Hi friends 👋,

Happy Friday and welcome back to our 119th Weekly Dose of Optimism.

Even during a busy election week with so much coverage and noise that I can barely hear myself think, the world did manage to produce some pretty interesting work over the last week including new work on ocean cleanups, endometriosis, bipolar disorder, and sugar. But let’s be real: this past week was all about the election.

Let’s get to it.

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(1) How the Trump Whale Correctly Called the Election

Alexander Osipovich for WSJ

In dozens of emails, Théo said his wager was essentially a bet against the accuracy of polling data. Describing himself as a wealthy Frenchman who had previously worked as a trader for several banks, he told the Journal that he began applying his mathematical know-how to analyze U.S. polls over the summer.

Packy here. This was the most fascinating election of my lifetime.

Back in November 2022, I wrote a piece called Decentralization, arguing that:

We’re heading towards an era of greater decentralization on all fronts – geopolitics, finance, education, journalism, and energy are just a few examples – driven by technologies including, but not limited to, the internet. This newly decentralized era will require new infrastructure and organizing principles that can adapt to the chaos and complexity inherent in decentralized systems.

This election was a perfect example of what I meant.

There were two new, defining things this cycle that weren’t there the last time:

1. Going Direct. The Trump campaign’s strategy involved speaking directly to the people, often through long podcasts, as opposed to letting the media define their message. I think Jared Kushner’s appearance on Lex Fridman was a turning point, and Elon Musk buying X and letting people say whatever they want was a key factor.

2. Prediction Markets. Platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi let people put their money behind their predictions, and outperformed traditional polls or media prognostications. Look at that meme! Polymarket nailed it two weeks out!

These two things are more related than they seem.

Going direct creates a more chaotic information environment. Anyone can get out there and tweet, write, or podcast a firehose of information at people, and people can choose to read or listen to whatever they want. There is no Dan Rather figure to package all of that information into a clean opinion.

It is messy — a lot of what people tweet and say is outright bullshit and downright wrong — but makes it more likely that the truth will surface given the right tools.

Prediction markets are those right tools. Anyone can take in whatever information they think is highest-signal, even commission information like the French Whale did with neighbor polls, and put their money behind their belief.

We are shooting a firehose of information at each other, and the market is essentially paying people to pull signal from the noise, in a totally decentralized manner.

Prediction markets are part of the “new infrastructure … that can adapt to the chaos and complexity inherent in decentralized systems.”

Maybe more than anything, this election was a repudiation of the idea that a small group of chosen people — no matter how smart — know better than the market. This is Joy’s Law: “No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else.”

Prediction markets can bring us closer to truth by incentivizing “most of the smartest people” to work on behalf of finding it, even if they’re not an American political scientist but an anonymous French ex-trader.

While politics were the first really big use case for prediction markets in the US, I expect that with greater liquidity on the platforms, we’ll see more accurate predictions for all sorts of things. If “All evils are caused by insufficient knowledge,” this is a good step towards eradicating it.

(2) Introducing: Ulysses

Our mission is to build technology for ocean stewardship and help usher in an age of abundance.

Yesterday, Ulysses came out of stealth and unveiled its plans to build underwater autonomous drones that they’ll use to restore sea grass (35x better at carbon capture than rainforests) … to start. Over time, they’ll also use the drones to collect environmental data, fight invasive species, support law enforcement, and enhance coastal security.

In this First Principles conversation with Christian Keil, Ulysses co-founder Akhil Voorakkara even hinted at a product coming down the pike that they call “Robo Shark.”

If there’s anything more up the McCormick brothers’ alley than a team of skilled Irish immigrants using technology to solve big problems, build Robo Sharks, and usher in an age of abundance, we’re yet to find it.

Will O’Brien and the lads moved to SF recently and they’re hiring, so if you’re looking for a fun way to save the world by building robots and putting them to work in tropical locations, then make like Sebastian and go under the sea.

(3) Nociceptor-to-macrophage communication through CGRP/RAMP1 signaling drives endometriosis-associated pain and lesion growth in mice

Fattori et al in Science

Fattori and colleagues identified that neuroimmune communication, mediated by the neuropeptide calcitonin gene–related peptide (CGRP), which is released from nociceptors and then binds to its coreceptor receptor activity modifying protein 1 (RAMP1) on macrophages, is critical to endometriosis pain and lesion size in a mouse model of endometriosis. Treating the mice with drugs that blocked CGRP-RAMP1 signaling led to reduced pain and lesion size.

Endometriosis is a chronic condition where tissue similar to the uterine lining grows outside the uterus, causing pain, inflammation, and sometimes infertility. It impacts about 10% of women of reproductive age in the U.S. or about 6.5 million people. It’s not only painful but is particularly scary as it can infertility. Frankly, if you’re a brute like me it’s not likely a condition you think about a lot, until it impacts someone you love, but it’s actually quite widespread.

Now, new research explored the role of neuroimmune communication in endometriosis, focusing on the calcitonin gene–related peptide (CGRP) and its receptor, RAMP1. The study shows that CGRP contributes to pain and lesion growth by altering macrophages into a pro-endometriosis phenotype. Blocking CGRP-RAMP1 signaling with FDA-approved drugs in mice reduced pain and lesion size.

There’s currently no cure for endometriosis and treatment options are limited to opioid-based pain relievers, hormonal therapy that eliminates menstruation, and some surgical options. But new therapeutic targets, such as the CGRP-RAMP1 signaling pathway, may offer future non-hormonal and non-opioid treatment options.

(4) Blood test could help diagnose bipolar disorder — but some researchers are sceptical

Astrid Landon for Nature

A test based on biomarkers aims to speed up diagnosis and enable prompt treatment. But not everyone is convinced.

A new blood test called EDIT-B, developed by French start-up Alcediag, uses RNA biomarkers to differentiate bipolar disorder from depression, aiming to cut diagnosis times from years to weeks. Bipolar disorder involves mood swings between mania (highs) and depression (lows), while depression is characterized by persistent low mood without manic episodes…the difference between the two may be observable in our genes. The EDIT-B test identifies differences in RNA editing—cellular processes that regulate gene expression—using specific biomarker patterns and an AI algorithm to distinguish bipolar disorder from depression with high accuracy. It analyzes these unique RNA editing signatures in a blood sample to classify patients.

This was surprising to me: it currently takes 7-10 years to accurately diagnose bipolar disorder. Diagnosing bipolar disorder takes particularly long because its symptoms overlap with other conditions and require observing mood swings over time. The EDIT-B test drastically reduces that diagnosis window — it doesn’t rely on observing behavior and mood swings over long periods of time, it relies on accurately reading biomarkers in your blood.

But the test is not without criticism, with skeptics pointing out lack of verification of the tests results, small sample sizes, and the potential influence of medications on the biomarkers it reads. Ultimately, France and Italy have adopted the tests in recent years signaling that the potential benefits of bipolar disorder early diagnosis outweigh their concerns with the testing methodology.

(5) Exposure to sugar rationing in the first 1000 days of life protected against chronic disease

Gracner et al in Science

We found that early-life rationing reduced diabetes and hypertension risk by about 35% and 20%, respectively, and delayed disease onset by 4 and 2 years.

The results of this study should come as a surprise to…absolutely no one. The study, leveraging post-WWII UK sugar rationing data, found that children conceived and born during rationing had a 35% lower risk of diabetes and a 20% lower risk of high blood pressure later in life. The study analyzed 60,000 individuals and found the strongest benefits among those exposed to sugar rationing both in utero and during early childhood — meaning the earlier you can stay off the sweet stuff, the better.

The study supports the idea that early nutrition has a lasting impact, even later into life. It’s not quite clear whether this impact is due to epigenitic changes — does consuming more sugar at younger ages alter your gene activity — or consumption behavior — does consuming more sugar at younger ages build a sugar habit that’s tough to kick — or some combination of the two. But either way, it’s quite clear that inappropriate sugar consumption, really at any age, can have a deleterious impact on your health.

RFK, Jr. is wrong about a lot of things, but I do certainly think he’s onto something with his criticisms of modern food systems. Here’s to hoping he takes aim at sugar instead of vaccines.

Bonus 1: Identity politics isn't working

Noah Smith for Noahpinion

Identity politics — viewing racial groups as homogeneous “communities” to be targeted with appeals to collective grievances — is not an effective way of winning over Hispanic (or, probably, Asian) voters.

OK, final take on politics here. This one from me, Dan.

Identify politics did not work as expected in the 2024 Presidential Election. This time around, that turned out to be a particularly positive trend for the Republicans, but I think the overall shift away from identity politics will benefit both parties, and the American people, going forward.

The idea of the two party system has always confounded me. Because I believe X thing to by true, I therefore must also support Y and Z thing, which has nothing to do with X. Identity politics takes it one step further: because you were born into a certain racial group, you are expected to adopt X belief in the first place, which then comes along with needing to support Y and Z. It’s downright patronizing. And I don’t think it holds up in the dynamics that Packy described above: with access to more information, a voter is less likely to just blindly follow the party line.

Hispanic men in the U.S, for example, are often portrayed as a unified voting bloc yet their political preferences vary widely based on factors like age, socioeconomic status, and and country of origin. A Cuban-American in Florida has very different political motivations than a Mexican-American in California, but they’ve been treated as the same, particularly by the Democrats who could, until recently, rely on consistent voting trends from the overall bloc. A Cuban-American man doesn’t necessarily align with Democrats on immigration policy, let alone economic and social issue, but has been grouped into this larger Hispanic male bloc that is supposed to vote Democrat.

This is not only a political miscalculation, but I think points towards a deeper issue on the American left today. The left has gotten away from individualism. This manifests in a bunch of dangerous ways: group think, patronizing policies, and, yes, wokeness. If 2024 taught us anything, it’s that expecting people to think in a certain way — and then holding them to task when they don’t — leads to backlash. People have too much information today to fall for it.

Going forward, I hope the left learns from 2024 and weans off its dependence on identity politics. Not only do they need to, if they ever want to win a national election again, but because I think the groups they aim to identify with will be better off for it.

Bonus 2: In Photos: See NASA Juno’s Jaw-Dropping New Images Of Jupiter

Jamie Carter for Forbes h/t Ian Bremmer and Tim Urban

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft just sent back new images of Jupiter and they’re stunning. As Tim Urban tweeted, “Jupiter is a better piece of art than anything we've made here.”

The universe is a big, beautiful place. We’re just small dots here for a very short time. It’s a gift. Don’t waste it worrying about things you can’t control. Shake it off and go control the things you can.

Have a great weekend y’all.

Thanks to Same Page HR for sponsoring! We’ll be back in your inbox on Tuesday.

Thanks for reading,

Packy + Dan