Obesity trends
2023-08-24
In the past 5 decades, the obesity rate in the United States has never gone down two years in a row, paraphrased from the Odd Lots Episode linked above.
Totally astounding. I'd be on that changing over the next two years.
jdilla.xyz
Contingencies in history, 1848 edition
2023-08-23
The Sicilian Revolution, the first one of the many revolutions of 1848, was kicked off by a single person putting up flyers in the name of a revolutionary committee that didn't exist.
You could argue that if something this small could kick off a revolution, then it was going to happen anyway... and yet, what if no one else had thought to do it?
Via The Rest is History.
Maybe the placebo effect isn't real?
2023-08-21
Incredibly, the placebo effect is (mostly) not real.
— Jonatan Pallesen (@jonatanpallesen) August 21, 2023
It is a result of statistical confusion. Whenever you have a group with extreme values, they tend to exhibit regression to the mean. Eg. on average, sick people tend to become more healthy over time.
Thus if you give one… https://t.co/1s0qddGgk4 pic.twitter.com/8AOqGbyGtl
A more compelling explanation than any other I've heard to date.
Forks
2023-08-21
My favorite episode of television of the year so far, maybe in two years. It really taps into how being useful to others impacts a person's psyche.
"I wear suits now." Just perfect.
Urban decline and renewal
2023-08-18
Modern Europe’s total urban population only surpassed the total urban population of the Roman Empire around the time of Isaac Newton, a whole 16 centuries after the ancient peak (which implies that the rate of urbanization was lower, as 17th century Europe had over 100 million inhabitants, a substantially larger population than estimated for the Early Roman Empire, whose population has estimates ranging from 50 to 75 million).
From Rafael Guthmann.
Weirdly, this reminded me of reading Dr. Zhivago. One of the things I'll always remember about that book is the way society deteriorated around Dr. Zhivago.