Particulate-induced brain fog mailbag

Reparations, cancer, and elite overproduction

I do not care for this smoke situation. The East Coast of the United States has worse weather than the Pacific Coast or Europe but consistently better air quality. That’s our thing. Our calling card. It’s what we have going for us. And now this smoke? From Canada? Do not like.

Today’s good news does not, on first read, seem like good news. The charity GiveDirectly, which focuses on direct cash transfers, had $900,000 stolen in an elaborate fraud scheme that deprived thousands of extremely low-income people in the DRC of money that could’ve made a huge difference in their lives. Kelsey Piper at Vox’s Future Perfect has a detailed write-up here.

But while this was absolutely awful, it’s good that GiveDirectly is being so transparent about what happened. All aid organizations have to contend with fraud, and their story might help others detect similar problems. We’ve written before about our enthusiasm for GiveDirectly’s mission (Slow Boring readers have raised over $15,000 for the organization since that post), and will happily continue to support the organization in the future.

Now, on to your questions!

Wigan: How do you see the California's reparations situation playing out? Will they go ahead with payments of any meaningful size? Will other states follow California's lead? Will they trigger a political backlash? Will they close longstanding inequalities as their political proponents say they will?