Are you ready for a world without antibiotics?. Draws from a Lancet paper. One of the major differences between technological advances based on physics and those of biology is that biological advances may slowly be eroded by evolutionary response. But I’m curious as to what microbiologists think about assertions that antibiotics will no longer be efficacious in ~10 years.
Study Finds Similar Personality Types in Male and Female Domestic Violence Perpetrators. Current models of psychological and social pathologies seem to assume a tabula rasa across which environmental inputs cascade generation to generation. But there are likely bio-behavioral dispositions which are heritable. All human nature is not the same, though through varied techniques humans may converge upon similar behavioral morphs.
Debts Rise, and Go Unpaid, as Bust Erodes Home Equity. Some economists have criticized the over-rationalization of human behavior encouraged by their profession. People who “walk away” from their debts are just acting optimally on the individual level, and mimicking the way firms behave. Corporations act to maximize the returns to their shareholders, and individuals making a rational decision to break a contract are acting in the interests of their family members. Trust is essential in a capitalist order, but utility maximizing mindset is likely eroding it. Perhaps a transparent society may increase, not decrease, trust by making “immoral” but “rational” behavior more public?
Looks: The next chapter in civil rights. The Left-liberal focus on specific rights is starting to really getting out of control. There is a great deal of looks based prejudice, but like intelligence when it comes to appearance most people don’t conceive of themselves as below average in attractiveness. Perhaps one way activists can get laws enacted is by appealing to disparate impact; blacks are more obese than whites, ergo looks-based prejudice has a de facto racial component (this is the sort of thing that got employment tests explicitly based on I.Q. banned).
Note the sharp divergence between two clusters of fertility in Europe. The big gap is between Greece and the Netherlands, 1.51 vs. 1.78 TFR.