Musings Report #49 12-4-15 "The Island Where People Forget to Die" and Social Ecosystems
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"The Island Where People Forget to Die" and Social Ecosystems
You might have seen The Island Where People Forget to Die in a Musings From Left Field a few years ago. I recently re-read this exploration of "blue zones" where people habitually live long, productive lives, and read a companion piece on the "blue zone" author's discoveries about food and diet. My Dinner With Longevity Expert Dan Buettner (No Kale Required).
What really struck me in this re-reading was the centrality of purposeful work and a robust social ecosystem in the lives of the productive/active elderly.
This is in stark contrast to the conventional narrative of our healthcare system, which focus on diet and exercise as the sole inputs that affect longevity.
This mechanical mindset leads us to conclude that doing time on a treadmill and being hyper-vigilant about sticking to a strict dietary regime are the keys not just to health but to longevity.
But if we look a bit more deeply at life on Okinawa and the Greek island of Ikaria, we find that spending time with friends over a glass of wine and purposeful work in gardens and vineyards are more central to daily life than time spent alone on exercise machines or obsessively following diets.
That the social ecosystem is as important (or even more important) than the easy-to-quantify-and-measure mechanics of exercise and diet is simply doesn't compute in our system's worldview for a basic reason:
Our system only recognizes what can be measured and quantified. Since social reciprocity, bonds, obligations, etc. cannot be easily quantified, they simply don't exist in our culture's medical worldview.
In our system, these factors are at best incidentals, mentioned as asides. Yet if the "blue zone" studies have any merit at all, it's clear that the social ecosystem is as essential as the Mediterranean Diet to health and longevity.
I also see purposeful work as being absolutely central to the active elderly lifestyle, and this is work is integral to the social ecosystem: people share the produce they grow, the wine made from their vineyards, etc.
In complete contrast, our system views work as something to be avoided if you're wealthy enough, and something to be jettisoned without regrets upon official retirement.
Anecdotally, men who retire to lives of socially isolated aimlessness tend to die in their first year of retirement. This collapse of health makes perfect sense if we understand the core framework of health is not time spent on an exercise machine and a rigid, restricted diet, but purposeful, gentle work that is recognized and valued by a social ecosystem of friends with whom the benefits of work can be shared and enjoyed.
Summary of the Blog This Past Week
Why the Fed Has to Raise Rates 12/4/15
Housing Bubble 2 in One Chart 12/3/15
Look Out Below: the Real Economy Just Hit Stall Speed 12/2/15
The Coming Great Recession, Brought to You by the Healthcare Cartel 12/1/15
2015: The Last Christmas in America 11/30/15
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
A big bowl of Chinese noodles and dumplings at one of our favorite hole-in-wall restaurants in Chinatown.
Market Musings: Have Stocks Topped?
Notwithstanding today's sharp snapback rally, the weekly chart of the S&P 500 (SPX) raises an interesting question: have stocks topped?
If so, the 7-year Bull Market is over, and everyone who stays long stocks will lose capital.
Consider this weekly chart of the SPX as a representative of US stocks.
What pops out right away is the dome-like topping pattern that's being traced out. This is a classic topping pattern, as the market fails to reach old highs.
Another big red flag is the failure of MACD to get above the neutral line. In general, good things happen above the neutral line and bad things (such as crashes) happen below the neutral line.
The stochastic is very overbought, and there is a lot of air below for a prolonged decline and a visit to oversold territory.
Lastly, the fundamental picture is terrible: global shipping is collapsing, holiday credit card sales have declined year-over-year for the first time since 2009, and central bank jawboning is no longer pushing markets to euphoric new highs.
Instead, central banks are disappointing. This is the diminishing returns writ large: what sparked huge rallies 5 years ago is now a disappointment. The central bank-manipulated market is poised to reap what central banks have sowed.
From Left Field
Dark Social: We Have the Whole History of the Web Wrong (via Lew G.)
Student Debt in America: Lend With a Smile, Collect With a Fist (via Joel M.)
In Defense of Grand Narratives: Restoring big ideas
The Concentration of healthcare Spending -- top 1% of users consume 20% of all healthcare spending, top 5% consume 50%...
Short-Termist America - Value-Extraction Has Replaced Value-Creation
The Surprising Cities Creating The Most Tech Jobs (via Mark G.)
A Dual-Track Drug Approval Process -- a good policy
It's Official: Chinese Buyers Have Left The U.S. Housing Market -- anecdotally, I'm hearing this in the Bay Area...
The Girl From Harvard, the Girl From China
Hundreds of fake ads totally skewer corporate sponsors of Paris climate talks
How Demographics Rule the Global Economy (via Maoxian)
I'm Not a Communist, But I Play One on TV -- NSFW first-hand account of being the token Caucasian in China's film industry...
"The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be." Socrates
Thanks for reading--
charles
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