Technology Shock Stories: How a Steel Box Changed the World

Macroeconomics textbooks often have what I’ll call “potted histories” of various fiscal and monetary shocks. But they are typically missing the corresponding “potted histories” of technology shocks—especially sharp technology shocks that would cause fluctuations, as distinct from graduate, smooth technological improvement.

I view macroeconomic technology shocks in this way. When there is a new technique, it takes some time to get adopted. The adoption curve is typically S-shaped (similar to a logistic curve). I see the macroeconomic technology shock as a reflection of the steep part of the S-curve where adoption is proceeding quickly.

This view of technology shocks has an important consequence: it predicts that macroeconomic technology shocks can be predicted by identifying techniques in the early adoption phase, before the steep part of the S-curve is reached. There is a difficulty: it is not easy to predict what the final level of penetration of the technique will be, and thus hard to predict whether there is a bigger surge of adoptions yet to come, or whether adoption will start slowing down. But the real possibility of a substantial macroeconomic technology shock will be evident when a technique reaches a certain level of early adoption.

I’d love to have a bigger collection of technology shock stories. Containerized shipping is one. It makes a good story. But I’m not clear whether it had a fast-enough-moving adoption phase to have generated a substantial macroeconomic technology shock.

The Federalist Papers #50: Periodic Commissions to Judge Constitutionality Won't Work

The Federalist Papers clearly recognize that the words on paper of a written constitution are not enough to keep each branch of government within its constitutional bounds. Nowadays, judicial review of constitutionality is a key part of our constitutional structure, though it is nowhere in the original written US Constitution or in any formal Amendment to the US Constitution. The authors of the Federalist Papers would have worried that this would give too much power to the judicial branch of the government. But judicial review seems to have worked pretty well.

Alternatives to judicial review are hard to find. The Federalist Papers #50 (author not clear: Alexander Hamilton or James Madison) argues in particular that a period commission to review the constitutionality of government actions won’t work, based on the experience Pennsylvania had with just such a system, which stipulated constitutional review every seven years by a “Council of Censors.”

There are two big problems with a periodic commission to review constitutionality: it is likely to be partisan because it will be composed of the usual suspects, who were involved in the original decisions, and it is likely to be toothless. This passage from the Federalist Papers #50 makes both points:

If the periods be separated by short intervals, the measures to be reviewed and rectified will have been of recent date, and will be connected with all the circumstances which tend to vitiate and pervert the result of occasional revisions. If the periods be distant from each other, the same remark will be applicable to all recent measures; and in proportion as the remoteness of the others may favor a dispassionate review of them … a distant prospect of public censure would be a very feeble restraint on power from those excesses to which it might be urged by the force of present motives.

The Pennsylvania Council of Censors had met once, in 1783-1784 since the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 was adopted. It provided a lot of evidence for these views.

Partisanship of the Pennsylvania Council of Censors. On the Council of Censors being partisan, and the inevitability of partisanship, the Federalist Papers #50 has this to say (distinct passages separated by added bullets):

  • … the same active and leading members of the council had been active and influential members of the legislative and executive branches, within the period to be reviewed; and even patrons or opponents of the very measures to be thus brought to the test of the constitution.

  • Were the precaution taken of excluding from the assemblies elected by the people, to revise the preceding administration of the government, all persons who should have been concerned with the government within the given period, the difficulties would not be obviated. The important task would probably devolve on men, who, with inferior capacities, would in other respects be little better qualified. Although they might not have been personally concerned in the administration, and therefore not immediately agents in the measures to be examined, they would probably have been involved in the parties connected with these measures, and have been elected under their auspices.

  • Throughout the continuance of the council, it was split into two fixed and violent parties. The fact is acknowledged and lamented by themselves. Had this not been the case, the face of their proceedings exhibits a proof equally satisfactory. In all questions, however unimportant in themselves, or unconnected with each other, the same names stand invariably contrasted on the opposite columns.

  • It is at least problematical, whether the decisions of this body do not, in several instances, misconstrue the limits prescribed for the legislative and executive departments, instead of reducing and limiting them within their constitutional places.

  • Is it to be presumed, that at any future septennial epoch the same State will be free from parties? Is it to be presumed that any other State, at the same or any other given period, will be exempt from them? Such an event ought to be neither presumed nor desired; because an extinction of parties necessarily implies either a universal alarm for the public safety, or an absolute extinction of liberty.

Toothlessness of the Pennsylvania Council of Censors. The Federalist Papers #50 has less to say on toothlessness of the Council of Censors, but does have this:

I have never understood that the decisions of the council on constitutional questions, whether rightly or erroneously formed, have had any effect in varying the practice founded on legislative constructions. It even appears, if I mistake not, that in one instance the contemporary legislature denied the constructions of the council, and actually prevailed in the contest.

How has Judicial Review Faired Better? The courts are, of course, quite partisan, but are mostly limited to being reactive to actions of other branches of government. For whatever reason, the courts have been reasonably good at sticking to the rule of only dealing with actual cases and controversies. That is, tough requirements for “standing” for bringing a case have been crucial in keeping the judicial branch from becoming too powerful.

Because the courts deal with one case at a time, it is easier to arrange recusal in the judgment of a decision a judge was previously involved in than in the case of membership or not on something like the Council of Censors that is looking at many different issues. Moreover, the judicial career track now covers much of a judge’s life cycle, so that many judges have not been directly involved in that many legislative branch or executive branch decisions. (Even experience as an executive branch lawyer was often about prejudging the legality of a decision or adjusting a policy toward legal means rather than about making the decision in the first place.) Finally, it takes time for a judge to rise to one of the highest courts and so gain great influence in the judicial branch. And they can serve a long time on one of the highest courts. This puts more time between them and earlier things they were involved in that are related to a case but don’t rise to the level of recusal. That is, one can hope that a high judge’s partisanship is the partisanship of yesterday and not the partisanship of today. Yet the decisions of the legislative or executive branches, or of lower courts, can get reasonably prompt review.

Why hasn’t judicial review been toothless? Here, the fact that it deals with cases piecemeal helps. The typical case is likely to seem individually small in political terms. So the legislative and executive branches won’t be that tempted to interfere with the outcome of a typical case.

Another factor in acquiescence by members of the legislative and executive branches to many judicial decisions is that sometimes the courts agree with a politicians true views, as distinct from the views the politician claims to have in order to get elected.

Finally, for some reason, the voters seem to have accepted the courts as referees of the constitutional system. Complaints about Supreme Court decisions, for example, have often been channeled into the idea of winning elections to control future appointments to the Supreme Court—or in the extreme, packing the court—rather than into the idea of the legislative or executive branch simply ignoring the court.

Below is the full text of the Federalist Papers #50:

FEDERALIST NO. 50

Periodic Appeals to the People Considered

From the New York Packet
Tuesday, February 5, 1788.

Author: Alexander Hamilton or James Madison

To the People of the State of New York:

IT MAY be contended, perhaps, that instead of OCCASIONAL appeals to the people, which are liable to the objections urged against them, PERIODICAL appeals are the proper and adequate means of PREVENTING AND CORRECTING INFRACTIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION. It will be attended to, that in the examination of these expedients, I confine myself to their aptitude for ENFORCING the Constitution, by keeping the several departments of power within their due bounds, without particularly considering them as provisions for ALTERING the Constitution itself. In the first view, appeals to the people at fixed periods appear to be nearly as ineligible as appeals on particular occasions as they emerge.

If the periods be separated by short intervals, the measures to be reviewed and rectified will have been of recent date, and will be connected with all the circumstances which tend to vitiate and pervert the result of occasional revisions. If the periods be distant from each other, the same remark will be applicable to all recent measures; and in proportion as the remoteness of the others may favor a dispassionate review of them, this advantage is inseparable from inconveniences which seem to counterbalance it. In the first place, a distant prospect of public censure would be a very feeble restraint on power from those excesses to which it might be urged by the force of present motives. Is it to be imagined that a legislative assembly, consisting of a hundred or two hundred members, eagerly bent on some favorite object, and breaking through the restraints of the Constitution in pursuit of it, would be arrested in their career, by considerations drawn from a censorial revision of their conduct at the future distance of ten, fifteen, or twenty years? In the next place, the abuses would often have completed their mischievous effects before the remedial provision would be applied. And in the last place, where this might not be the case, they would be of long standing, would have taken deep root, and would not easily be extirpated. The scheme of revising the constitution, in order to correct recent breaches of it, as well as for other purposes, has been actually tried in one of the States. One of the objects of the Council of Censors which met in Pennsylvania in 1783 and 1784, was, as we have seen, to inquire, "whether the constitution had been violated, and whether the legislative and executive departments had encroached upon each other. " This important and novel experiment in politics merits, in several points of view, very particular attention. In some of them it may, perhaps, as a single experiment, made under circumstances somewhat peculiar, be thought to be not absolutely conclusive. But as applied to the case under consideration, it involves some facts, which I venture to remark, as a complete and satisfactory illustration of the reasoning which I have employed. First. It appears, from the names of the gentlemen who composed the council, that some, at least, of its most active members had also been active and leading characters in the parties which pre-existed in the State.

Secondly. It appears that the same active and leading members of the council had been active and influential members of the legislative and executive branches, within the period to be reviewed; and even patrons or opponents of the very measures to be thus brought to the test of the constitution. Two of the members had been vice-presidents of the State, and several other members of the executive council, within the seven preceding years. One of them had been speaker, and a number of others distinguished members, of the legislative assembly within the same period.

Thirdly. Every page of their proceedings witnesses the effect of all these circumstances on the temper of their deliberations. Throughout the continuance of the council, it was split into two fixed and violent parties. The fact is acknowledged and lamented by themselves. Had this not been the case, the face of their proceedings exhibits a proof equally satisfactory. In all questions, however unimportant in themselves, or unconnected with each other, the same names stand invariably contrasted on the opposite columns. Every unbiased observer may infer, without danger of mistake, and at the same time without meaning to reflect on either party, or any individuals of either party, that, unfortunately, PASSION, not REASON, must have presided over their decisions. When men exercise their reason coolly and freely on a variety of distinct questions, they inevitably fall into different opinions on some of them. When they are governed by a common passion, their opinions, if they are so to be called, will be the same.

Fourthly. It is at least problematical, whether the decisions of this body do not, in several instances, misconstrue the limits prescribed for the legislative and executive departments, instead of reducing and limiting them within their constitutional places.

Fifthly. I have never understood that the decisions of the council on constitutional questions, whether rightly or erroneously formed, have had any effect in varying the practice founded on legislative constructions. It even appears, if I mistake not, that in one instance the contemporary legislature denied the constructions of the council, and actually prevailed in the contest. This censorial body, therefore, proves at the same time, by its researches, the existence of the disease, and by its example, the inefficacy of the remedy. This conclusion cannot be invalidated by alleging that the State in which the experiment was made was at that crisis, and had been for a long time before, violently heated and distracted by the rage of party. Is it to be presumed, that at any future septennial epoch the same State will be free from parties? Is it to be presumed that any other State, at the same or any other given period, will be exempt from them? Such an event ought to be neither presumed nor desired; because an extinction of parties necessarily implies either a universal alarm for the public safety, or an absolute extinction of liberty. Were the precaution taken of excluding from the assemblies elected by the people, to revise the preceding administration of the government, all persons who should have been concerned with the government within the given period, the difficulties would not be obviated. The important task would probably devolve on men, who, with inferior capacities, would in other respects be little better qualified. Although they might not have been personally concerned in the administration, and therefore not immediately agents in the measures to be examined, they would probably have been involved in the parties connected with these measures, and have been elected under their auspices.

PUBLIUS.

Links to my other posts on The Federalist Papers so far:

How the US and Its Allies Can Weaken the Russian Army in Ukraine

The US and its allies are looking for ways to tilt the balance toward Ukraine in its fight against invading Russian forces without getting into direct firefights with the Russian military that might escalate into World War III. I have a proposal that I haven’t seen discussed yet.

Reports suggest that the morale of Russian troops is not very good. Part of the reason may be that they aren’t that eager to fight in a cause that they aren’t convinced is a just one, despite the propaganda they have been told. So a big incentive might be all it takes to convince many Russian soldiers to surrender or otherwise desert the Russian army. My proposal is the US and its allies promise to expedite permission for immigration to the US, UK, France, Germany, Australia, etc., of Russian soldiers in Ukraine who surrender or otherwise desert from the Russian army. I think this is already in accordance with current law—or at least within the discretion of leaders who execute the immigration laws. It just involves clarifying that a Russian soldier who surrenders or deserts has a “well-founded fear of persecution” if they were returned to Russia. However, it might be even better if this policy were enshrined in legislation.

My prediction is that if deserting the Russian army in Ukraine became a ticket to a free and rich country that many, many Russian soldiers would, in fact desert. Some would be afraid for their families back home, or simply of being cut off from their families back home. But wanting to desert and not daring is not a recipe for a soldier to fight enthusiastically. And even those who don’t want to desert at all are likely to have their morale hurt by having a lot of their fellow soldiers deserting.

The first thing I like about this policy is that it gains an advantage precisely from the attraction of freedom and the riches that ordered freedom brings. The second thing I like is that it makes a clear distinction between the evil Putin is perpetrating and the innocence of many Russian soldiers.

The third thing I like about this policy is that it creates a precedent for a similar policy we can use vis a vis our other great geopolitical rival: China. The Free World should be allowing relatively free immigration from all areas controlled by the People’s Republic of China in order to bolster our numbers and reduce theirs. And any attempt on their part to obstruct immigration to the Free World is going to show the inferiority of their system in the key dimension of what people’s lives are like.

Eli Dourado Highlights Our Purified Solow Residual →

In our paper “Are Technology Improvements Contractionary?” Susanto Basu, John Fernald and I developed the “purified Solow residual” as a measure of technological change. When he was at the San Francisco Fed, John Fernald kept up-to-date a quarterly version of this measure. At the link on the title of this post, Eli Dourado displays the graph of the level of technology implied, labeled as “utilization-adjusted total factor productivity.” It is great to see how cleanly this measure shows the history of macroeconomic technological progress since 1948.

Exercise Makes You Smarter

Exercise isn’t very good way to lose weight, but it works like a charm in many other ways—including helping to keep you from gaining weight.

In his book Keep Sharp, Sanjay Gupta lauds exercise as the number one way to help keep your brain healthy. Leading into his discussion of exercise, he emphasizes the importance of prevention to avoid dementia in old age:

Prevention is the most powerful antidote to illness, and this is especially true of degenerative maladies like those in the brain and nervous system. Shockingly, half of adults don’t know the risk factors for dementia …

He points out that the roots of dementia in old age go way back in time:

Among people who are eighty-five years old, an age at which more than 30 percent have developed dementia, signs of brain decline began silently when they were between fifty-five and sixty-five years old. Similarly, the brain health of the 10 percent or so of people who are sixty-five years old and have developed dementia started to quietly degenerate when they were between thirty-five and forty-five years old.

Exercise isn’t the only thing that matters. He lays out some other risk factors for dementia as well:

Data from longitudinal observational studies accumulated over the past few decades have shown that aside from age, most other risk factors for brain disease can be controlled. That means you indeed have a powerful voice in controlling your risk for decline. As you might guess, some of the most influential and modifiable factors related to that decline are linked to lifestyle: physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, smoking, social isolation, poor sleep, lack of mentally stimulating activities, and misuse of alcohol. Half of Alzheimer’s cases in the United States alone could be caused or worsened by a combination of these bad habits. High blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and high cholesterol, especially at midlife, substantially increase the chances of developing dementia later—sometimes decades down the road.

But in Sanjay’s view, exercise is the most important. He writes:

When people ask me what’s the single most important thing they can do to enhance their brain’s function and resiliency to disease, I answer with one word: exercise—as in move more and keep a regular physical fitness routine.

You can easily do the experiment for yourself to verify that exercise will make you feel more cheerful and clearer-headed. As Sanjay writes:

Go out for a fast-paced walk around the block, and when you return, note how you feel and how your mind is humming. My bet is you will have more mental energy even if the walk left you out of breath. And you will probably feel more optimistic and better able to tackle the challenges of the day.

Here is his claim about the many dimensions of well-being exercise can help with:

… exercise improves digestion, metabolism, body tone and strength, and bone density. Most of us think about it as a weight loss tool, which it is. But it’s much more than that. It can turn on your “smart genes,” support emotional stability, and stave off depression and dementia. When you choose the right exercise for you, it’s enjoyable and increases your self-worth and confidence. Don’t take this lightly because I really mean it: You can be smarter by some measures after one hour of exercise through the effects of movement on the brain.

Sanjay argues that because survival in the environment of evolutionary adaptation required a lot of physical activity, our bodies are designed on the assumption that we will get a lot of exercise:

Throughout most of human history, we’ve been physically active every day. We had to be in order to survive. Science has even proven that over millions of years, our genome evolved in a state of constant physical challenge—that is, it took a massive amount of physical effort to find food and water. Put another way, our genome expects and requires frequent movement. I often tell my students: “We humans were not designed to sit or lie down for twenty-three hours a day and then go to the gym for an hour. Science has revealed that we humans are designed to be pretty consistently active right down to our molecular core.”

Indeed, in the environment of evolutionary adaptation, survival required so much exercise that what opportunities there were to rest and thereby burn fewer calories were valuable. On that point, Sanjay quotes The Story of the Human Body, by Daniel Lieberman:

… Dr. Lieberman makes a strong case that our epidemic levels of chronic disease today are the result of a mismatch between our evolutionary roots and modern lifestyles: “We still don’t know how to counter once-adaptive primal instincts to eat donuts and take the elevator.” In a follow-up 2015 paper, Lieberman calls out the paradox: “Humans evolved to be adapted for regular, moderate amounts of endurance physical activity into late age,” but “humans also were selected to avoid unnecessary exertion.”

Here is Sanjay’s list of the benefits of exercise:

Benefits of Exercise

…

  • Lowered risk of death from all causes

  • Increased stamina, strength, flexibility, and energy

  • Increased muscle tone and bone health

  • Increased blood and lymph circulation and oxygen supply to cells and tissues

  • More restful, sounder sleep

  • Stress reduction Increased self-esteem and sense of well-being

  • Release of endorphins, the brain chemicals that act as natural mood lifters and pain relievers

  • Decreased blood sugar levels and risk for insulin resistance and diabetes

  • Ideal weight distribution and maintenance

  • Increased heart health, with lower risk for cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure

  • Decreased inflammation and risk for age-related disease, from cancer to dementia

  • Stronger immune system

Many of these benefits have good downstream effects as well. The effects Sanjay emphasizes—avoiding diabetes and the extremely common pre-diabetes (which goes by many names), reducing inflammation, stimulating growth factors that foster new neurons, improving the blood vessel network in the brain, reducing stress and anxiety, improving sleep and improving mood—help keep other bad things from happening.

The biggest benefits from exercise come from the first little bit. Equivalently, being a total couch potato is very, very bad compared to doing at least a little bit of exercise. So the most important thing is to get started on something. Don’t let the best be the enemy of the good. So try not to look at the next few lines until you are already doing something. Ideally however, you should do a moderately ambitious exercise program. Sanjay writes:

… you have to engage in regular physical exercise at least 150 minutes a week and incorporate interval and strength training into the mix. Interval training means you alternate between varying levels of speed, intensity, and effort. Think of it as surprising the body so you don’t fall into well-worn ruts that fail to challenge the body and lead to a plateau in your progress. Strength training refers to the use of weights or just your own body weight as resistance. This helps build muscle mass and tone and helps balance and coordination.

For annotated links to other posts on diet and health, see:

Sometimes the Devil You Don't Know is Better than the Devil You Do

The one thing I’d most like my students to realize is that failure—including looking stupid—is the pathway to success. Anyone who doesn’t understand that will give up too easily. It is most important to be in motion, racking up the failures you can learn from.

The video above (an excerpt from Jordan Peterson’s lecture on the biblical story of Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors) makes this point eloquently. Below, I’ve transcribed some quotations that I’ll comment on. Here is the first one:

… so there’s some utility in pursuing the things you are interested in. That’s the call to adventure … Now the problem with the call to adventure is … what the hell do you know? You might be interested in things that are kind of warped and bent. And often it’s the case that when new parts of people manifest themselves, and grip their interest … they do it very badly and shoddily. And so, you stumble around like an idiot when you try to do something new. That’s why the Fool is the precursor to the Savior, from the symbolic perspective. You have to be a fool before you can be a master. And if you’re not willing to be a fool, then you can’t be a master. So, it’s an error-ridden process.

I’m currently listening to Joseph Campbell’s classic, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In the myths and fairy tales that encapsulate some of the deep wisdom of our species, it is clear that refusing the call to adventure is a bad idea. In some sense, you have to be a fool to go on an adventure, but that is the route to becoming more than what you are now.

So, they’re fools…. But, the thing that’s so interesting is that, despite the fact that they’re fools, they’re still supposed to go on the adventure. And that they’re capable of learning enough as a consequence of moving forward on the adventure that they straighten themselves out over time.

Fortunately, there is an error-correction process that makes foolish mistakes redemptive, if you learn from them.

And so you can take these tentative steps on your pathway to destiny, and you can assume that you’re going to do it badly. And that’s really useful, because you don’t have to beat yourself up. It’s pretty easy to do it badly. But the thing is, it’s way better to do it badly that not to do it at all.

If you get that messing up is normal, then you know you don’t have to be hard on yourself for messing up. And one’s own self-flagellation is often the scariest thing of all. So if you are determined not to be too hard on yourself when you mess up, you are much more likely to have enough courage to take the risk of putting yourself out there.

… it doesn’t matter that you overshoot continually. Because as you overshoot, even if you don’t learn what you should have done, you’re going to continually learn what you shouldn’t keep doing. And if you learn enough about what you shouldn’t keep doing … that’s tantamount at some point to learning at the same time what you should be doing.

Many of us have wished for oracular knowledge so that we don’t ever have to make mistakes. But oracles don’t come free. For example, at the Oracle of Delphi, you had to sacrifice a goat. In many, many cases the cost of learning on your own from experience is reasonable—less than the cost of a goat.

It’s OK to wander around stupidly before you fix your destination. Now you see that echoed in Exodus…. Because what happens is that the … Hebrews escape a tyranny. Which is kind of whatever you do, personally and psychologically when you escape from your previously of stupidly-held and ignorant and stubborn axioms…. Now you’re in the desert.

Psychological toughness is needed when you do something new. It may get a lot easier; you may even come to love it. But the beginning may be rough.

You can also be deluded into the idea … that’s just a linear pathway uphill … from one success to another. No it’s not.

It’s good to read and listen to life stories from people who are honest about the struggles in their lives. There are differences in degree, but life is hard in some way for everyone.

… you go ahead on your movement forward, and you collapse, and you think “Well that didn’t work. I collapsed.” … No, that’s par for the course. It’s not indication that you failed, it’s just indication that it’s really hard. And that when you learn something, you also unlearn something.

In addition to the fear of looking stupid, or getting hurt, one reason you may shy away from daring to learn is that learning can cause your identity to shift. You might discover that what you thought you knew before, isn’t so. And in so doing, you may realize how badly suboptimal your previous choices were. But it’s better to know and keep progressing.

The fact that you’re full of faults doesn’t mean you have to stop…. And the fact that you’re full of faults doesn’t mean that you can’t learn.

Finally, despite all the attempts that have been made by others to bolster your self-esteem, if you haven’t stretched yourself yet, you are likely see yourself as too small to tackle big projects. It’s time to start with whatever size of life project you can handle right now—something that is at the limit of your current abilities—and work your way up from there. Who knows what you might be capable of if you keep building your capabilities?

Posts on Positive Mental Health and Maintaining One’s Moral Compass:

The 'Portfolio Rebalancing in General Equilibrium' Interview

The organization ‘Faculti’ interviewed me about my paper with Matthew Shapiro, Tyler Shumway and Jing Zhang, “Portfolio Rebalancing in General Equilibrium.” If you have 9 minutes and 7 seconds to spare (or less if you speed up the playback speed), you can learn a lot of interesting ideas.

You can find the paper itself in the Journal of Financial Economics (03/2020, Volume 135, Issue 3), which many of you get online through your institutional library website. Versions very similar, but with less pretty graphs, can easily be found in other ways online.

‘Game-Changer’ Pfizer Pill Paxlovid Is Easier to Find as Omicron Fades Away →

At this point, in deciding how hard to try to avoid Omicron, you have to weigh (a) the extra immunity you might get against a worse variant in the future from getting Omicron against (b) the danger of dying, serious damage or getting Long Covid from Omicron. The lessening of the Paxlovid shortage reduces the expected cost of getting Omicron. The link on the title to this post is to a Bloomberg article about the lessening of the Paxlovid shortage.

'Good' Cholesterol is Not One Thing But Many Distinct Things, Not All of Them Good—Jeremy Furtado

High-density-;ipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol is often called ‘good cholesterol’ because in the cross-section higher levels predict better cardiovascular outcomes. But so far drugs that raise HDL cholesterol have not improved cardiovascular outcomes. The interview with Jeremy Furtado shown above, “Why ‘good’ cholesterol may not always be good,” explains why: there are many subtypes of HDL cholesterol, some good, some bad. Unfortunately, so far the drugs known to raise overall HDL cholesterol raise the bad subtypes at least as much as the good.

The growing understanding that there are many different subtypes of HDL cholesterol that predict cardiovascular health differently is very hopeful. It should make it easier to identify drugs that will really help. It should also make for better cholesterol screening.

Subtypes are important for ‘bad’ low-density-lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol as well. As we understand these subtypes better, claims that particular diets are bad because they raise LDL cholesterol will have to be modified according to which subtypes are affected.

The subtypes of LDL cholesterol have another implication which will be of great practical value to many of you: assuming you have enough money that you are not totally in thrall to what insurance will pay for, if your doctor says you have high LDL cholesterol, your next move should not be to take a pill or to follow the conventional wisdom of reducing consumption of saturated fat. Rather your next move should be to get a more advanced cholesterol test. I write of my experience with that in “You Might Need to Educate Your Doctor about the Effects of a Long Fast on Cholesterol Readings.” See also “Standard Cholesterol Tests are Substandard; Better Cholesterol Tests are Available” and “What is the Evidence on Dietary Fat?”

It is good to see our understanding of cholesterol move past the dark ages.

For annotated links to other posts on diet and health, see:

The Federalist Papers #49: Constitutional Conventions Should Be Few and Far Between

It is unclear which of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison wrote the Federalist Papers #49, which raises doubts about constitutional conventions as a way to modify a government except in times of great patriotic unity. In mark against constitutional conventions is that in relation to the separation of powers, some branches of government are likely to have more influence over a constitutional convention than others.

But the most interesting argument against frequent constitutional conventions is that long, unbroken traditions get an aura of the sacred to them, that adds to the stability of a government. And stability is precious. Here is how the author of the Federalist Papers #49 say that:

… as every appeal to the people would carry an implication of some defect in the government, frequent appeals would, in a great measure, deprive the government of that veneration which time bestows on every thing, and without which perhaps the wisest and freest governments would not possess the requisite stability. If it be true that all governments rest on opinion, it is no less true that the strength of opinion in each individual, and its practical influence on his conduct, depend much on the number which he supposes to have entertained the same opinion. The reason of man, like man himself, is timid and cautious when left alone, and acquires firmness and confidence in proportion to the number with which it is associated. When the examples which fortify opinion are ANCIENT as well as NUMEROUS, they are known to have a double effect. In a nation of philosophers, this consideration ought to be disregarded. A reverence for the laws would be sufficiently inculcated by the voice of an enlightened reason. But a nation of philosophers is as little to be expected as the philosophical race of kings wished for by Plato. And in every other nation, the most rational government will not find it a superfluous advantage to have the prejudices of the community on its side. The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by interesting too strongly the public passions, is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision of the whole society. Notwithstanding the success which has attended the revisions of our established forms of government, and which does so much honor to the virtue and intelligence of the people of America, it must be confessed that the experiments are of too ticklish a nature to be unnecessarily multiplied. We are to recollect that all the existing constitutions were formed in the midst of a danger which repressed the passions most unfriendly to order and concord; of an enthusiastic confidence of the people in their patriotic leaders, which stifled the ordinary diversity of opinions on great national questions; of a universal ardor for new and opposite forms, produced by a universal resentment and indignation against the ancient government; and whilst no spirit of party connected with the changes to be made, or the abuses to be reformed, could mingle its leaven in the operation. The future situations in which we must expect to be usually placed, do not present any equivalent security against the danger which is apprehended.

I agree that, assuming a system of government is decent, the aura of sacredness from a system of government having been long established is worth a lot. In his book Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari pursues the them that, since the dawn of history, collectively held imaginings have been the key to holding societies together and helping them function well (and have sometimes been the key to making them tyrannical). The intersubjective imaginings that people are brought up with since they were children end up seeming solid. These should not be disturbed lightly.

Below is the full text of the Federalist Papers #49:

FEDERALIST NO. 49

Method of Guarding Against the Encroachments of Any One Department of Government by Appealing to the People Through a Convention

From the New York Packet
Tuesday, February 5, 1788.

Author: Alexander Hamilton or James Madison

To the People of the State of New York:

THE author of the "Notes on the State of Virginia," quoted in the last paper, has subjoined to that valuable work the draught of a constitution, which had been prepared in order to be laid before a convention, expected to be called in 1783, by the legislature, for the establishment of a constitution for that commonwealth. The plan, like every thing from the same pen, marks a turn of thinking, original, comprehensive, and accurate; and is the more worthy of attention as it equally displays a fervent attachment to republican government and an enlightened view of the dangerous propensities against which it ought to be guarded.

One of the precautions which he proposes, and on which he appears ultimately to rely as a palladium to the weaker departments of power against the invasions of the stronger, is perhaps altogether his own, and as it immediately relates to the subject of our present inquiry, ought not to be overlooked. His proposition is, "that whenever any two of the three branches of government shall concur in opinion, each by the voices of two thirds of their whole number, that a convention is necessary for altering the constitution, or CORRECTING BREACHES OF IT, a convention shall be called for the purpose. "As the people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived, it seems strictly consonant to the republican theory, to recur to the same original authority, not only whenever it may be necessary to enlarge, diminish, or new-model the powers of the government, but also whenever any one of the departments may commit encroachments on the chartered authorities of the others. The several departments being perfectly co-ordinate by the terms of their common commission, none of them, it is evident, can pretend to an exclusive or superior right of settling the boundaries between their respective powers; and how are the encroachments of the stronger to be prevented, or the wrongs of the weaker to be redressed, without an appeal to the people themselves, who, as the grantors of the commissions, can alone declare its true meaning, and enforce its observance? There is certainly great force in this reasoning, and it must be allowed to prove that a constitutional road to the decision of the people ought to be marked out and kept open, for certain great and extraordinary occasions. But there appear to be insuperable objections against the proposed recurrence to the people, as a provision in all cases for keeping the several departments of power within their constitutional limits. In the first place, the provision does not reach the case of a combination of two of the departments against the third. If the legislative authority, which possesses so many means of operating on the motives of the other departments, should be able to gain to its interest either of the others, or even one third of its members, the remaining department could derive no advantage from its remedial provision. I do not dwell, however, on this objection, because it may be thought to be rather against the modification of the principle, than against the principle itself. In the next place, it may be considered as an objection inherent in the principle, that as every appeal to the people would carry an implication of some defect in the government, frequent appeals would, in a great measure, deprive the government of that veneration which time bestows on every thing, and without which perhaps the wisest and freest governments would not possess the requisite stability. If it be true that all governments rest on opinion, it is no less true that the strength of opinion in each individual, and its practical influence on his conduct, depend much on the number which he supposes to have entertained the same opinion. The reason of man, like man himself, is timid and cautious when left alone, and acquires firmness and confidence in proportion to the number with which it is associated. When the examples which fortify opinion are ANCIENT as well as NUMEROUS, they are known to have a double effect. In a nation of philosophers, this consideration ought to be disregarded. A reverence for the laws would be sufficiently inculcated by the voice of an enlightened reason. But a nation of philosophers is as little to be expected as the philosophical race of kings wished for by Plato. And in every other nation, the most rational government will not find it a superfluous advantage to have the prejudices of the community on its side. The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by interesting too strongly the public passions, is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision of the whole society. Notwithstanding the success which has attended the revisions of our established forms of government, and which does so much honor to the virtue and intelligence of the people of America, it must be confessed that the experiments are of too ticklish a nature to be unnecessarily multiplied. We are to recollect that all the existing constitutions were formed in the midst of a danger which repressed the passions most unfriendly to order and concord; of an enthusiastic confidence of the people in their patriotic leaders, which stifled the ordinary diversity of opinions on great national questions; of a universal ardor for new and opposite forms, produced by a universal resentment and indignation against the ancient government; and whilst no spirit of party connected with the changes to be made, or the abuses to be reformed, could mingle its leaven in the operation. The future situations in which we must expect to be usually placed, do not present any equivalent security against the danger which is apprehended. But the greatest objection of all is, that the decisions which would probably result from such appeals would not answer the purpose of maintaining the constitutional equilibrium of the government. We have seen that the tendency of republican governments is to an aggrandizement of the legislative at the expense of the other departments. The appeals to the people, therefore, would usually be made by the executive and judiciary departments. But whether made by one side or the other, would each side enjoy equal advantages on the trial? Let us view their different situations. The members of the executive and judiciary departments are few in number, and can be personally known to a small part only of the people. The latter, by the mode of their appointment, as well as by the nature and permanency of it, are too far removed from the people to share much in their prepossessions. The former are generally the objects of jealousy, and their administration is always liable to be discolored and rendered unpopular. The members of the legislative department, on the other hand, are numberous. They are distributed and dwell among the people at large. Their connections of blood, of friendship, and of acquaintance embrace a great proportion of the most influential part of the society. The nature of their public trust implies a personal influence among the people, and that they are more immediately the confidential guardians of the rights and liberties of the people. With these advantages, it can hardly be supposed that the adverse party would have an equal chance for a favorable issue. But the legislative party would not only be able to plead their cause most successfully with the people. They would probably be constituted themselves the judges.

The same influence which had gained them an election into the legislature, would gain them a seat in the convention. If this should not be the case with all, it would probably be the case with many, and pretty certainly with those leading characters, on whom every thing depends in such bodies. The convention, in short, would be composed chiefly of men who had been, who actually were, or who expected to be, members of the department whose conduct was arraigned. They would consequently be parties to the very question to be decided by them. It might, however, sometimes happen, that appeals would be made under circumstances less adverse to the executive and judiciary departments. The usurpations of the legislature might be so flagrant and so sudden, as to admit of no specious coloring. A strong party among themselves might take side with the other branches. The executive power might be in the hands of a peculiar favorite of the people. In such a posture of things, the public decision might be less swayed by prepossessions in favor of the legislative party. But still it could never be expected to turn on the true merits of the question. It would inevitably be connected with the spirit of pre-existing parties, or of parties springing out of the question itself. It would be connected with persons of distinguished character and extensive influence in the community. It would be pronounced by the very men who had been agents in, or opponents of, the measures to which the decision would relate. The PASSIONS, therefore, not the REASON, of the public would sit in judgment. But it is the reason, alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government. The passions ought to be controlled and regulated by the government.

We found in the last paper, that mere declarations in the written constitution are not sufficient to restrain the several departments within their legal rights. It appears in this, that occasional appeals to the people would be neither a proper nor an effectual provision for that purpose. How far the provisions of a different nature contained in the plan above quoted might be adequate, I do not examine. Some of them are unquestionably founded on sound political principles, and all of them are framed with singular ingenuity and precision.

PUBLIUS.

Links to my other posts on The Federalist Papers so far: