Facts that keep me up at night.
Warning: the following facts are disturbing, disheartening, and dreadful. Nonetheless, they have empirical evidence backing them up. Reader discretion is advised.
Fact 1: Why doesn't new information change our minds?
Fact 2: The bacteria that will decompose your corpse is already inside you.
Fact 3: The relationship between Unemployment and Death.
Fact 1: Why doesn't new information change our minds?
In 2014, the CDC reported 600 cases of measles. At the time, that was a 20-year high, but it has since been broken by the 1,000+ cases from 2019. Compare 2014 to 2013, which only saw 187 cases. Normally, in a population with around 80% vaccinated, measles would struggle to spread. However, the CDC determined that outbreaks occurred in relatively healthy communities with low vaccination rates. Unvaccinated people contracted measles abroad, and the disease flourished in areas with anti-vaccination sentiment.
We've all lived through the coronavirus pandemic. We know the dangers of anti-vaccine sentiment. You've probably tried to persuade someone in your life. Maybe you've tried to guide a loved one away from obsessive conspiracy theories, toxic behaviors, or hateful attitudes. Or maybe all Three!
Why is it so hard to change people's preexisting beliefs even with new evidence?
You're probably familiar with confirmation bias, but there are a lot of psychological phenomena that hold us back. There is the illusion of explanatory depth, avoidance of complexity, and the ignorance gap, just to name a few.
I am not going to delve into each one since there are literal textbooks on them. Let's take a top-down perspective. We can understand these irrational thought processes through two lenses.
First, we can understand them as evolved traits that help us survive in social communities. In their book, The Enigma of Reason, scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber dig past the cognitive surface. They suggest many of our biases are evolutionarily advantageous in ancient hunter-gatherer communities.
We didn't evolve to be rational. We evolved to be social.
Let's look at confirmation bias, the simple, my side is right, and your side is wrong, mentality. We seek out information that confirms our existing beliefs because being right gains social status.
Confirmation bias also makes it easier to criticize other peoples' beliefs compared to examining our own.
Proving someone else wrong gains us social status over them. That's why it is so satisfying to be right while proving others wrong.
Our brains don't care if the belief we just confirmed is correct or productive.
We just want to be right.
Secondly, we can understand these traits as mental shortcuts to save time and energy.
We naturally avoid complexity because making decisions based on science, evidence, and logic takes a lot of time and effort. I should know, I do it for a living.
Our brains evolved to take the path of least resistance for our survival. Your brain wants to save that energy for immediate, life-and-death decisions.
Companies think long and hard before purchasing a new technological solution. They consider the installation time, the training costs, and the new possibilities. Yet, they might never come to a decision because it is very complex. It's not their fault, our brains hate complexities. They also might never decide because it is inconsequential to their immediate survival.
But if there were a fire in the company's building, everyone would immediately react and rush to escape. When there is an immediate life-or-death situation, we tend to react much faster.
In our modern world, our psychological survival instincts are harming us.
We're not fighting saber-tooth tigers (thankfully). We're fighting disinformation.
But there's good news (for you).
Just being aware of these biases helps us make better decisions.
Fact 2: The bacteria that will decompose your corpse is already inside you.
According to researchers at the University of California's San Diego Center for Microbiome Innovation, the average person has 30 trillion human cells and 39 trillion microbial cells. If you only measure by the number of cells, you could say, "we are only 43% human." However, our human cells are much larger than the various microbial cells. So, our human cells make up the vast majority of our mass.
These microorganisms are bacteria, viruses, and fungi. They can thrive throughout our bodies, but most reside within our digestive tract. These organisms are essential to our overall health. Different fields of science are still trying to grasp the full scope of their effects.
Our gut bacteria are unique to us. Gut Bacteria is sometimes referred to as gut flora or as the gut microbiome. In this context, it's helpful to think of our bodies as complex ecosystems.
When we die, our bodies' microorganisms will eat us from the inside out.
Our immune system prevents our bacteria from feasting on friendly tissues. However, when we die, the bacteria will still live. These mindless creatures will eat what's available to them. They'll bite the hand that once fed them. This process is called putrefaction and contributes to our decomposition.
Interestingly enough, forensic scientists are studying what putrefaction can tell us about a corpse.
Remember, our gut flora doesn't need us. They'll thrive without us. But we need them to live.
If you die tomorrow, then you already have what will decompose your corpse inside you.
Fact 3: The relationship between Unemployment and Death.
Finally, one of the most disturbing and dreadful facts I understand is the relationship between unemployment and death.
The relationship is complex; there is not an exact one-to-one correlation.
According to one Swedish study, unemployment can indirectly lead to premature death.
Corporate Flight: The Causes and Consequences of Economic Dislocation by Barry Bluestone, Bennett Harrison, and Lawrence Baker suggest that unemployment not only leads to death but also to increased levels of violent crime, mental hospital admissions, and imprisonment.
There are a lot of complexities to unravel here.
Let's focus on the Swedish study, Unemployment and Early Cause-Specific Mortality: A Study Based on the Swedish Twin Registry.
The study found that unemployment "is associated with an increased risk of early death even after adjustment for several potential confounding factors," and there was "an increased risk of suicide and death from undetermined causes."
Undetermined causes are where things get complicated because they refer to health conditions exacerbated or caused by stress. The study found a tenuous association between unemployed men and cancer. However, the association is hard to control for with other contributing factors.
For example, unemployment might lead to addiction behaviors like smoking, alcohol, or more dangerous drugs. However, addiction can make it hard to find work. Same with long-term illnesses. The stress of unemployment can worsen illnesses, but long-term illnesses also make it harder to find stable work.
In short, the many aspects of a person's life that contribute to their health are interconnected. Employment is a major factor in one's life, so we should study how it affects health.
The point is that the unemployment rate is more than just a number.
We can lose sight of the real human impact when we treat the wider economy as abstract numbers.
The silver lining here is that these deaths, crimes, and mental crises are preventable.
We can mitigate all the negative effects of unemployment with welfare and societal support structures.