Professionally, I focus on creating social benefit startups. In my Saturday morning emails I share what I’m learning and thinking. Topics range from better living and parenting to business and philosophy.
Cancer Screening Redux. Since my recent comments on cancer screening, a large meta-analysis was published which says: “current evidence does not substantiate the claim that common cancer screening tests save lives by extending lifetime, except possibly for colorectal cancer screening with sigmoidoscopy.” The liquid biopsy and full body scans are newer tests and were not included in the analysis. Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer for the American Cancer Society said “Cancer screening was never really designed to increase longevity. Screenings are really designed to decrease premature deaths from cancer.” Incredible! If proponents of cancer screening say screening is not supposed to extend life, what is the value? Improving quality of life? For more, you can hear a skeptical take on cancer screening from a UCSF oncologist. Note: As an individual with a specific family and medical history and preferences, the odds may shift and these tests may make sense. On another topic, body fat, in particular visceral fat, is a cancer risk. Are body composition tests cancer screening tests?
Changing Climate Change. Greenhouse gas emissions are something we can address and we are making a difference. See the chart below for decrease in greenhouse gas emissions in the US. As mentioned before, solar is getting very cheap. So are other forms of energy (we still need better energy storage). “According to the International Energy Agency, the average cost of industrial-scale solar energy plummeted by 88 percent between 2010 and 2021, while the cost of onshore wind projects fell by 68 percent and the cost of offshore projects fell by 60 percent.” (As an aside, are these learning rates of improving cost curves predictable?) Lots of efforts across the country. And New Haven has a new greentech incubator ClimateHaven backed by Yale and Connecticut Innovations. I am excited to see the launch as a bunch of friends are involved, they are located in the former SeeClickFix offices above MakeHaven.
The Dawn of Everything: We’re told that as societies become larger and wealthier, power naturally concentrates. The excess food provided by agriculture allows for specialization as priests, administrators, warriors and rulers. While it sounds convincing and might be true, it's useful to question and examine any assumptions. And in the spirit of "Who controls the past controls the future”, our beliefs here can influence what types of changes we will consider possible. The book The Dawn of Everything took me months to get through and I’m glad to finally finish. The authors argue that humans choose not to build states or have kings in many times and places even when they had resources, density and population. I don’t know enough to fully evaluate it although it seems they had a point of view before writing the book. I was again blown away by how many whole civilizations I’ve never heard of. A few things that were also new to me:
Mental model of: In constructing a society you can combine sovereign authority (power over others), political competition (election or political rivalry) and administration (a bureaucracy that can track and execute the law) in different ways.
Three “fundamental freedoms”: Freedom to move away. Freedom to disobey. Freedom to make a new social government. First freedom is like last week's freedom to exit.
There is some documentation that some Native American political thought and commentary pre-dated and was in line with European enlightenment about. (Anyone know more about this? Was there influence?)
What’s your take? Is the concentration of political and economic power inevitable?
Until next time,
Miles
Miles, I’m happy to hear that you’ve been following ClimateHaven’s progress. I’ve been so grateful to be working with the climate tech community this past year and a half in NHV. It would be wonderful to catch up perhaps at our ribbon cutting in November or later in the fall at ClimateHaven when our portfolio of startups are situated.
- Kiko