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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • In addition to failing kidneys, stuff that messes with the lymphatic system. Everyone’s cells and bloodstream is slightly leaky, and whatever leaks out gets picked up by the lymphatic system, filtered through lymph nodes, and returned to the circulatory system. A break in that chain due to injury/disease can cause fluid to accumulate upstream. Look up elephantitis.

    Also, liver/heart failure can create ascites, which is fluid accumulation inside the abdomen (looks more like pregnancy belly than obesity belly).

    Similarly, malnutrition in kids in poor areas often results in kwashiorkor, which makes them have big bellies but really skinny arms and legs. Its basically a protein deficiency from eating only corn or whatever.




  • The various regulatory bureaucracies of the US were, until the start of last year, considered some of the best places to work as a subject matter expert in very nuanced and advanced fields.

    These jobs have traditionally been good jobs in terms of stability, benefits (compared to peers the US which is low compared to other countries), and a lot of the intangibles like “flexibility”. They usually are not highly paid (compared to peers in the US, who are paid highly compared to other countries).

    I’m making this point because it’s important to note that most of these subject matter experts have not been working in their positions for decades because it’s lucrative, they are working there cause they’ve actually believed in the work they do. Think people working for the FDA, NIH, etc.

    Like you said you don’t recover from that. These aren’t people who can give a two week notice and train someone new in that time. They make 5 year plans for training replacements like apprentices, or they switch to a part time position as a contractor to fade out as they teach the next generation. We are going to be completely rebuilding so many of our institutions for literally decades, and many people will die because of it.



  • If advocates are clever, this could be used against cars. One thing that I think prevents adoption of utility ebikes in areas they are most useful (relatively population dense areas) is that many people who might otherwise be interested in them do not have anywhere to park them.

    Think of someone in an apartment or townhouse that relies on street parking. They might have a bike rack, or maybe they can carry a regular bicycle inside, but there often isnt space for something like a bakfiets that could absolutely replace a car.

    If you decide to regulate them like cars, why shouldn’t people take up car parking spaces with them?






  • Not nitpicking your numbers at all (mainly cause im too lazy to go hunting down the original sources), but a big problem that science media gets completely wrong is how they report risk percentages. They conflate changes in absolute risk with relative risk constantly, and it really hurts messaging.

    For example, a few years back, the WHO released a report on consumption of processed meat and how it relates to colorectal cancer risk. Even their own press release, which should be perfect, says “each 50 g portion eaten daily increases the risk by 18%”. That is really misleading if you dont know they are talking about a relative risk. The average person will interpret this as new risk %= baseline risk % + 18%.

    The absolute lifetime risk of colorectal cancer is ~4%, so daily consumption of processed meat should bump it to ~4.7% (well, technically lower since the 4% includes processed meat consumers). Giving the before/after percentages helps communicate the risks way better. Even better is a risk curve showing how the risk changes as consumption increases (obviously that relies on the data being available).

    Its also better to be able to contextualize so you can make well informed decisions across your life, e.g., it’s dumb to deprive yourself a joy that increases lifetime cancer risk by 0.5% while ignoring other facets of your life that increase cancer by a much larger margin.