Summy

“Over the following decade or two, women embraced exercise with gusto and soon figured out what cognitive anthropology studies would later reveal: that it was more fun to do it in groups. (Endorphins surge even more powerfully when we exercise together).”
― Amanda Montell, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

“We are confined to the present, but this moment we're living now has, for all of history, been the future. And now, forever more, it will be past.”
― Maggie Shipstead, Great Circle

“Creating a PCR test for a new pathogen is a pretty easy task once you’ve sequenced its genome. Because you already know what its genes look like, you can create the special substances, dye, and other necessary products very quickly—which is why researchers were able to establish PCR tests for COVID just twelve days after the first genome sequences were published.”
― Bill Gates, How to Prevent the Next Pandemic

“It is unfortunate that in some places, especially in the United States, people have resisted making choices that will keep them and their families safer. I don’t agree with these choices, but I also think it’s unhelpful to simply label them “anti-science,” as so many people do.

In her book On Immunity, Eula Biss looks at vaccine hesitancy in a way that I think also helps explain the resentment we’re seeing toward other public health measures. The distrust of science is just one factor, she says, and it is compounded by other things that trigger fear and suspicion: pharmaceutical companies, big government, elites, the medical establishment, male authority. For some people, invisible benefits that might materialize in the future are not enough to get them past the worry that someone is trying to pull the wool over their eyes. The problem is even worse in periods of severe political polarization, such as the one we’re in now.”
― Bill Gates, How to Prevent the Next Pandemic