Recent Links

 The second malaria vaccine. Podcast with trnscript of what vaccine development looks like from the inside. "The reality of this problem is the hardness of it is set by nature, and nature is a vicious test setter." That is more than a cute throwaway line.  Vaccine objectors will talk about preferring natural solutions, but one problem is that these are natural diseases, and nature is not kind. Only people in prosperous places protected from nature think nature is kind. People who live with it know that it is powerful, sometimes beautiful, but dangerous. From Works in Progress

Also from Works in Progress: Review:Recession by Tyler Goodspeed 

 At first glance, Goodspeed’s target is the popular understanding of a boom-and-bust cycle. Consider his vivid account of the crisis of 1873. Both popular and scholarly histories have attributed this recession to railway mania and the collapse of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Goodspeed instead points out the devastating role of a surprise that had nothing to do with economics or economic policy: the great grasshopper plagues of 1873-1876, during which a single locust swarm covered an area larger than California and devastated the very regions the railroad was supposed to open to European settlers...This is why recessions remain essentially unpredictable. Any perceived regularity is likely to be a statistical illusion.

 Why Did the Murders Stop In Baltimore? The information has been out there a long time, including Grim's discussion here, that homicide is is a problem in very few neighborhoods and even a very few people. 

Baltimore follows this pattern. In Baltimore’s Western District, 72 percent of murders between 2015 and 2021 were attributable to a small number of men, mostly organized into gangs. The same analysis estimated that the area’s gang members accounted for just 2 percent of the district’s population but as much as 75 percent of its shootings and homicides. 

The Cost of Longevity  Cremieux Recueil.  I don't know if this level of advancement is true, but pretend it is.  More than anything, I wonder it will mean for church life and family life.

 If we have a revolution in everything related to what I’ve listed so far, we conquer the travails of living. We become effectively immune to our environments: an end to infections, an end to degradation from plaque accumulation and the stress of glycemic spikes, a practical end to withering. It also means an end to wellness culture—no regimented dieting required, no extra benefits from structured exercise programs and retreats. You’ll be able to drink and party and you’ll be no worse off for having done it.