Megan McArdle in Bloomberg:

Denmark had been on my mind since it surfaced so oddly during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign as a challenge to the American faith that individualism is the best engine of social and economic improvement. Then came the election of President Donald Trump, which did nothing to lessen my curiosity about a place that seemed immune from the stresses that were tearing U.S. society apart.

(I love Bloomberg headlines, if you don’t care to read the article, you know all you need to know from the headline …)

Veronique Greenwood in The Alantic:

When I moved to China nearly two years ago, one of the first things I bought was a bicycle. I live on a university campus, where everyone rides, and the bike was cheap: $17 for an ancient Five Rams cruiser, with a lively color scheme of teal and rust. I used to cycle to work when I lived in New York, dodging tourists and threading in between delivery trucks. But the moment I pulled out onto a street in China, it became clear that this was going to be a different experience.

Reminds me of an argument I got into with someone over the asinine Seattle bike helmet law. People think our (US) way is the only way to do things despite the fact that many people in the world do things the other way, and seems to go fine for them. Read this and absorb some of that. Stepping back, where we choose (have been taught) to place our trust is kinda my focus these days. Why do we want to place that trust in the government, despite the evidence of better systems to trust? No reason the FDA needs to be a government org, your doctor and insurance company could agree on a more able org. Same for food safety, occupational licensing, etc.