Jonathan Shaw: Could Inflammation Be the Cause of Myriad Chronic Diseases?

Link to the article shown above

Inflammation plays a role in many diseases, according to Jonathan Shaw’s fascinating Harvard Magazine article shown above: “Raw and Red-Hot: Could inflammation be the cause of myriad chronic conditions?” I found three points Jonathan made especially interesting.

First, arterial plaques that block blood flow in a way that can cause heart attacks or strokes may owe just as much to inflammation as they do to cholesterol. For example, one of the most powerful predictors of cardiovascular health is C-reactive protein, which is related to inflammation. Jonathan reports:

… a molecule called C-reactive protein (CRP), easily measured by a simple and now ubiquitous blood test, could be used like a thermometer to take the temperature of a patient’s inflammation. Elevated CRP, he discovered years ago, predicts future cardiovascular events, including heart attacks.

Second, many of the benefits of exercise may come because of the long-run inflammation-reducing effects of exercise:

In 2007, [Harvard] associate professor of medicine Samia Mora and colleagues published a study of exercise that sought to understand why physical activity is salutary. They already knew that exercise reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease as much as cholesterol-lowering statin drugs do. … women had donated blood in the 1990s when they entered the study. Eleven years later, the researchers analyzed this frozen blood to see if they could find anything that correlated with long-term cardiovascular outcomes such as heart attack and stroke. “… reduced inflammation was the biggest explainer, the biggest contributor to the benefit of activity …”

The anti-inflammatory effect of exercise was much greater than most people had expected. That raised another question: whether inflammation might also play a dominant role in other lifestyle illnesses that have been linked to cardiovascular disease, such as diabetes and dementia.

In the short-run, exercise increases inflammation, just as it increases blood pressure. But in the long run, exercise reduces blood pressure and reduces inflammation.

Third, the case that inflammation rather than something else correlated with inflammation is doing the good work is bolstered by the many benefits of an anti-inflammatory drug:

In 2017, two cardiologists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who suspected such a link, published the results of a human clinical trial that will forever change the way people think about inflammation. The trial, which involved more than 10,000 patients in 39 countries, was primarily designed to determine whether an anti-inflammatory drug, by itself, could lower rates of cardiovascular disease in a large population, without simultaneously lowering levels of cholesterol, as statin drugs do. The answer was yes. But the researchers went a step further, building into the trial additional tests seeking to clarify what effect the same anti-inflammatory drug, canakinumab, might have on illnesses seemingly unrelated to cardiovascular disease: arthritis, gout, and cancer. Only the researchers themselves, and their scientific colleagues, were unsurprised by the outcome. Lung cancer mortality dropped by as much as 77 percent. Reports of arthritis and gout also fell significantly.

Some of the researchers Jonathan interviewed speculate that strong immune system responses were very helpful in the environment of evolutionary adaptation, since infectious diseases were such a big danger.

Also, Jonathan interviewed Gökhan S. Hotamisligil, director of the Sabri Ülker Center for Metabolic Research. Gökhan speculated that eating all the time is one cause of chronic inflammation, both because eating puts a lot of reactive molecules in the mix and because being well-fed provides lots of energy to run the immune system.

Let me make connections to a few themes I have pursued in my diet and health posts. First, note how different an emphasis on inflammation is that a view that says “dietary fat is bad.” For example, if eating animal protein caused inflammation, the fat in the meat might get blamed instead of the animal protein in the meat. Second, if, as Gökhan argues, eating all the time causes excessive inflammation, could periodic fasting reduce inflammation? Third, reminiscent of, bit distinct, from what Gökhan is sayhing, I have written about Steven Gundry’s big claim that many particular foods cause inflammation and overactivate the immune system in “What Steven Gundry's Book 'The Plant Paradox' Adds to the Principles of a Low-Insulin-Index Diet.” Interestingly, Steven claims that certain types of food cause inflammation in and near the digestive tract, and that belly fat then builds up to provide a storehouse of energy for that immune-system response. If that is the case, then belly fat would be caused by inflammation rather than itself causing inflammation. But in any case, belly fat is a bad sign.

It is my sense that the importance of inflammation to the chronic diseases associated with obesity has not fully made it into popular awareness. It deserves to.

I have found the food insulin index extremely useful in thinking about which foods are healthy and which are unhealthy. (See “Forget Calorie Counting; It's the Insulin Index, Stupid.”) I would love to see a corresponding index of how much inflammation different foods. Short of that, I would love to have a better sense of what kinds of subjective sensations after eating are most likely to be signs of an inflammatory response to particular foods I just ate.

Overall, on what to do in relation to inflammation, diet and health, I am left with more questions than answers. There are many possible recommendations for which I am worried about possible side effects. As an analogy, too-easily-clotting blood is akin to an overactive immune system. A baby aspirin, turmeric or regular cinnamon (that is, non-Ceylon cinnamon) are all blood-thinners. Taking some kind of blood thinner may often make sense, but personally I find they give me nose bleeds. (I love cinnamon and eat Ceylon cinnamon to avoid the nose bleeds.) The three recommendations I do have in relation to inflammation that have few downsides are:

1. Exercise regularly.

2. Quit sugar. Heidi Turner says “Sugar is the universal inflammatory ... Everyone is sugar intolerant.” (See “Heidi Turner, Michael Schwartz and Kristen Domonell on How Bad Sugar Is” and once you are convinced, turn to “Letting Go of Sugar.”)

3. Don’t eat all the time. (See “Stop Counting Calories; It's the Clock that Counts.”)

4. Google “Steven Gundry Yes and No” and check out Steven’s list of OK “yes” foods and inflammatory “no” foods.

For annotated links to other posts on diet and health, see “Miles Kimball on Diet and Health: A Reader's Guide.”

The People Have the Right to Erect a New Government When the Previous Government Betrays the Trust It Has Been Given

image source

One of the most remarkable things John Locke says in his 2d Treatise on Government: Of Civil Government, in Chapter XIX, “Of the Dissolution of Government,” sections 219 to 221, is that the people may erect their own government either when the previous government has descended into anarchy, or when it has betrayed the people’s trust. He argues that the people have an inherent right to

… a settled [government], and a fair and impartial execution of the laws made by it.

(Here I have translated the noun “legislative” as “government.”) Besides anarchy, the people, he says, have a right to erect a new government when the previous government betrays its trust:

The legislative acts against the trust reposed in them, when they endeavour to invade the property of the subject, and to make themselves, or any part of the community, masters, or arbitrary disposers of the lives, liberties, or fortunes of the people.

If the people have this right, it is appropriate to make it possible for the people to exercise this right in a relatively low cost way. Democracy is one of the simplest—and in practice the most effective known way of lowering the cost of the people to exercise their right to erect a new government when the old one descends into anarchy or betrays the trust given to it.

Democracy in the real world is far from perfect. But it has this treat virtue: if the vast majority of people hate the government, then the government falls. Otherwise it is not a true democracy.

Even democracies in form that are not true democracies because the elections are rigged, still have some benefit in paying homage to the principle that if a government is horrible, the people get to replace it. And having a tradition of elections in form has, I believe, a positive effect on the likelihood of possible futures in which makes elections take full force. For example, who should be the successor in a dictatorship or semidictatorship is not always clear. Sometimes that question of succession will end up being resolved an election even though the elections before that were sham elections.

Moreover, in our world of 2019, elections have become a time when the rest of the world is watching. That is valuable.

If an autocracy really is looking after the welfare of the people (as most claim but do not do), then John Locke’s principle does not require democracy. But if an autocracy really is looking after the welfare of the people better than anyone else or any other organization would, it should be able to win an election. So if an autocracy is actually legitimate, there would be no harm to having a democracy instead, with the erstwhile autocrats being converted into election victors. (I don’t think John Locke would have any truck with the notion that the people are not good judges of their own welfare.) This way of looking at things does, however, suggest that one should not diss autocrats who genuinely govern putting the people’s welfare first and with high competence, then at some point institute elections and win them fairly.

In relation to these powerful ideas, it is well worth reading John Locke’s own words:

219. There is one way more whereby such a government may be dissolved, and that is, when he who has the supreme executive power neglects and abandons that charge, so that the laws already made can no longer be put in execution. This is demonstratively to reduce all to anarchy, and so effectually to dissolve the government: for laws not being made for themselves, but to be, by their execution, the bonds of the society, to keep every part of the body politic in its due place and function; when that totally ceases, the government visibly ceases, and the people become a confused multitude, without order or connexion. Where there is no longer the administration of justice, for the securing of men’s rights, nor any remaining power within the community to direct the force, or provide for the necessities of the public, there certainly is no government left. Where the laws cannot be executed, it is all one as if there were no laws; and a government without laws is, I suppose, a mystery in politics, unconceivable to human capacity, and inconsistent with human society.

§. 220. In these and the like cases, when the government is dissolved, the people are at liberty to provide for themselves, by erecting a new legislative, differing from the other, by the change of persons, or form, or both, as they shall find it most for their safety and good: for the society can never, by the fault of another, lose the native and original right it has to preserve itself, which can only be done by a settled legislative, and a fair and impartial execution of the laws made by it. But the state of mankind is not so miserable that they are not capable of using this remedy, till it be too late to look for any. To tell people they may provide for themselves, by erecting a new legislative, when by oppression, artifice, or being delivered over to a foreign power, their old one is gone, is only to tell them, they may expect relief when it is too late, and the evil is past cure. This is in effect no more than to bid them first be slaves, and then to take care of their liberty; and when their chains are on, tell them, they may act like freemen. This, if barely so, is rather mockery than relief; and men can never be secure from tyranny, if there be no means to escape it till they are perfectly under it: and therefore it is that they have not only a right to get out of it, but to prevent it.

§. 221. There is therefore, secondly, another way whereby governments are dissolved,and that is, when the legislative, or the prince, either of them, act contrary to their trust.

First, The legislative acts against the trust reposed in them, when they endeavour to invade the property of the subject, and to make themselves, or any part of the community, masters, or arbitrary disposers of the lives, liberties, or fortunes of the people.

For links to other John Locke posts, see these John Locke aggregator posts: 

• John Locke's State of Nature and State of War

• On the Achilles Heel of John Locke's Second Treatise: Slavery and Land Ownership

• John Locke Against Natural Hierarchy

• John Locke's Argument for Limited Government

Hessler, Pöpping, Hollstein, Ohlenburg, Arnemann, Massoth, Seidel, Zarbock and Wenk: Availability of Cookies During an Academic Course Session Affects Evaluation of Teaching

Link to the abstract shown above. Hat tip to Chris Chabris.

In “False Advertising for College is Pretty Much the Norm” and “The Most Effective Memory Methods are Difficult—and That's Why They Work,” I discuss what I believe should be the main goal of college teaching: trying to encourage students to learn things that they can still remember a year or two later. But I have always thought that, in principle, how enjoyable the learning is could be an appropriate subsidiary goal. I have thought that typical course evaluations were more or less directed at measuring how enjoyable a learning experience was. But evidence from several quarters suggests that they are flawed measures even of that:

• male students tend to rate female instructors lower than they rate male instructors without an obvious teaching quality difference

• students who expect to get a better grade give higher ratings

• provision of cookies raises ratings

Let’s dig more into the results from “Availability of cookies during an academic course session affects evaluation of teaching” by Michael Hessler, Daniel Poepping, Hanna Hollstein, Hendrik Ohlenburg, Philip H Arnemann, Christina Massoth, Laura M Seidel, Alexander Zarbock and Manuel Wenk.

They emphasize the institutional importance of course evaluations by students:

End-of-course feedback in the form of student evaluations of teaching (SETs) has become a standard tool for measuring the ‘quality’ of curricular high-grade education courses. The results of these evaluations often form the basis for far- reaching decisions by academic faculty staff, such as those involving changes to the curriculum, the promotion of teachers, the tenure of academic appointments, the distribution of funds and merit pay, and the choice of staff.

Structured as a randomized controlled trial, the statistical identification seems quite credible. The sample size was not huge, but bigger than many psychology experiments:

A total of 118 medical students in their fifth semester were randomly allocated to 20 groups. Two experienced lecturers, who had already taught the same course several times, were chosen to participate in the study and groups of students were randomly allocated to these two teachers. Ten groups (five for each teacher) were randomly chosen to receive the intervention (cookie group). The other 10 groups served as controls (control group).

Availability of cookies raised the scores on average by .38 of a standard deviation. The probability that this could happen by chance (the p-value) was 2.8%. The authors did not preregister an analysis plan, so they may well have done some searching over specifications to make their results look good. But this still provides suggestive evidence that cookies can raise ratings—something that should be confirmed or disconfirmed in a considerably larger sample. (See “Let's Set Half a Percent as the Standard for Statistical Significance.”) Administrators who encourage the use of student course evaluations should fund such a large study or be ashamed of themselves.

Let me throw out another hypothesis that deserves to be tested. I have a theory that students who feel an instructor has a heavy accent want to express that somehow on the course evaluation forms. If there isn’t a separate question early on in the course evaluation asking about the instructor’s accent, students will mark down other ratings in order to try to get across their displeasure at the heavy accent. This can easily be tested by randomizing evaluation forms to either have or not have an early question about accent within the same class by a non-native-English-speaking instructor.

The bottom line is that a lot more well-powered research should be done on things other than teaching quality that might affect course evaluations. Not taking these issues seriously would be a sign of college administrators who are not serious about learning and teaching.

Yascha Mounk on How Far Off We are from Understanding Our Political Adversaries →

The title of this post is a link. Hat tip to Greg Ransom. Sunday morning, June 23, Greg Ransom, who tweets under @takinghayekseriously, has a set of tweets with his confirmatory reaction. (Unfortunately, they are not threaded together, which is why I am giving you a time designation instead of a link to these specific tweets.)

Data on Asian Genes that Discourage Alcohol Consumption Explode the Myth that a Little Alcohol is Good for your Health

Link to the Lancet article shown above. All images in this post are from this article.

Many people have taken comfort from news reports suggesting that moderate drinking is healthy. The top three graphs in the panel below, from a recent study of hundreds of thousands of Chinese drinkers and non-drinkers, confirm the kind of stylized facts that have led people to believe this. As the authors of “Conventional and genetic evidence on alcohol and vascular disease aetiology: a prospective study of 500 000 men and women in China” describe these results,

… conventional epidemiology showed that self-reported alcohol intake had U-shaped associations with the incidence of ischaemic stroke (n=14 930), intracerebral haemorrhage (n=3496), and acute myocardial infarction (n=2958); men who reported drinking about 100 g of alcohol per week (one to two drinks per day) had lower risks of all three diseases than non-drinkers or heavier drinkers.

But, one should be concerned that the U-shape in the top three graphs is generated by some combination of reverse causality and “Cousin Causality.” In the words of the authors (click here for the full paper, then click on the link to show all authors),

… poor health might affect alcohol consumption (reverse causality), and other systematic differences might exist between people with different drinking patterns that were not fully allowed for (residual confounding).

Fortunately for statistical identification, there are a pair of genes that have a big effect on drinking through well-understood biological pathways. Alcohol itself is mostly pleasant, but is ultimately turned into acetaldehyde, which is unpleasant until the acetaldehyde is in turn broken down into acetate, which is OK. Two gene variants in East Asia lead to a lot of acetaldehyde: one slows down the process of turning the unpleasant acetaldehyde (which causes flushing) into acetate; the other turns alcohol into acetaldehyde faster. Both make drinking less pleasant. Just below is the top of the explanatory box in the paper for this causal pathway:

Assuming these genes have no other substantial affect besides making alcohol consumption unpleasant, they can be used as instruments for alcohol consumption, allowing one to see the effects of alcohol without confounding from reverse causality or “Cousin Causality.” The relevance of these genes as statistical instruments can be seen from the graph below:

The authors have relative risk on the left-hand-side of the equation, put region of China as a control variable on the right-hand side of the regression, then effectively use region and genes as instruments for region and alcohol consumption. They do the analysis separately for men and for women. Since Chinese women in this study do not drink much regardless of their genes, the analysis for women is a good test of whether the genes affect health through pathways other than alcohol consumption. After correcting for multiple hypothesis testing (See “Who Leaves Mormonism?”), no effects of the genes are seen for women.

The results for six levels of alcohol consumption as predicted by region and genes can be seen below for men and women:

This evidence is quite persuasive. It seems unlikely that tinkering with the analysis in any appropriate way would yield a different result. Translating the outcome descriptions into simpler words, the analysis says that higher alcohol consumption in men leads causally to:

• higher blood pressure

• higher “good cholesterol”

• a marker for liver disease

• stroke

• brain bleeding

There is no evidence of heart attack danger from drinking, but no evidence of protection from heart attack either.

Note that, while women help to verify that the gene variants don’t have big effects unrelated to alcohol, the low variation in alcohol consumption among these Chinese women (because few of them drink very much) means that there is little direct evidence here on the effects of alcohol on women. But many of the health effects of alcohol on women are likely to be similar to the health effects of alcohol on men.

The only shred of evidence for a physical health benefit from alcohol consumption is its effect in raising “good cholesterol.” But in their appendix, the authors give the first-stage regression of many health-related measures on the genes, and the news there is not good. For example, gene variant GG, which is associated with higher alcohol consumption than gene variant AG, fairly precisely predicts a body-mass index about .24 higher. Here is their full table for that first-stage regression on the genes:

Let me mention in closing that alcohol doesn’t seem to do its damage by causing an insulin spike. The insulin index data I discuss in “Forget Calorie Counting; It's the Insulin Index, Stupid” gives a very low insulin index (less than five) to white wine and gin, and even beer only has a measured insulin index of 20. So the health harm from alcohol seems to come from other pathways, not from causing an insulin spike that would make you feel hungry afterwards.

For annotated links to other posts on diet and health, see “Miles Kimball on Diet and Health: A Reader's Guide.”

Claudia Sahm's Anti-Recession Rule →

Also, don’t miss Noah Smith’s Bloomberg Opinion column on the Sahm Rule: “The Best Tools for Fighting Recession Run on Autopilot.”

Chris Kimball: Grief in the Journey

Link to the article shown above

I am pleased to have another guest post on religion from my brother Chris. (You can see other guest posts by Chris listed at the bottom of this post.) Below are Chris’s words. When he writes “Church,” it means the Mormon Church, but those who have been in other churches or faiths may have had similar experiences.

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I read a short article in Psychology Today titled “Four Types of Grief Nobody Told You About” (And why it’s important that we call them grief). I turned to the article out of curiosity and thinking about recent and not-so-recent deaths that affected me. What I found was surprisingly applicable to people I know in faith crisis. I generally prefer the term “faith journey” but the kinds of grief Sarah Epstein (the author) talks about refer me to the crisis part of the journey. I found it validating to see these described and recognized as important.

 Here are the headers from the article, with my personal experience following. I fight the temptation to generalize, believing that these stories are best told in raw first person.

1. Loss of identity: A lost role or affiliation.

Being an active all-in Church member was an identity, a role, an affiliation. The loss of identity is hard.  “Grief” seems like a good word. It is not a public grief, not dependent on other people knowing or any kind of formal change in membership or even attendance. Grief is about my own feelings. Sitting in a pew on Sunday knowing I don’t belong, knowing I will not be participating when others are called, knowing I am not the person I grew up thinking I was.  

2. Loss of safety: The lost sense of physical, emotional, and mental well-being.

The loss of safety may not be obvious to an outside observer, but I have often observed that one of the things the Church “offers” (scare quotes because I believe it is a false promise) is a feeling of safety and that can be lost. Keep the commandments at the temple recommend level—which gets you into “the house of the Lord”—and you’re good. Get your children sealed to you, on a mission, married in the temple, and you will be together forever. So goes the promise.

When I started questioning the promise, one result was to feel unsafe. I remember getting up from my knees (almost 25 years ago) with the words fear and trembling in my mind: “From now on you live in the world of working out salvation with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12)

For me, growing up in a fully active multi-generation family with a grandfather who was an Apostle, the Church felt like home. Felt like family. I no longer feel that. I feel like an outsider. Like I'm wearing a disguise when I take up space in a pew on Sunday morning.

Even though the overall process is one of growth and independence, I grieve the loss of “safe" and "home" feelings, even if they never were fully justified.

3. Loss of autonomy: The lost ability to manage one’s own life and affairs.

I’m not sure about the loss of autonomy. The faith crisis happened to me. I didn’t choose it. I didn’t go looking for trouble. That out-of-control feeling might well fit this loss-of-autonomy category. It may also show up as a frustration when I hear “just don’t think about it” or “choose to be faithful” and know that is so not helpful. My annoyed reaction underscores an inability to take charge and make it right.

However, that all happened years ago and subsequent events—a cancer diagnosis—overwhelmed any Church-related loss of autonomy in my life. I cannot manage my life, but the highlight in my head is an invader trying to kill me, not the Church.

4. Loss of dreams or expectations: Dealing with hopes and dreams going unfulfilled.

This one really strikes home. I grew up in the Church. I expected to graduate from seminary. I did. I expected to go on a mission. I did. I expected to marry in the temple. I did. I expected to have normal sorts of callings and live much of my life inside the Church. I did . . . until age 40. I expected to hit an early retirement and spend most of the rest of my life in Church service. However, at around age 40, I realized with crystal clarity that I was stepping off the path. That my future was unknown except that it would not be what I grew up expecting. 

A lot of years have passed since I got up off my knees with an uncertain future, but it is not quite as simple as water under the bridge. My cousin and his wife—almost exactly my age—are mission president now in Japan Fukuoka. I think about what might have been. There are several ways it never would have worked (including my health), but “what might have been” doesn’t go easy. It is a loss and I hurt.

In the big picture I am happy and enjoying my second life. But the grief is there too. I have lost an identity, I have lost a sense of safety, I have lost control over my life, and I have lost dreams and expectations. I am better for naming and recognizing, but that doesn't make it all better.

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 Don't miss these posts on Mormonism:

• The Message of Mormonism for Atheists Who Want to Stay Atheists

• How Conservative Mormon America Avoided the Fate of Conservative White America

• Inside Mormonism: The Home Teachers Come Over

• Will Women Ever Get the Mormon Priesthood?

• The Mormon Church Decides to Treat Gay Marriage as Rebellion on a Par with Polygamy

• Flexible Dogmatism: The Mormon Position on Infallibility

• The Mormon View of Jesus

• David Holland on the Mormon Church During the February 3, 2008–January 2, 2018 Monson Administration

• New Mormon Prophet Russell Nelson Shakes Things Up

• Less is More in Mormon Church Meetings

Also see the links in "Hal Boyd: The Ignorance of Mocking Mormonism."

Don’t miss these other guest posts by Chris:

• Chris Kimball on `A Liberal Turn in the Mormon Church'

• Christian Kimball on Middle-Way Mormonism

• Christian Kimball: Revelation and Satan

• Dan Wotherspoon's Mormon Matters Interview of Ian Thomson and Chris Kimball on Mental and Spiritual Gymnastics

• Chris Kimball: Having a Prophet in the Family

• Christian Edward Kimball on Edward Lawrence Kimball

• Christian Kimball: Anger [1], Marriage [2], and the Mormon Church [3]

• Christian Kimball on the Fallibility of Mormon Leaders and on Gay Marriage

• Big Brother Speaks: Christian Kimball on Mitt Romney

In addition, Chris is my coauthor for

• However Low Interest Rates Might Go, the IRS Will Never Act Like a Bank

Don’t miss these Unitarian-Universalist sermons by Miles:

By self-identification, I left Mormonism for Unitarian Universalism in 2000, at the age of 40. I have had the good fortune to be a lay preacher in Unitarian Universalism. I have posted many of my Unitarian-Universalist sermons on this blog.

• Teleotheism and the Purpose of Life (video here)

• The Egocentric Illusion (video here)

• The Message of Mormonism for Atheists Who Want to Stay Atheists (video here)

• So You Want to Save the World (video here)

• The Mystery of Consciousness

• The Message of Jesus for Non-Supernaturalists (video here)

• UU Visions

• Godless Religion

The Tree of Life Web Project: A Cool Website Implementing a Giant Cladogram →

The Wikipedia article “Cladogram” explains cladograms this way:

A cladogram uses lines that branch off in different directions ending at a clade, a group of organisms with a last common ancestor.

Thus, a cladogram tells a lot about what we know about the evolution of different species.

The link above starts with Amniota, the narrowest clade that includes both us and our cousins the dinosaurs. The home page, with a link to the root of the tree, is here.

JP Koning on Ill-Considered Government Policies Standing in the Way of the Emergence of the Digital Cash that Can Eliminate Any Lower Bound on Interest Rates

Link to the article shown above

Link to the article shown just above

I have always been impressed with JP Koning, both for his blog Moneyness and for the insights he has on Twitter. Now he is also posting fascinating pieces on the website of the American Institute for Economic Research. I show two above, with links at the bottom of screenshots. These two share the theme of government agencies—without sufficient thought—standing in the way of the development of the digital cash that could reduce the footprint of physical cash and thereby make it easier to neutralize any tendency of paper currency to create a lower bound on interest rates. (See “Ruchir Agarwal and Miles Kimball—Enabling Deep Negative Rates to Fight Recessions: A Guide.”)

Let me back up the claim that they are doing this without sufficient thought. First, the Financial Action Task Force, in its desire to make an easy trail of cryptocurreny transactions for law enforcement is ignoring the benefit of drawing people away from physical cash transactions that leave much less of a trail. It would be a different matter if we were eliminating physical cash (or allowing only heavy coins) for the sake of crime control, as Ken Rogoff recommends in The Curse of Cash. But as long as we leave physical cash unconstrained, we should try to make digital cash a more attractive option, since when necessary, it can be tracked more easily than physical cash.

Second, the Fed is worried that access by narrow banks to reserve accounts will lead to a lower bound on rates that will be contractionary. The solution is simple: the Fed can and should lower the interest rate on reserves very quickly in such situations. There should always be a quantitative trigger in place that instantly lowers the interest on reserves if reserves suddenly and unexpectedly go up. Or a good substitute is to have a quantitative ceiling on reserves, but provide a repo facility for funds beyond that, with the rate on the repo facility allowed to go down instantly if there is a surge of funds into it. (See “How to Keep a Zero Interest Rate on Reserves from Creating a Zero Lower Bound.”)

During times when the Fed is trying to keep the economy from overheating, allowing narrow banks to put money into an interest-bearing reserve account helps to keep interest rates up. One thing the Fed might worry about is that keeping deposit rates up would reduce bank profits. Lower bank profits could lead to lower bank capital in a proximate sense. But there are many other ways for banks to keep their net worth’s high to enhance financial stability, such as not paying dividends until they are stable. If these other financial stability measures lead to lending rates being higher, the Fed can just cut rates overall. (See “Why Financial Stability Concerns Are Not a Reason to Shy Away from a Robust Negative Interest Rate Policy.”)

And if ending the ‘tax’ on depositors and ‘subsidy’ to banks and borrowers implicit in banks being able to get away with low deposit rates is a serious policy concern (which I don’t believe for a minute), legislation should increase the existing explicit tax on depositors and explicit tax breaks for banks and borrowers rather than using oligopolistic low rates for bank depositors as a sneaky way of doing this. Remember, allowing narrow banks the same privileges as regular banks is a way to increase competition in a safe way. It is rare for increased competition to be a bad thing, especially after the Fed has used interest rate policy to get the economy to the natural level of output given that level of competition.

Miles Kimball on Diet and Health: A Reader's Guide

Bread and Fruit Dish on a Table, 1909 by Pablo Picasso. Two of the more controversial pieces of advice in the links below are to cut bread out of your diet and to eat fruit sparingly.

The list of links to my posts on diet and health has become too long to continue putting at the bottom of each new diet and health post. So I’ll refer to this post for a categorized list of those links. (I’ll keep it updated.) Take a good look at the list. I have high hopes that in it, you can find something useful to you.

I. The Basics

• 3 Achievable Resolutions for Weight Loss

• Stop Counting Calories; It's the Clock that Counts

• 4 Propositions on Weight Loss

• Forget Calorie Counting; It's the Insulin Index, Stupid

• Obesity Is Always and Everywhere an Insulin Phenomenon

• Maintaining Weight Loss

• Why a Low-Insulin-Index Diet Isn't Exactly a 'Lowcarb' Diet

• What Steven Gundry's Book 'The Plant Paradox' Adds to the Principles of a Low-Insulin-Index Diet

• The Problem with Processed Food

• On Exercise and Weight Loss

• David Ludwig: It Takes Time to Adapt to a Lowcarb, Highfat Diet

• Competition from Generic Insulin Would Do a Lot to Reduce Medical Costs; But Reducing the Incidence of Type II Diabetes by Changes in the American Diet Would Do Much More

• Jonathan Shaw: Could Inflammation Be the Cause of Myriad Chronic Diseases?

• George Monbiot on the Role of Food Companies in Making Us Fat

• Nicole Rura: Close to Half of US Population Projected to Have Obesity by 2030

• Are Processed Food and Environmental Contaminants the Main Cause of the Rise of Obesity?

II. Fasting

• Stop Counting Calories; It's the Clock that Counts

• My Modified Fast

• Jason Fung's Single Best Weight Loss Tip: Don't Eat All the Time

• The New England Journal of Medicine Review of the Effects of Intermittent Fasting on Health, Aging and Disease

• Lisa Drayer: Is Fasting the Fountain of Youth?

• Andreas Michalsen on Fasting

• How to Make Ramadan Fasting—or Any Other Religious Fasting—Easier

• Elizabeth Thomas: Can Time-Restricted Eating Prevent You From Overindulging on Thanksgiving?

• On 'Flipping the Metabolic Switch: Understanding and Applying Health Benefits of Fasting' by Stephen D. Anton et al.

• Don't Tar Fasting by those of Normal or High Weight with the Brush of Anorexia

• The Benefits of Fasting are Looking So Clear People Try to Mimic Fasting without Fasting

• The New England Journal of Medicine Review of the Effects of Intermittent Fasting on Health, Aging and Disease

• Fasting Before Feasting

• On My Pattern of Fasting (click here, then on ‘show this thread’)

• Fasting Tips

• Potential Protective Mechanisms of Ketosis in Migraine Prevention

• Ethan Weiss on Fasting

• Jane Brody on Intermittent Fasting

• Inducing Autophagy

• Fasting as a Reboot

• Can a Fasting-Induced Changing-of-the-Guard for Immune Cells Help Treat Auto-Immune Diseases?

III. Sugar as a Slow Poison

• Yes, Sugar is Really Bad for You

• Best Health Guide: 10 Surprising Changes When You Quit Sugar

• Letting Go of Sugar

• Heidi Turner, Michael Schwartz and Kristen Domonell on How Bad Sugar Is

• Which Is Worse for You: Sugar or Fat?

• Does Sugar Make Dietary Fat Less OK?

• Sugar as a Slow Poison

• How Sugar Makes People Hangry

• Michael Lowe and Heidi Mitchell: Is Getting ‘Hangry’ Actually a Thing?

• Katherine Ellen Foley—Candy Bar Lows: Scientists Just Found Another Worrying Link Between Sugar and Depression

• Ken Rogoff Against Sugar and Processed Food

• The Better Side of Conventional Wisdom about Diet and Health

• How Many Thousands of Americans Will the Sugar Lobby's Latest Victory Kill?

• Sugar Is Not Very Satiating

• Aseem Malhotra: Avoiding Sugar is Much More Powerful Than Taking Statins (link post)

• Sugar Rots Your Teeth. Sugar Kills. So Don't Eat It.

• Open Conspiracies, Exhibit A: Whitewashing Sugar

• Sam Apple on the Tragedy of Pro-Sugar Policies of the US Government

• Processed Food is Our Evil Overlord

IV. Anti-Cancer Eating

• How Fasting Can Starve Cancer Cells, While Leaving Normal Cells Unharmed

• Why You Should Worry about Cancer Promotion by Diet as Much as You Worry about Cancer Initiation by Carcinogens

• Good News! Cancer Cells are Metabolically Handicapped

• How Sugar, Too Much Protein, Inflammation and Injury Could Drive Epigenetic Cellular Evolution Toward Cancer

• Meat Is Amazingly Nutritious—But Is It Amazingly Nutritious for Cancer Cells, Too?

• My Annual Anti-Cancer Fast

• Cancer Cells Love Sugar; That’s How PET Scans for Cancer Work

• Starving Cancer Cells: We Need Metabolic Oncology, Stat!

V. Eating Tips

• Why Do Almost All Diets Fail?

• Live Your Life So You Don't Need Much Self-Control

• Our Delusions about 'Healthy' Snacks—Nuts to That!

• Hypoallergenic Nuts

• My Giant Salad

• Using the Glycemic Index as a Supplement to the Insulin Index

• The Keto Food Pyramid

• On the Keto Diet

• Evaluating Sweden's Food Guidelines

• Hints for Healthy Eating from the Nurse's Health Study

• How to Summarize a Big Chunk of Nutrition Research: Almost Anything You Are Likely to Think Of Is Better Than the Standard American Diet

• Carola Binder—Why You Should Get More Vitamin D: The Recommended Daily Allowance for Vitamin D Was Underestimated Due to Statistical Illiteracy

• Vitamin D Seems to Help If You Have Non-Alcoholic Liver Disease

• Eating on the Road

• Intense Dark Chocolate: A Review

• In Praise of Avocados

• In Praise of Herbs

• Nutritionally, Not All Apple Varieties Are Alike

• Replacing Meat with Mushrooms—In Whole or in Part

• Putting the Perspective from Jason Fung's "The Obesity Code" into Practice

• Which Nonsugar Sweeteners are OK? An Insulin-Index Perspective

• Black Bean Brownies

• On Food Preparation Memes

• Christmas Dinner 2018 with the Kimballs in Colorado

• Freakonomics: The Story of Bananas

• In Praise of Flavored Sparkling Water

• BJ Fogg's Tips for New Year's Resolutions

• Don't Drink Sweet Drinks Between Meals—Whether Sugary or with Nonsugar Sweeteners

• Elizabeth Thomas: Can Time-Restricted Eating Prevent You From Overindulging on Thanksgiving?

• On Franziska Spritzler’s 14 Ways to Lower Your Insulin Levels

VI. Calories In/Calories Out

• Nina Teicholz on the Bankruptcy of Counting Calories

• Mass In/Mass Out: A Satire of Calories In/Calories Out

• On How Incredibly Noisy Any One Reading on the Scale is as a Gauge of Long-Run Weight Gain or Loss

• How Weight Loss Happens: Mass In/Mass Out Revisited

• How the Calories In/Calories Out Theory Obscures the Endogeneity of Calories In and Out to Subjective Hunger and Energy

• The Trouble with Most Psychological Approaches to Weight Loss: They Assume the Biology is Obvious, When It Isn't

• How Low Insulin Opens a Way to Escape Dieting Hell

• Kevin D. Hall and Juen Guo: Why it is so Hard to Lose Weight and so Hard to Keep it Off

• Increasing Returns to Duration in Fasting

VII. Other Health Issues

• Hope in Returning to the Road Not Taken in Psychiatry

• Hormone Replacement Therapy is Much Better and Much Safer Than You Think

• Standard Hormone Replacement Therapy Doesn't Cause Breast Cancer

• Evaluating the Idea that Estrogen Replacement Therapy Causes Breast Cancer against the Bradford Hill Criteria

• How the Ancient Greeks Invented Eye Movement Desensitizing and Reprocessing to Deal with Trauma

• On Human Potential

• Judson Brewer, Elizabeth Bernstein and Mitchell Kaplan on Finding Inner Calm

• Elizabeth Bernstein on Getting Better Sleep

• How Not Getting Enough Sleep Messes You Up, Part 1

• Less Than 6 or More than 9 Hours of Sleep Signals a Higher Risk of Heart Attacks

• Hints About What Can Be Done to Reduce Alzheimer's Risk

• Mental Retirement: Use It or Lose It—Susann Rohwedder and Robert Willis

• Sanjay Gupta on Memory

• Less Institutional than a Regular Nursing Home

• Geriatrics: The Grim Good Magic of Setting Priorities in Old Age

• Unleashing the Potential of Antabuse

• Matthew Sedacca: To a Cigarette Maker, Your Life Is Worth About $10,000

• Improving Your Blood Vessel Health by Strengthening Your Breathing Muscles

• James Nestor on How Bad Mouth Breathing Is

• Carbon Dioxide as a Stimulant for Respiratory Function

• A Modern World of Endemic Jaw Dysfunction

• Human Skulls, Ancient and Modern

• In Praise of the Squatty Potty

• Fighting the Common Cold

• Is 10,000 Steps a Day More Than is Necessary for Health?

• Cost Benefit Analysis Applied to Neti Pot Use

• Should Those Whose Main Symptom is Chest Pains Get Stent or Bypass Surgery?

• The Rise of High-Quality Non-Prescription Hearing Aids

• On Minimalist Shoes

• Learning to Do Deep Knee Bends Balanced on One Foot

• Tai Chi to Prevent Falls

• An Inexpensive Cold Sore Treatment That Doubles as an Antiseptic Towelette

• Julia Belluz and Javier Zarracina: Why You'll Be Disappointed If You Are Exercising to Lose Weight, Explained with 60+ Studies (my retitling of the article this links to)

• My Pillbox

• Have We Gone Too Far with Sunscreen?

VIII. Debates about Particular Foods and Drinks

• Don't Think Fat vs. Carbs vs. Protein; It's Good vs. Bad Fat, Carbs and Protein

• The Four Food Groups Revisited

• Data on Asian Genes that Discourage Alcohol Consumption Explode the Myth that a Little Alcohol is Good for your Health

• Exorcising the Devil in the Milk

• How Important is A1 Milk Protein as a Public Health Issue?

• Is Milk OK?

• 'Is Milk Ok?' Revisited

• Whole Milk Is Healthy; Skim Milk Less So

• Diversity is Important for Cows, Too

• What is the Evidence on Dietary Fat?

• Jason Fung: Dietary Fat is Innocent of the Charges Leveled Against It

• Faye Flam: The Taboo on Dietary Fat is Grounded More in Puritanism than Science

• Does Reducing Saturated Fat Reduce Cardiovascular Disease?

• How Unhealthy are Red and Processed Meat?

• The Artery-Aging Properties of TMAO and the TMAO-Producing Effect of Animal Protein Consumption

• The Surprising Genetic Correlation Between Protein-Heavy Diets and Obesity

• Salt Is Not the Nutritional Evil It Is Made Out to Be

• Should the Typical Person be Restricting Salt Intake?

• Confirmation Bias in the Interpretation of New Evidence on Salt

• Eggs May Be a Type of Food You Should Eat Sparingly, But Don't Blame Cholesterol Yet

• Open Conspiracies, Exhibit B: Glyphosate

• Another Problem with Processed Food: Propionate

• The Case Against Monosodium Glutamate—Why MSG is Dangerous (as are Other Sources of Free Glutamate) and How the Dangers Have Been Covered Up

• Michael Pollan on the Costs as Well as Benefits of Caffeine

• Journal of the American College of Cardiology State-of-the-Art Review on Saturated Fats

• Hypotheses about Salt and Blood Pressure

• Beware: Monk Fruit Nonsugar Sweetener Raises Insulin

• Are Nuts Inflammatory?

• Slate Star Codex on Saturated and Polyunsaturated Fat

IX. Wonkish

• Are Processed Food and Environmental Contaminants the Main Cause of the Rise of Obesity?

• Livestock Antibiotics, Lithium and PFAS as Leading Suspects for Environmental Causes of Obesity

• How Rising Anorexia Can Go Along with Rising Obesity: Both Can Be Caused By Environmental Contaminants

• How Lithium May Have Led to Serious Obesity for the Pima Beginning around 1937

• Market Opportunities for Helping People Deal with Obesity-Causing Environmental Contaminants

• Reexamining Steve Gundry's `The Plant Paradox’

• Semaglutide Looks Like the First Truly Impressive Weight-Loss Drug

• Increasing Returns to Duration in Fasting

• Eating Highly Processed Food is Correlated with Death

• Evidence that High Insulin Levels Lead to Weight Gain

• Framingham State Food Study: Lowcarb Diets Make Us Burn More Calories

• Anthony Komaroff: The Microbiome and Risk for Obesity and Diabetes

• Evidence that Gut Bacteria Affect the Brain

• Amanda Fronk on the Gut Microbiome

• Prevention is Much Easier Than Cure of Obesity

• A Conversation with David Brazel on Obesity Research

• Magic Bullets vs. Multifaceted Interventions for Economic Stimulus, Economic Development and Weight Loss

• Carola Binder: The Obesity Code and Economists as General Practitioners

• The Heavy Non-Health Consequences of Heaviness

• After Gastric Bypass Surgery, Insulin Goes Down Before Weight Loss has Time to Happen

• Biohacking: Nutrition as Technology

• America’s Losing Battle Against Diabetes—Chad Terhune, Robin Respaut and Deborah Nelson (link post)

• A Low-Glycemic-Index Vegan Diet as a Moderately-Low-Insulin-Index Diet

• David Ludwig, Walter Willett, Jeff Volek and Marian Neuhouser: Controversies and Consensus on Fat vs. Carbs

• Analogies Between Economic Models and the Biology of Obesity

• Layne Norton Discusses the Stephan Guyenet vs. Gary Taubes Debate (a Debate on Joe Rogan’s Podcast)

• Sutton, Beyl, Early, Cefalu, Ravussin and Peterson: Early Time-Restricted Feeding Improves Insulin Sensitivity, Blood Pressure, and Oxidative Stress Even without Weight Loss in Men with Prediabetes

• Chris Masterjohn on the Peter Attia Interview of Jason Fung 

• Critiquing `All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality with Low-Carbohydrate Diets' by Mohsen Mazidi, Niki Katsiki, Dimitri P. Mikhailidis, Naveed Sattar and Maciej Banach

• The Carbohydrate-Insulin Model Wars

• Reacting to 'The Carbohydrate-Insulin Model of Obesity Is Difficult to Reconcile With Current Evidence' by Kevin Hall, Stephan Guyenet and Rudolph Leibel

• In Mice, High-Fat Diets Seem to Foster Cancers Involving Immune Cells

• Frightening New England Journal of Medicine Projections for the Rise of Obesity

• David Ludwig's 6-Minute Summary of the Carbohydrate-Insulin Model of Obesity

• Why Leptin Isn't a Blockbuster Weight-Loss Drug

• You Might Need to Educate Your Doctor about the Effects of a Long Fast on Cholesterol Readings

• Standard Cholesterol Tests are Substandard; Better Cholesterol Tests are Available

X. Gary Taubes

• Vindicating Gary Taubes: A Smackdown of Seth Yoder

• The Case Against Sugar: Stephan Guyenet vs. Gary Taubes

• The Case Against the Case Against Sugar: Seth Yoder vs. Gary Taubes

• Diseases of Civilization

• Gary Taubes Makes His Case to Nick Gillespie: How Big Sugar and a Misguided Government Wrecked the American Diet

• Against Sugar: The Messenger and the Message

• Kearns, Schmidt and Glantz—Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research: A Historical Analysis of Internal Industry Documents

XI. Twitter Discussions

• Putting the Perspective from Jason Fung's "The Obesity Code" into Practice

• 'Forget Calorie Counting. It's the Insulin Index, Stupid' in a Few Tweets

• On Fighting Obesity

• Debating 'Forget Calorie Counting; It's the Insulin Index, Stupid'

• Analogies Between Economic Models and the Biology of Obesity

• How the Calories In/Calories Out Theory Obscures the Endogeneity of Calories In and Out to Subjective Hunger and Energy

XII. Pandemic Thoughts on Diet and Health

• Getting More Vitamin D May Help You Fight Off the New Coronavirus

• Sugar Puts You in Greater Danger from Covid-19

• June 2020 Covid-19 Science Roundup

• Can Fasting Help Fight the Coronavirus?

• Eating During the Coronavirus Lockdown

• Interactions between COVID-19 and Chronic Diseases

• Shelly Miller: Indoors is the Danger Zone for COVID-19 Transmission; Good Ventilation Can Help

• Indoors is Very Dangerous for COVID-19 Transmission, Especially When Ventilation is Bad

• Jose-Luis Jimenez on the Benefits of Masks and Being Outdoors

• Appropriately Dosed Rapamycin and Metformin Can Improve Immune Function and Seem to Be Partial Preventatives for COVID-19

XIII. On My Interest in Diet and Health

See the last section of "Five Books That Have Changed My Life" and the podcast "Miles Kimball Explains to Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal Why Losing Weight Is Like Defeating Inflation." If you want to know how I got interested in diet and health and fighting obesity and a little more about my own experience with weight gain and weight loss, see “Diana Kimball: Listening Creates Possibilities” and my post "A Barycentric Autobiography.” I defend the ability of economists like me to make a contribution to understanding diet and health in “On the Epistemology of Diet and Health: Miles Refuses to `Stay in His Lane’” and “Crafting Simple, Accurate Messages about Complex Problems.”

John Locke on Monarchs (Or Presidents) Who Destroy a Constitution

Link to the Wikipedia article on “Louis XIV of France.” Among other actions during his reign, Louis XIV presided over ethnic cleansing of the Huguenots (the Protestants in his realm) and centralized power in his own hands.

John Locke, in Chapter XIX of his 2d Treatise on Government: Of Civil Government, “Of the Dissolution of Government,” lists four ways in which a monarch can subvert the constitution of a nation in a way that effectively undoes the government and so eliminates any obligation to obey the unconstitutional pretense of a government that replaces the legitimate government:

• Ruling by decree instead of duly enacted legislation

• Preventing the legislature from meeting or constraining free speech and free deliberation within the legislature

• Stealing or fixing elections

• Giving people to a foreign power

By “monarch” I am referring to the “single hereditary person” in John Locke’s description of a should-be-constitutional monarchy:

§. 213. This being usually brought about by such in the commonwealth who misuse the power they have; it is hard to consider it aright, and know at whose door to lay it, without knowing the form of government in which it happens. Let us suppose then the legislative placed in the concurrence of three distinct-persons.  

1. A single hereditary person, having the constant, supreme, executive power, and with it the power of convoking and dissolving the other two within certain periods of time.  

2. An assembly of hereditary nobility.  

3. An assembly of representatives chosen, pro tempore, by the people. Such a form of government supposed, it is evident,  

However, the same principles apply to a president or any other top ruler in a nation.

Here are John Locke’s four no-nos for a monarch, president or other top ruler that are serious enough to dissolve any obligation of obedience to the remaining pretense of a government.

Ruling by decree instead of by duly enacted legislation.

§. 214. First, That when such a single person, or prince, sets up his own arbitrary will in place of the laws, which are the will of the society, declared by the legislative, then the legislative is changed: for that being in effect the legislative, whose rules and laws are put in execution, and required to be obeyed; when other laws are set up, and other rules pretended, and inforced, than what the legislative constituted by the society have enacted, it is plain that the legislative is changed. Whoever introduces new laws, not being thereunto authorized by the fundamental appointment of the society, or subverts the old, disowns and overturns the power by which they were made, and so sets up a new legislative.  

Preventing the legislature from meeting or constraining free speech and free deliberation within the legislature.

§. 215. Secondly, When the prince hinders the legislative from assembling in its due time, or from acting freely, pursuant to those ends for which it was constituted, the legislative is altered: for it is not a certain number of men, no, nor their meeting, unless they have also freedom of debating, and leisure of perfecting, what is for the good of the society, wherein the legislative consists: when these are taken away or altered, so as to deprive the society of the due exercise of their power, the legislative is truly altered; for it is not names that constitute governments, but the use and exercise of those powers that were intended to accompany them; so that he, who takes away the freedom, or hinders the acting of the legislative in its due seasons, in effect takes away the legislative, and puts an end to the government.  

Stealing or fixing elections.

§. 216. Thirdly, When, by the arbitrary power of the prince, the electors, or ways of election are altered, without the consent, and contrary to the common interest of the people, there also the legislative is altered: for, if others than those whom the society hath authorized thereunto, do chuse, or in another way than what the society hath prescribed, those chosen are not the legislative appointed by the people.

Giving people to a foreign power.  

§. 217. Fourthly, The delivery also of the people into subjection of a foreign power, either by the prince, or by the legislative, is certainly a change of the legislative, and so a dissolution of the government: for the end why people entered into society being to be preserved one entire, free, independent society, to be governed by its own laws; this is lost, whenever they are given up into the power of another.  

John Locke then explains why the monarch or top ruler is usually to blame when these things happen, although the monarch or top ruler usually has accomplices (sometimes within the legislature):

§. 218. Why, in such a constitution as this, the dissolution of the government in these cases is to be imputed to the prince, is evident; because he having the force, treasure and offices of the state to employ, and often persuading himself, or being flattered by others, that as supreme magistrate he is uncapable of controul; he alone is in a condition to make great advances toward such changes, under pretence of lawful authority, and has it in his hands to terrify or suppress opposers, as factious, seditious, and enemies to the government: whereas no other part of the legislative, or people, is capable by themselves to attempt any alteration of the legislative, without open and visible rebellion, apt enough to be taken notice of, which, when it prevails, produces effects very little different from foreign conquest. Besides, the prince in such a form of government, having the power of dissolving the other parts of the legislative, and thereby rendering them private persons, they can never in opposition to him, or without his concurrence, alter the legislative by a law, his consent being necessary to give any of their decrees that sanction. But yet, so far as the other parts of the legislative any way contribute to any attempt upon the government, and do either promote, or not, what lies in them, hinder such designs, they are guilty, and partake in this, which is certainly the greatest crime men can be guilty of one towards another.

For links to other John Locke posts, see these John Locke aggregator posts: 

• John Locke's State of Nature and State of War

• On the Achilles Heel of John Locke's Second Treatise: Slavery and Land Ownership

• John Locke Against Natural Hierarchy

• John Locke's Argument for Limited Government

Dan Ariely: The Power of Morning, Time Together and Positive Feedback

Link to the article shown above. Link to Wikipedia article on Dan Ariely.

Dan Ariely has a weekly advice column in the Wall Street Journal based on Behavioral Economics. I felt all three bits of advice he gave in his April 23, 2019 column were especially useful, so I wanted to share them here.

First, Dan suggests tackling especially tough tasks as one’s first big work item in the morning. He describes this as

… taking advantage of the clarity and energy that most people enjoy in the morning to tackle a problem that is important, complex and difficult …

I have been finding that things that seem daunting the evening before seem doable in the morning right after I have finished other basic parts of my morning routine.

Second, Dan retails a very interesting statistic about the formation of friendships:

Researcher Jeffrey Hall at the University of Kansas looked at the question of how long it takes to make friendships, and his findings show that after spending 80 to 100 hours together, the odds of two people moving from a casual friendship to a deeper one are about 50%.

Unaccountably, there is then an arithmetic error:

Prof. Hall goes on to estimate that creating a friend group of 25 to 35 people would require a total investment of 2,000 to 3,500 hours. 

As you can see from multiplication, that is what the calculation would be if the odds of creating a friendship were 100% after 80 to 100 hours. The estimate of 50% odds implies it would take twice as long: 4000 to 7000 hours to generate a friend group of 25 to 35 people.

Third, and most striking to me, he points out a crucial flaw in negative feedback—above and beyond negative feedback making people feel bad:

The problem with negative feedback is that it tells us to stop doing something, but doesn’t give us a new course of action to replace it with.

He suggest that it is easy to put a direction into positive feedback:

Instead, try using positive feedback to redirect … efforts in a way that will be useful. For instance, you could ask for advice on another subject you genuinely want to learn more about …

Traditional economics often assumes that everyone is doing everything right, except the government. As a consequence, it only has advice for the government. Behavioral economics opens up the possibility of individuals, households and firms making mistakes, and so has a lot more potential advice to offer.