How Progress Happens (and Prepping, and Living Longer)

• Exercise variety—not just amount—linked to lower risk of premature mortality
  A follow-up to We have found the magic drug
  
  
• Preparing Without Predicting
  For anyone who thinks about the future. Has this great quote from an OK movie: "History is not simply the study of the past. It is an explanation of the present."
  
  
• Freakonomics Episode 666: This Is How Progress Happens
  95% fantastic!

The one nitpick: With regard to climate change, Mokyr uses the word "existential" to mean "bad," not existential. 

The example he gives is 50 million people moving from Bangladesh to Manitoba. You know when 50 million people wanted to move from Bangladesh to Manitoba? As soon as Bangladesh was formed! 

Check out, for example, 1970's Bhola cyclone and its aftermath. (Including George Harrison's "Concert for Bangladesh.")

Weather events aren't going to be a problem. They've always been a problem! 

Climate - old or new - isn't the problem. Poverty is the problem. 

Development is the answer. 

(For humans at least. I've been thinking about this tradeoff for months and still not had a clear enough thought to write up.)