There is a serious of 6 detailed posts up at Modern Forager about What Happens To Your Body When You Fast?, that may be of interest.

getting noticeably better since monday. yay.

One of the most common categories of economics mistakes is to ignore the unseen.

One of the most important distinctions in my view of the world is between positive, zero, and negative-sum transactions. I am pro-market and anti-government because I believe the former usually creates positive-sum transactions, while the latter usually creates negative-sum ones. People with the opposite views of those institutions frequently have opposite views of the consequences. And are frequently (although not always) ignorant about the economic evidence.

Anyway, this Tim Ferriss post is a classic example of ignoring the unseen and promoting a negative-sum transaction. He is agitating users to vote for his favored charity in the contest where amex is giving away $1.5M. His way of describing the request makes it clear that he is falling into the trap of ignoring the unseen:

“One click here today can give 100,000 students $1.5 million for education. No joke and no exaggeration. Take a second and earn some karma!”

The problem is that he is ignoring the fact that this is a contest. Some charity, almost certainly a worthy one, is going to get $1.5M. The benefit to the world of his charity winning is the difference in the good it will do with the money vs. what the runner-up would have done. This may well be negative, if his favored charity is not quite as good.

All the time his readers spend reading the post and following his request is a waste, time spent on allocating wealth rather than creating it. The same goes for all the other charities fighting for the prize.

While one contest is, in general, not important, in general this is not a small issue. Whether social institutions are designed to promote positive or negative-sum interactions has an enormous effect on the growth of societal wealth. And because most people aren't good at thinking like economists, they often inadvertently create patterns that waste resources.

It's probably best to wait a bit, for two reasons. 1) let the currency keep collapsing. 2) wait until it is a sunnier season. But perhaps we can make a trip in the spring sometime? Anyone want to research if there are cool festivals to hit?

BTW, several people mentioned that they are having trouble importing food. That's fine with me - I don't mind eating salted fish or whatever they have locally for a trip of < a week. I'm sure it would be hell after that, but a few days of weird local food sounds fun.

anyone want to give me $20 for it? Ebay has it listed for $45-$55.