The Past:
• No one becomes successful without support. This article asks us to reflect on the people who loved us in childhood. Breaking down a few traits / coping skills imparted to children that will be used (or ignored sometimes) for the rest of life.
Movement:
• Do you bend like a C or a table? At the waist or the hip. This brief article illustrates the proper way to bend down. “Hip hinge,” while keeping your spine in alignment.
• The alignment is also important when sitting at a desk or standing / leaning over for long periods of time (surgery).
Nutrition:
• Broccoli provides fiber, vitamin C, B vitamins, and sulforaphane. The sulforaphane may be responsible for the blood sugar and anti-cancer benefits. This study shows that broccoli, like garlic, can provide more benefit if it is chopped and allowed to sit before cooking.
Opioids:
• Difficult to find anyone not affected by the opioid epidemic. This article from NYMag attempts to explain the deep core of America’s opioid addiction. Loss of meaning, loss of connection, loss of deferred gratification, economic insecurity and spiritual emptiness. The argument does not predict an end any time soon.
• A more academic point made was the Iron Law of prohibition: more intense crackdown leads to more potent product (because risk is so high, traffickers want to minimize the actual size of product, leading to innovations in higher potency). Hence liquor, crystal meth, heroin, and worst of all, fentanyl.
Financial Bubbles:
• Not sure yet if Bitcoin qualifies. Use these criteria to decide.
• Hyman Minksy gives 2 preconditions: “a displacement” (usually a disruptive new technology) and availability of easy credit (one can borrow funds for speculation).
• William Bernstein adds 2 more: amnesia (last bubble was about a generation ago), and inexperienced investors supplanting the “rational” ones.
Quote:
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
-attributed to Mark Twain but possibly apocryphal
