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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 7th, 2023

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  • It takes a truly bureaucratic mind—someone with a sensibility for relentless, daily tedium—to dismantle bureaucracy.

    Democracy, by contrast, is far easier to unravel than state bureaucracy. Bureaucratic systems often outlast governments, as seen with the colonial administrations in Africa and South Asia. Bureaucracy is designed to be “portable” across different regimes and transfers of power.

    Elon is likely facing a long and tiresome road ahead—one he’ll almost certainly abandon in some spectacularly embarrassing fashion within two months. Bureaucracy endures because it’s so deeply embedded in the everyday, utterly quotidian and entwined with, like, everything.


  • The piece brings up an important public health issue, but it leans a little too hard into fear without offering much in the way of solutions or context. Yes, formaldehyde is a known carcinogen, and it’s good to highlight its prevalence in both outdoor air and everyday products. But claiming it’s the number one cancer-causing chemical out there without comparing it to other pollutants like benzene or radon feels a bit alarmist. Risk depends a lot on exposure levels—someone working in an industrial setting is at much higher risk than someone just sitting on a formaldehyde-emitting couch. Context matters, and without it, the message risks making people feel like they’re doomed no matter what they do.

    What’s missing here is actionable advice. If formaldehyde is such a widespread issue, what can we do? Better ventilation, using air purifiers, choosing low-emission furniture—there are steps people can take to lower their exposure, and it would have been helpful for the article to spend more time on those rather than just Trump dooming. Overall, it’s good to raise awareness, but without a balanced approach or solutions, it feels like the takeaway is just supposed to be vaguely articulated fear of everything, everywhere.


  • Agreed. A more granular map would be interesting to see. I mean, something like 65% of NY state’s population live in the NYC metro, which is a tiny part of a deceptively large state.

    Re: Colorado, it’s just a relatively healthy state with a general ethos of living well. I think you’re seeing some of the urban effect through the Denver, Colorado Springs, etc. and the addition of rural areas of Colorado still having an outdoorsy culture, as well as (often) affluent rather than “rural poor.” Colorado has one of the lowest rural poverty rates in the United States.

    And since Colorado would be in the 25-29.9 category now, it’s comparable to many states that also have comparable rural poverty rates. The fact that the states with the highest rural poverty also have the highest weights makes me assume obesity rates and poverty rates heavily overlap.

    Edit: to the point, look at the county map for childhood obesity. You can literally point out almost every major city in the United States.




  • Is it possible they’re expressing admiration or paying you a compliment and not trying to invoke your smirking condescension?

    Incidentally, according to the most recent CDC numbers, Colorado is no longer “green” on this map, just Hawaii and DC.

    There’s only eight states under 30%. West Virgina tops the numbers at 41%.

    ~75% of the United States is classified as overweight or obese, which is staggering. It has to be pretty unevenly distributed even within states, because I live in a college town in a low-middle-weight state, and very few appear obese, and I’m regularly in a nearby major metro, and I don’t see a ton of obese people there either. Rural children are 10-15 times more likely to obese, so I’m guessing that is probably a major factor as well.

    25-35% obesity rates covers like 80% of states, so the US is just fat and getting fatter.