Young

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Molly's free ideas

mollyyoung.substack.com

Molly's free ideas

Free ideas for anyone to use! Go nuts. Get rich quick.

Nov 11, 2022
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Molly's free ideas

mollyyoung.substack.com

A COMPANY THAT MAKES CASKETS OUT OF ICE
Beautiful. Eco-friendly.


A COMPANY THAT (HARMLESSLY?) HARVESTS BACTERIA FROM THE GUT OF A VULTURE / HYENA / ANY OTHER SCAVENGING ANIMAL
….and uses it to produce human probiotic supplements? Seems like scavengers would have turbo-strength microbiomes. I am not sure if probiotic pills actually work, but that hasn’t stopped anyone.


SMUGGLING SEEDS THROUGH CUSTOMS
Disclaimer: You shouldn't smuggle seeds through customs unless you're doing it responsibly and as a knowledgeable custodian of the land etc.

That said, here's my idea for a clever method. Buy a bag of trail mix and empty all of your to-be-smuggled seeds into the trail mix. You just changed the ontological status of your seeds from "agricultural contraband" to "snack." 

Don't eat the trail mix. Instead, remove it from your suitcase when you arrive at your destination and then germinate the entire bag. You could wind up with an M&M shrub or a raisin tree!


TWITTER EXPERIMENT
What if Twitter imposed a delay between the time a Tweet was posted and the time it became possible for others to respond to it? For example, ten minutes. 

This intervention might reduce some of the bad qualities that flourish on the platform (rage, glibness, cruelty) by prohibiting impulsive reactions AND disincentivizing the sort of Tweet designed to elicit them. Your move, Musk.


LE TREASURE SHACK
Set up a beach kiosk that rents out metal detectors. It would provide a fun and potentially lucrative activity for people of all ages. Especially ideal for parents: when Little Jimmy gets annoying, just hand him a metal detector and let him comb for trinkets. He’ll be out of your hair for hours.

If rentals get slow, you can juice things up by planting a precious necklace in the sand for someone to unearth. Then you can cultivate a few media contacts to "get the story out there"—thus causing a stampede of greedy renters.

You could even strike up a sub rosa relationship with local jewelers to make the faux-discoveries a regular thing. Great publicity for all.

There are some wrinkles in the scheme that I haven't ironed out. For example, how to prevent the theft of metal detectors. Also, would it be unethical to vertically integrate by opening a pawnshop next door? And finally, should you call the place "The Lucky Loot Lot" or "Le Treasure Shack"?


“YOUR WILL ON A GRAIN OF RICE”
Self-explanatory. I am a bit tortured by this idea because I can’t remember whether I came up with it or my friend Kate came up with it. If the latter, I do not think she would mind me giving it away for free.


AN EMAIL CLIENT THAT ONLY DELIVERS EMAIL ONCE A DAY, LIKE POSTAL MAIL
So all your email arrives at, like, 9am. And similarly, any emails you compose will only hit the recipient’s email at 9am the next day. If someone wants to send you an urgent message, they can—but at a cost. (Similar to priority mail.)

If someone wants to send you an email that will arrive in an hour, it costs $50. If they want to send you an email that arrives instantly, it costs $1,000. (It should be very expensive to bother someone.) Also this is how the email client makes money—so they don’t have to harvest your organs or whatever.

Alternatively, a company could just decide to adopt this measure as a way of recruiting talent. I would seriously consider working at the most evil company on earth if it meant I only got emails once a day.


PREFAB MENSTRUATION HUTS
Similar to the “tiny house movement” but for women who prefer to isolate while menstruating.

Well, those are all my ideas from the past month. Good luck getting rich!

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