In addition to the incentive problem, you would also need to get people to peer review any changes to a paper. Most of the changes would be minor and annoying to peer review.
I think that courses remain the best way of distilling and communicating knowledge. The only problem is that they're not always available to a lay audience, since there's little incentive to make them available.
The other alternative for the lay audience is science/economics journalism (Economist, Scientific American, Discover, etc). This works to some extent but mostly just scratches the surface, since even regular journalism is struggling to be profitable these days. With deep technical topics there are too few readers and too few qualified, willing writers.
I think that courses remain the best way of distilling and communicating knowledge. The only problem is that they're not always available to a lay audience, since there's little incentive to make them available.
The other alternative for the lay audience is science/economics journalism (Economist, Scientific American, Discover, etc). This works to some extent but mostly just scratches the surface, since even regular journalism is struggling to be profitable these days. With deep technical topics there are too few readers and too few qualified, willing writers.