>I would say that they're not perfectly erasable and it still takes more effort to erase compared to a whiteboard.
I think the biggest thing here is the size of the canvas and the speed at which you can make changes.
Some FriXion colors do erase less well than others.
But to address your concern about effort to erase I recommend trying a little butane torch lighter. Little puffs (quick clicks) of a lighter on the FriXion ink is very effective as an eraser. A continuous flame strafed across a page will erase large areas without damaging the paper.
While a lighter might seem a bit inconvenient its much less cumbersome than carrying around a white board and eraser.
> BUT IT IS WATER BASED. So even a light rain can wreak havoc on my notes.
Water based != water soluble when dry
I would suggest you try similar pens with a different ink. Staedtler Pigment Liner and Sakura Pigma Micron pens (both of which come in 0.3 mm) use water based pigments which are waterproof when dry and archival. They both survive rain quite well in my experience and are used for outlining by some artists who then apply water color paints or other water based media without the dried ink bleeding.
There are also waterproof fountain pen inks. Platinum Carbon and Noodler's Bulletproof Black are two good ones.
For a common counter example to a water based substance being water soluble once dry consider water based exterior latex paint.
I would prefer a sunsetting scheme along the lines of tenuring objects in generation scavenging garbage collection. In essence newly created laws would be up for review after a short period of time at which point they are either trashed or batched into a group with a longer time until next review. Long lived laws (ex. don't murder people) which have passed many reviews would be tenured into a pool of rare or only forced review.
Along with this approach I would want a new mechanism for batching several individual single topic bills for collective passing on a single vote. That as opposed to the current U.S. model of bundling wholly unrelated legislation into a single bill for voting on.
A point to consider with regard to the abbreviated sleep schedule of monks is the restive and restorative aspects of the meditative periods during each day. For Catholic and Orthodox monks the periods of centering, contemplative, and some other types of prayer are the same as or comparable to other meditation practices which have documented restorative value. From my experience the more time spent in meditation the less sleep needed. Even doing hard labor, digging ditches and building stone walls, during a meditation retreat provide enjoyable engagement that support the still times. Anecdotally, placement of prayer just before sleep facilitates a more rapid entry into both sleep and deep sleep.
Boyd Eaton and his students did some of this work. Its touched on in The Paleolithic Prescription (popular book) with more details in papers before and since (search on book's authors' names for research papers. Sorry I don't have better for you now.) As I recall they identified three sleep patterns from anthropological studies of populations not influenced by modern technologies (eg. electric lighting) and from historical documents (ex. Victorian era doctors' notes mentioning what were considered normal sleep patterns at the time.)
1) Early to sleep + early to rise
2) Late to sleep + late to rise
3) Late to sleep + late to rise (with waking in the middle of the night)
A modern cartoon characterization of type three is Dagwood Bumstead from the comic strip Blondie. He would get up naturally for midnight snacks and over-sleep for work or snooze during work. Type three Victorians were noted by their physicials as naturally rising for midnight prayers or sex with spouses.
As to genetic selection, the postulated survival advantage relates to the military three watches of the night. With group members naturally awake throughout the night predators were better protected against, surprise attacks less likely, etc.. Hence, a mixed group consisting of all three types would have a survival advantage.
Some FriXion colors do erase less well than others.
But to address your concern about effort to erase I recommend trying a little butane torch lighter. Little puffs (quick clicks) of a lighter on the FriXion ink is very effective as an eraser. A continuous flame strafed across a page will erase large areas without damaging the paper.
While a lighter might seem a bit inconvenient its much less cumbersome than carrying around a white board and eraser.