Hey readers,
You’ll see three new names among the writers below: Rachel DuRose, Julieta Cardenas, and Oshan Jarow. They are Future Perfect’s new fellows for 2023. We’re very pleased to have them with us, and you’ll be seeing more of them on the site and in the newsletter in the months ahead. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy our roundup of the best (and occasionally worst) that we’ve been reading, from how monkey trade disputes could disrupt drug development to why human extinction might actually be good. (It’s not.) —Kelsey Piper
The people cheering humanity’s end [the Atlantic]
So we hold a few somewhat controversial opinions at Future Perfect — lab-grown meat might be good; Margin Call is the best movie of the 21st century. But one thing we believe that I did not think was controversial is this: Human extinction would be bad. Turns out I’m wrong. In this adaptation from a new book by Adam Kirsch, people who wouldn’t mind seeing our species go extinct and transhumanists who want to evolve beyond Homo sapiens are linked together in a broader “revolt against humanity.” It’s a baffling collection, to my mind. Hardcore environmentalists want to save the Earth, and that generally includes people too, while transhumanists — though absolutely weird — are less radical than they appear; we’ve been adapting and enhancing our evolution-given bodies since the invention of the eyeglasses. So let me just end with one more apparently controversial opinion: I, for one, would prefer not to go extinct. —Bryan Walsh
Operation Warp Speed, encore [Center for Global Development]
Operation Warp Speed was one of the US government's biggest success stories. Using direct support and funding for R&D, as well as promises to buy vaccines in huge quantities once developed, the government was able to produce working vaccines against Covid-19 faster than anyone thought possible, saving about 20 million lives to date. So…shouldn't we be doing more of that? And not just for Covid, but for lots of stuff?
Rachel Silverman Bonnifield at the Center for Global Development makes the case in this blog post and paper, proposing three specific areas where a "warp speed" approach could be used: better antimicrobial treatments, better diagnostics for tuberculosis, and sequencing machines that can detect novel pathogens with the potential to spark a pandemic. —Dylan Matthews
California’s carbon-offset forests aren’t trapping much carbon. Here’s how to do better [Los Angeles Times]
In theory, carbon offsets allow a company to counteract its greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing forest land and protecting its trees from logging. California has one of the most extensive carbon offset programs in the world, but a new study shows that it may not actually be helping neutralize emissions.
In this op-ed, researchers Shane Coffield and James Randerson point out the flaws in California’s program and provide evidence-based proposals on how to fix it: increased transparency, higher penalties, and a larger insurance pool against fires and other disasters. To me, one of the authors' most interesting concerns is how the program will be affected by worsening wildfires. The program is being made less effective by the same force — climate change — that it’s attempting to remedy. How California does or does not rectify its current system could set a precedent for other governments to follow. —Rachel DuRose
Indictment of monkey importers could disrupt U.S. drug and vaccine research [Science]
Lab experimentation on our primate cousins has faced intense renewed scrutiny lately. This summer, Deepak Kaushal, the head of a prominent primate research lab in Texas, admitted to faking data in federal grant applications and a published paper. In October, more than 250 scientists signed a letter condemning research led by Harvard neuroscientist Margaret Livingstone that mirrored controversial mid-century experiments by Harry Harlow: Mother macaques were separated from their newborns and given stuffed animals to hold instead. In a few cases, the infants had their eyelids sewn shut as part of vision experiments.
Then, just before Thanksgiving, the Department of Justice indicted members of an “international monkey smuggling ring” accused of exporting wild long-tailed macaques into the US. These animals were officially listed as endangered earlier this year, and among the biggest threats they face is trafficking for biomedical experimentation. Although scientists who experiment on primates are quick to condemn the illegal trade of wild monkeys, arguing that we should purpose-breed them in labs instead, they also say that the recent indictment will threaten the supply of animals used in research. A pro-animal testing group told Science that researchers can’t do much to ensure they’re not getting illegally imported monkeys.
This set of stories shows a fascinating, high-stakes clash between different scientific communities — primatology and ecology on one hand, and biomedical research on the other (more on that here). It’s also a reminder that ethics ultimately belong to us; they can’t be outsourced to scientists. Whether primate testing can ever be justified is, to me, a first-principles question that I have my own answer to. Whatever its benefits to humans, there’s no doubt that it comes at an immense ethical cost. —Marina Bolotnikova
The best tax system on earth [The American Prospect]
The US tax system is an aging tangle of bureaucracy, special interests, and headaches. In contrast, The American Prospect’s Ryan Cooper reports, the Faroe Islands’ tax agency, TAKS, may be the best on earth. TAKS benefits from good digital infrastructure and “the broader context of Nordic social democracy,” as Cooper puts it. The benefits of a modernized, responsive, and efficient tax system reach across the population, supporting workers and businesses alike.
The US cannot copy the approach of this autonomous archipelago with less than 50,000 citizens, Cooper argues. But with an additional $80 billion going to the IRS thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, we could explore measures that have brought TAKS success, from routing all wages through government systems that take out taxes, to automations that simplify IRS processes. Whether we’ll seize the opportunity to retrofit our aging infrastructure for a new era, as always, remains to be seen. —Oshan Jarow
Where have all the snow crabs gone? [Nautilus]
In October, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported 11 billion snow crabs had suddenly disappeared, prompting the agency to cancel the upcoming snow crab season in the Bering Sea. The most probable culprit, according to NOAA, was climate change. The ice cold depths of the seafloor where king crabs reside had warmed enough in recent years for predators to snatch them up. Rising water temperatures can also cause starvation and disease in the crabs. According to Nautilus, climate change could’ve indeed played a role, but the theory has some holes, and it probably isn’t the whole story. Another possible culprit? The fishing industry.
In the years preceding the crab crash, NOAA had tripled fish catch limits, and many crabs die when they’re incidentally caught or crushed by nets trawling for other species. The trawling may have also disrupted seafloor food webs, causing starvation. An agency spokesperson disputed the fishing industry’s role, while an NOAA whistleblower, who had tracked and observed the crab for years, posed another theory: Some of the 11 billion crabs never existed to begin with, and the massive number came about due to poor population surveys, which led to high catch quotas and lax regulation. —Kenny Torrella
The hidden cost of cheap meat [the Ezra Klein Show]
In this interview, Leah Garcés, head of Mercy for Animals, explains that meat is deceptively cheap because the costs are hidden as externalities, ultimately borne by animals, the environment, public health, workers, and the Black and brown communities where factory farms are located. Compounding these issues is the subsidization of the meat industry with taxpayer money. Virtually all meat in the US comes from factory farms, and the vast majority of the world’s agricultural land is used for livestock (including both grazing and growing feed), making it highly unsustainable. What can curb growing demand for meat? One answer is policy that forces the industry to pay for its externalities, so that the market price of meat reflects the true costs of making it. —Julieta Cardenas
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