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Joined 6 years ago
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Cake day: May 15th, 2019

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  • The Hapsburgs, a Spanish noble house that held the Spanish throne, made a practice of the inverse of this with uncle-niece marriages to keep power in the house. This was the closest marriage the church would allow. The generations of inbreeding produced the distinct “Hapsburg jaw”. Eventually that led to the poor, ugly, absurdly inbred Charles II of Spain. And remember, those portraits are official portraits that paint him in the best possible light. He died without an heir, ending the Hapsburg monarchy.





  • From what I’ve heard, part of the problem for antibiotics has been economic. There just isn’t a great return on investment for pharmaceutical companies to bring antibiotics to market compared to other drugs. Lowering the cost of discovery could hypothetically help develop new antibiotics and combat drug resistance. Or it could just provide another excuse for the agriculture industry to pump livestock full of antibiotics, thereby wasting any progress.














  • Something like aggressive taxes on the uber-rich and comprehensive welfare for the poor, y’know?

    This is why aggressive estate taxes are so incredibly critical. People shouldn’t be professional descendants. And of course welfare provides both ladder and safety net. The fools who are trying to abolish one or both are working against social mobility.



  • Ugh, I hate the "Government should be run like a business” line. Take recessions. During a recession, businesses will typically engage in belt tightening. But government finances run on entirely different rules. They control the currency, central bank, unemployment insurance, deficit spending, and a number of other levers that can stabilize the economy. It’s the role of the government to step in and offset the business cycle. A lot of folks have very rose colored glasses of what life was like before the modern era’s governance of the economy.