A Dead Man's Switch Method for Insuring Against Dementia

Dementia is a terrible condition that afflicts up to 1 in 3 of the elderly (and some younger people too). People with dementia suffer a gradual loss of their cognitive functions, including memories, emotional self-management, and such essential everyday abilities as chewing and swallowing food. Many people consider this gradual decay of personhood and independence a fate worse than death, your still living body turning into an empty husk, a drooling incontinent mindless - but still conscious - burden on your family and carers. 

What can be done to mitigate this risk? I propose a dead man's switch method for ensuring that your body cannot continue living without you in it. 

Two Failures Of Covid Science - And How To Do Better Next Time

While there have been obvious achievements by Covid science these should not obscure the very significant failures that have also occurred, such as around the politicisation of scientific advice and the delay in rolling out vaccine programmes. These failures may have allowed hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths, as well as extending and worsening the social and economic impact of the epidemic on billions of people. Nevertheless, the point of identifying such failures is not to allocate blame, but rather to plan for how to do things better in future.