10 big ideas for the next 10 years. Here are 10 ideas I think will make fundamental shifts in innovation, politics, money as we head towards 2030. Feel free to add yours

Imagine going about your life, when a virus develops into a pandemic. Suddenly the rulers of your country are like "We're going to let the virus infect us, don't listen to the outside world".

Most people in your country are like "Awesome!", and ridicule you if trying to opt out

You hear about all these stuff like chronic health issues the virus causes, in different research papers available on the internet. It appears to be a serious problem, likely to ruin many lives. You do however never hear it mentioned in the debate in your country.

On the news you hear people with fancy titles, downplaying the virus, and ridiculing other countries for trying to stop it.

The resistance is futile, they say. We are all going to get infected in the end anyways.

You see the schools in other countries closing down, but in your own country they remain open. Parents are not allowed to keep their children at home. If they do, they are punished by the government, shunned as bad parents by those who think the herd immunity strategy is awesome.

You later find out that the people leading the response to the pandemic, reasons around how it is beneficial to keep schools open in e-mails with each other. They reflect on the benefits of open schools, for children getting infected, thus contributing to the herd immunity.

If there is one thing I have learned it is that people love bullshit. They buy bullshit stories from professional bullshit artists, accept bullshit philosophies, purchase bullshit how-to-books, vote for bullshitting politicians.

At first, I resisted believing this because it is illogical and dumb and frankly, doesn't reflect well on the human race of which I am a member (and thus have long been hopeful that it is more of a distinction than it actually turns out to be.)

But if you actually are interested in facts you begin to notice how little most people care for them. Sometimes it is because they are heard to learn and bullshit is so much more widely and easily available. Sometimes it is because facts make them uncomfortable about themselves.

Sometimes it is because just one tiny fact will upset a whole worldview that has grown as comfortable as an overstuffed chair. (Settling into such worldviews is a lot like settling into chairs like that because the longer you're there and the deeper you sink...

...the harder it is to hoist yourself up and out of your fat-assed intellectual laziness.) But I actually think the reason people have such an appetite for bullshit goes deeper, goes to an aspect of ourselves we just can't accept.

Me and my brother visiting Stonehenge in AD 2003. Speaking of relatives in and around Stonehenge, here's a new (OA) paper with Jo Brück, @SelBrace & Ian Barnes based on findings in Olalde et al. (2018)

https://t.co/m8XOsP1rQN

https://t.co/0XaRbWKVHU

The main aim of this paper was to try to show off the wealth of useful information that can be found in the Supplementary Materials of large-scale aDNA papers, if you know where to look. These details are often not discussed in the main text, but can be pretty significant...

Olalde et al. (2018) found there was a yuge transformation (>90%) of the genetic ancestry of people in Chalcolithic-Early Bronze Age Britain (c.2450-2000) produced by movements of groups of people from possibly various parts of continental Europe.

Our chronological modelling of associated radiocarbon dates in OxCal suggests this ancestry shift was fairly gradual, probably taking between 311-472 years, or 10-16 generations.

Groups genetically continuous with preceding Late Neolithic groups continued inhabiting C-EBA Britain but we don't see them so much in the DNA data as they largely continued to cremate their dead or treat them in ways which left no archaeological record.

I met her, a couple of Feb 14s earlier, on the way back home. It was post-9pm, the compartment was empty, save one girl.

She was dressed up—dress, heels, lipstick—the whole deal. She quickly wiped her tears when I walked in, switching to looking out, resolutely.

THREAD.

I tried doing nothing for a few stations, but then, restless about all the grief that came off her, took the bench opposite hers, finally.

“All okay?” I asked.

She hesitated. Blinked.

“Valentine’s Day,” she replied, sadly.

“Date didn’t work out?”

“He dumped me!”

2.

I winced. An asshole with no respect for symbology!

She rubbed her nose, looking both sad and angry.

Tired from a day of work, I groped for words. What could I say that would help?

"Maybe if—," I began, but she cut me:
"How many times will this same thing happen to me?"

3.

"Every time I like someone, they turn out to be assholes. I was so happy I wasn't single on Valentines' Day. FINALLY. But this is WORSE! I dressed up so much. And went all this way from home... And he, and he..."

Turns out, I realised, one doesn't need to say much.

4.

All sad people on Valentines' need, is a listening ear.

Till, five stations of ranting later, they ask, "So YOU tell me, WHY should I believe in love?"

Interrogated thus, in a local train corner, I felt... cornered. Why should one believe in love, I wondered?

5.