Someone posted a link to the full text. Looks like their main point is that for most people with diabetes (who have type 2), insulin of any form isn’t the best first line treatment, things like glp-1 receptor agonists (e.g., ozempic) work way better, but since it’s not “insulin” it’s not covered.
I’m guessing the editors of the Atlantic gave it the original bad headline, cause it seems like the author is genuine.
Someone posted a link to the full text. Looks like their main point is that for most people with diabetes (who have type 2), insulin of any form isn’t the best first line treatment, things like glp-1 receptor agonists (e.g., ozempic) work way better, but since it’s not “insulin” it’s not covered.
I’m guessing the editors of the Atlantic gave it the original bad headline, cause it seems like the author is genuine.
The point it seems like they are trying to make (and I have only read up till the paywall) is that there are multiple forms of insulin, and newer versions basically work better. Many people are getting the newer, better drugs, but having to ration them because of how expensive they are. If plain, old insulin becomes cheap enough such that people switch to it (critically, without some extra effort by our healthcare system), a percentage of people will end up dying. Managing diabetes is all about keeping blood glucose stable, and that is asier to do with the modern stuff.
They retitled the article to “Making Insulin Cheaper Isn’t Enough”, which i think is a much better headline.
And again, I could only read up till the paywall, so i could be giving them too much credit.
This whole post is a good illustration to how math is much more creative and flexible than we are lead to believe in school.
The whole concept of “manifolds” is basically that you can take something like a globe, and make atlases out of it. You could look at each map of your town and say that it’s wrong since it shouldn’t be flat. Maps are really useful, though, so why not use math on maps, even if they are “wrong”? Traveling 3 km east and 4 km north will put you 5 km from where you started, even if those aren’t straight lines in a 3d sense.
One way to think about a line being “straight” is if it never has a “turn”. If you are walking in a field, and you don’t ever turn, you’d say you walked in a straight line. A ship following this path would never turn, and if you traced it’s path on an atlas, you would be drawing a straight line on map after map.
Reading theory ≠ being highly competent, though. Dunning Kruger states that people with low competence (in specific areas) overestimate themselves, and highly competent people underestimate themselves.
Reading doesnt necessarily make you better at things (though obviously it can help). A community organizer that’s been feeding the hungry for 40 years but has never read a political book will be more competent than someone who’s read hundreds of books but never gone out and done stuff.