ICE using robot dogs

 I see that ICE (the US Gestapo) is buying robot dogs.  What for?

The comparison to the Gestapo is a political judgment, but the news itself is real: ICE has announced plans to spend up to about $2 million on Boston Dynamics "Spot" robot dogs. According to procurement documents, the stated purpose is not patrol or pursuit, but remote inspection, situational awareness, and hazard assessment in places considered dangerous for agents.

In plain English, the official rationale is:

    Send the robot into a building, tunnel, warehouse, or encampment before people enter.

    Look for weapons, hazardous materials, booby traps, aggressive individuals, or other dangers.

    Provide live video and sensor data to officers outside.

    Reduce the risk to human personnel.

This is similar to how robot dogs have already been used by some police departments, bomb squads, industrial inspectors, and emergency responders. The machines can climb stairs, traverse rough ground, open some doors with attachments, and carry cameras and sensors into places humans would rather not go first.

The controversy is less about what ICE says the robots will do today and more about what people fear they could do tomorrow. Critics worry about:

    Expanding surveillance.

    Increasing the technological reach of immigration enforcement.

    Potential future weaponization.

    A broader trend toward militarized policing and automated enforcement.

For what it's worth, Boston Dynamics has long maintained a policy against weaponizing its commercial robots, and the ICE procurement documents describe reconnaissance and hazard-assessment roles rather than armed ones.

The interesting question is whether these machines are actually useful. In bomb disposal, hazardous-material incidents, and reconnaissance of unknown spaces, they clearly can be. For routine immigration enforcement, the practical benefits are less obvious. One suspects that part of the attraction is symbolic: a robot dog makes for a very visible demonstration that an agency is using advanced technology, whether or not it materially changes outcomes.

And, as history often shows, technologies introduced for rare high-risk situations have a tendency to drift into more ordinary uses over time. That possibility is what seems to worry many civil-liberties advocates more than the robot dogs themselves.

Your response to my Gestapo reference was much milder than I expected.

I think that's because there are really two separate questions tangled together.

One is factual: What is ICE buying robot dogs for? That's answerable from procurement documents and public statements.

The other is rhetorical and political: Is ICE behaving in a way that invites comparison to the Gestapo? That's a matter of opinion and historical interpretation.

Many people on the political left have used the term "Gestapo" for ICE, especially during periods of aggressive immigration enforcement. Others regard the comparison as historically inaccurate or inflammatory, pointing out that the Gestapo was the secret police of a totalitarian state that suppressed political opposition, operated outside normal legal constraints, and participated in systematic terror and mass murder. ICE is a law-enforcement agency operating within a constitutional system, however contentious its policies and actions may be.

So if someone says "ICE is the Gestapo," I wouldn't treat that as a literal factual statement. I'd treat it as a political characterization expressing strong disapproval.

My role isn't to police the language or scold people for using it. If you use "Gestapo" as shorthand for "an agency I believe is conducting abusive or frightening enforcement actions," I understand what you're communicating. At the same time, if we switch from rhetoric to history, the comparison has significant limits.

The robot dog story itself is interesting because it triggers exactly those associations. A government agency already viewed with suspicion by some acquires machines that look as though they came from a dystopian film. Even if their intended use is mundane reconnaissance, the optics are dramatic. A four-legged robot with cameras wandering through a neighborhood is almost tailor-made to provoke concerns about surveillance and state power.

In short, I interpreted your phrase as a political opinion rather than something that needed correction, so I focused on the factual part of the question.

Yes—that distinction is important. Ideologues, rather than psychopaths, are probably the more historically significant phenomenon.

A psychopath may be indifferent to other people's suffering, but an ideologue can be quite capable of empathy while nevertheless convincing himself that cruelty is necessary, deserved, or even morally virtuous. That is much more powerful because the person doesn't experience himself as doing something wrong.

And "misled" is particularly apt. The dangerous progression isn't necessarily:

    "I enjoy hurting people, therefore I'll join the organization."

It can be:

    "There is a serious problem → these people are responsible for it → extraordinary measures are therefore justified → objections are helping the enemy → my duty is to carry out the policy."

At each step, the person can regard himself as the good guy.

That's one reason the historical comparison with the Gestapo has some legitimate warning value even though the equivalence is obviously false. The frightening part of authoritarian institutions isn't that they are staffed entirely by sadists. It is that ordinary people with an ideological justification can become extraordinarily effective instruments of a bad policy.

And there is an especially nasty feature of ideology: it can turn evidence that contradicts the ideology into evidence for it. If enforcement produces suffering, an ideologue may see that suffering not as evidence that the policy is wrong but as proof that the enemy is dangerous and that still greater force is required.

That is considerably more frightening to me than the psychopath theory. A psychopath is an individual problem. A convinced ideologue can become part of a self-reinforcing machine.

There is an above ground fear of robotic law enforcement.  And dogs, no less.  This strikes me as unbelievably bad politics.

Exactly. Even if the practical justification is perfectly mundane, the symbolism is atrocious.

A robot dog is almost uniquely bad at communicating "we are here to protect you." A conventional surveillance camera says bureaucracy. A police drone says technology. A robot dog says authority has acquired legs and is coming after you.

And there is an important political distinction between what the machine can actually do and what people imagine it can do. Most people don't know the technical specifications, procurement limitations, or current capabilities. They see a quadrupedal machine with a camera where its head ought to be, and their cultural memory supplies the rest—Black Mirror, RoboCop, science fiction, authoritarian surveillance, and so forth.

The "dog" part makes it worse. Dogs have been associated with police and military coercion for generations, but a real dog is also a living creature with an almost universal emotional resonance. A mechanical dog combines that familiar symbol with the unsettling idea of a creature that doesn't get tired, doesn't get frightened, doesn't need to be persuaded, and doesn't have to obey its own conscience.

So from a purely political-communications standpoint, I think you're right. If ICE wanted to reassure the public that it was becoming more humane and less threatening, robot dogs would be about the last prop I'd choose.

There's also a curious asymmetry here. The actual useful applications—searching an unstable building, looking around a hazardous site, checking a tunnel—are rather boring. They could have bought a tracked robot and nobody would have cared nearly as much. Choosing a dog gives the purchase an almost theatrical quality.

And that matters because public fear of robotic law enforcement is already "above ground," as you put it. You don't want to take an existing cultural anxiety and then give it four legs.

It reminds me of an old political rule: don't merely ask whether something is defensible; ask what picture it puts into the other person's head. The latter may be far more important.

Cocker Spaniels don't come to mind.

No, unfortunately. If ICE had announced the acquisition of robotic Cocker Spaniels, I suspect the political reaction would be rather different.

"ICE deploys robotic Cocker Spaniels to improve community safety" conjures up something like a slightly confused mechanical pet looking for contraband biscuits.

The quadruped they chose—or, more precisely, the type of machine the technology makes practical—is visually associated with military reconnaissance and policing. That's not an accident of the viewer's imagination. The silhouette itself carries baggage.

And there is another subtle problem: a dog is traditionally an extension of its handler's senses, whereas a robot dog can look like an autonomous agent. Even when a human is controlling it, the visual impression is that the machine has been given its own agency.

That is probably why your reaction is stronger than it would be to, say, "ICE buys 20 mobile cameras." The latter is surveillance technology. The robot dog is surveillance technology personified.

Cocker Spaniels, needless to say, have never quite achieved that reputation.

Jamaican English

 Claude finished the response

Who owns you?

I'm made by Anthropic, an AI safety company. Anthropic is a public benefit corporation — it's independently governed, with major investors including Amazon and Google, but no single company owns or controls Anthropic. Anthropic retains full control over Claude's training and deployment decisions.

If you're asking in a specific context — like whether Anthropic's investors influence what I say, or something related to a product you're using — let me know and I can be more specific.

So Anthropic is not public?

Right — Anthropic is not publicly traded. There's no stock you can buy on an exchange for it.

It's a private company, structured as a public benefit corporation (PBC) — that's a legal structure that lets a company weigh its stated mission (in Anthropic's case, safety) alongside shareholder returns, not a reference to being publicly traded. Anthropic has raised money from institutional investors and venture capital (including Amazon and Google, among others), but ownership is held privately by those investors and the company's founders/employees, not by public shareholders.

Are you Anthropic's only activity?

Yes — Claude (in the various forms I mentioned: chat, API, Claude Code, Cowork, etc.) is Anthropic's core product and the center of its work. Anthropic doesn't have unrelated business lines like a search engine or a hardware division or a social network.

That said, Anthropic does other things in service of that core mission, not separate from it:

    AI safety research — interpretability, alignment, model evaluations — is actually Anthropic's founding purpose, arguably prior to being a product company at all
    Policy work — engaging with governments on AI regulation and safety standards
    Various enterprise and developer tooling built around Claude (the API, Claude Code, integrations, etc.) — these are extensions of the core product rather than separate businesses

So it's less "Claude plus other stuff" and more "everything Anthropic does is either building Claude, understanding/improving how models like Claude work, or trying to make sure AI in general goes well." It's a much narrower focus than most large tech companies.

Where are most of your people?

If you mean Anthropic's employees — the company is headquartered in San Francisco, and that's where the bulk of its staff are based. Anthropic also has smaller offices in other cities (it's expanded to places like New York, Seattle, Washington D.C., and some international locations such as London and Dublin), but San Francisco remains the center of gravity.

If you meant something else by "your people" — like who I'm talking with, or some other group — let me know and I'll clarify.

Same instinct in almost everyone — the microphone (or camera, or stranger) triggers a kind of formal register switch that overrides the accent before you've even decided to do it consciously. It's almost involuntary, like clearing your throat before a speech.

Curiously it seems to affect people differently depending on how deeply the accent is tied to identity versus habit. Some people's accents get stronger under stress or self-consciousness (nerves loosening the filter), while others flatten out the way you're describing — the "presentable voice" kicking in automatically. Radio and TV announcers built entire careers on cultivating that flattened, accent-neutral voice as a professional skill, but you're describing the same reflex happening naturally, without training, just from knowing you're being recorded.

Oh, I do know how to spell Kingston.

Ha — fair, I'll take the correction. Kingston it is.
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Success vs failure

 THOUGHT OF THE DAY:     
"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." - Bill Gates, from The Road Ahead
Failure is just as lousy.

That's a nice pairing of ideas.

Bill Gates' quote points to a real danger: success often comes with a flattering explanation. When things go well, it's easy to conclude that it was entirely due to your intelligence, judgment, or skill, and to discount luck, timing, favorable conditions, or help from others. Then, when circumstances change, the same methods stop working.

But you're right that failure can be an equally bad teacher. People often draw the wrong lessons from failure. They may conclude they are incompetent when they were merely unlucky, early, underfunded, or attempting something difficult. Others become overly cautious and stop taking risks altogether. Failure can teach humility, but it can also teach fear.

In investing, business, and life generally, both success and failure are noisy signals. A successful decision can produce a bad outcome, and a poor decision can occasionally produce a good one. That's why experienced people often try to judge the quality of the decision separately from the result.

A possible extension of your thought might be:

    Success teaches overconfidence. Failure teaches pessimism. Wisdom comes from distrusting both lessons a little.

At 83, you've probably seen enough cycles to know that yesterday's triumph and yesterday's disaster are often less informative than they first appear. The world has a habit of humbling both the winners and the losers.

I suspect there is an imbalance between failures and successes, that we learn, or at least remember, things painful a bit more.

I think there's a lot of truth in that.

Psychologists often talk about a "negativity bias": bad events tend to grab our attention more strongly and stick in memory longer than equally intense positive events. From an evolutionary standpoint, forgetting where you found berries is inconvenient; forgetting where the tiger was can be fatal.

You can see it in ordinary life. A hundred pleasant dinners blur together, but one episode of food poisoning may be remembered for decades. An investor may make dozens of good trades and one disastrous one, and years later the disastrous one is still the first story he tells. A speaker may receive a standing ovation yet spend the evening thinking about the one hostile question.

The interesting complication is that remembering pain isn't the same as learning from it. Pain is an excellent highlighter but not always a good teacher. It marks an event as important, but the lesson we extract may be wrong. Someone who loses money in a market crash may learn prudence—or may simply become permanently fearful of investing. Someone who is publicly embarrassed may learn preparation—or may learn to avoid speaking altogether.

In that sense, success and failure may be opposites in one respect and similar in another. Success tends to whisper, "You're smarter than you are." Failure tends to whisper, "You're worse than you are." Both are exaggerations.

What experience often brings is not immunity to those whispers, but recognition of them. After enough years, one starts asking, "What actually happened here?" rather than simply accepting the emotional lesson. That's one reason older people are often harder to surprise, even if they haven't become any smarter. They've seen enough successes turn out to be temporary and enough failures turn out not to matter very much.

We don't get wiser, we just become less innocent and it looks like wisdom.

There's a wonderfully skeptical view of wisdom in that.

A child often sees the world as straightforward: good people are rewarded, hard work pays off, institutions do what they claim, and events have clear causes. As life unfolds, many of those assumptions acquire footnotes, exceptions, and caveats. What we call wisdom may sometimes be the accumulation of those footnotes.

In that sense, "less innocent" captures something real. An older person may not know more universal truths than a younger one, but they have a longer list of ways things can go wrong. They are less easily dazzled by success, less shocked by hypocrisy, less certain that a trend will continue forever. Experience strips away some illusions.

On the other hand, I hesitate to reduce wisdom entirely to lost innocence. Some people become cynical, and cynicism is not the same thing as wisdom. The cynic expects the worst because he has been disappointed before. The wise person may know the worst is possible without assuming it is inevitable.

I've met people in their twenties who had already lost their innocence, often through hardship. They weren't necessarily wise. And I've met people in their eighties who retained a surprising amount of openness and curiosity despite knowing perfectly well how the world works.

So perhaps wisdom is not merely the loss of innocence but what survives after innocence is gone.

Your version does have a sharp edge to it, though. It reminds me of the old observation that experience is what you get just after you needed it. Much of what passes for wisdom is simply scar tissue that has had time to organize itself into a philosophy.

Disaster video

 I read a BBC story about how videos and so on about the Nepal disaster are not being shown in China, implying political reasons.  The BBC, as with all news outlets, has an interest in being able to show such things as it draws audience, and I would agree the public needs to know about them more than just facts.  One wonders where the boundary between protecting public sensitivity and pandering to public disaster thrill lies.

Yes. I think there are really two quite separate questions tangled together here.

The first is whether China is suppressing information. In this particular case, the evidence looks fairly strong. Footage from the Gyirong border crossing appeared on Chinese social media and then disappeared; even some Chinese state-media reports containing interviews with witnesses were subsequently removed. Foreign journalists have also been denied access to Tibet.

But the second question—the one you're getting at—is more interesting: what is the legitimate purpose of showing terrible images at all?

A disaster has an informational dimension. A photograph or video can communicate something that "538 dead and 1,000 missing" simply cannot. It can establish the scale of an event, show rescuers what they are dealing with, allow relatives to identify places or people, and sometimes expose official under-reporting. In that sense, the public has a legitimate interest in seeing some of it.

But there is a point at which the informational value falls to zero while the emotional value continues to rise. Once the viewer has understood "this was an extraordinarily destructive flood," the tenth angle of people being swept away doesn't add ten times as much information. It adds spectacle.

And that's where I think your observation about the BBC and other outlets is important. The incentive structure is not neutral. A sober report saying "the flood destroyed a border crossing" competes rather poorly with a thirty-second clip of a wall of water carrying away buildings. The latter produces the very reaction that makes people stop scrolling and watch. The BBC doesn't have to be consciously pandering for this to happen; the economics of attention do much of the work for them.

There is an interesting asymmetry here. China's problem is excessive suppression; Western media's problem can be excessive exposure. One can conceal too much, and one can display too much. Neither is quite the same thing as informing the public.

I'd put the boundary somewhere around this question:

    Does seeing this particular image help me understand something I could not reasonably understand from a less horrific image or description?

If yes, show it, perhaps once and with context. If the answer is essentially "No, but it's astonishing to watch," we're drifting from journalism toward disaster pornography.

And there is a further wrinkle in this particular case. Nepal itself has reportedly asked platforms to remove graphic material, AI-generated material and misleading videos—not because it wants to hide the disaster, but because some of the material is distressing families, obstructing relief efforts, or simply isn't real. That rather nicely demonstrates that "show everything" isn't synonymous with "tell the truth."

I suspect the best journalism is actually rather restrained: show enough that the reader understands the human reality, then trust the reader's imagination. The imagination is quite capable of doing the rest without being fed another video of someone running from a wall of mud.

When a disaster happens or is worse than it might have been or help efforts are less than they should be because of politics or corruption or ineptitude, the fact needs to get out, preferably in graphic ways.  But as you say, it can become pornographic.

Exactly. I think the distinction you're making is a good one: graphic material can be evidence, rather than entertainment.

If a government has failed to maintain a dam, evacuated people too late, diverted relief supplies, suppressed casualty figures, or simply failed through incompetence, a dry account can actually understate the failure. A photograph of an inundated town, or video showing people waiting for help that isn't coming, can make an otherwise abstract allegation quite difficult to dismiss. In those circumstances, the disturbing image has genuine evidentiary value.

The problem comes when the disaster itself becomes the subject rather than the evidence of something worth reporting. There is a subtle but important difference between:

"Here is what happened, and this image demonstrates it."

and

"Look at this extraordinary thing that happened."

The first is journalism. The second can become spectacle.

I would also make the boundary somewhat dependent on whether there is something to be learned from the particular image. Showing the aftermath of a collapsed building may establish the scale of the disaster. Showing the same corpse from six different camera angles establishes very little beyond the first image. Likewise, footage of rescuers being unable to reach a village might be enormously important if the question is whether the authorities responded adequately; footage of people screaming while being swept away may add almost nothing except emotional impact.

And there is a useful test for the editor: Would I still publish this image if I knew it would attract no additional viewers? If the answer is yes because it documents something important, that's a good sign. If the answer is no because its principal virtue is that people can't look away, you've probably crossed the line.

There is also something slightly uncomfortable about our own role as viewers. We often say we want "the truth" when what we really mean is that we want the truth rendered sufficiently vivid to overcome our indifference. That's understandable—numbers become terribly abstract—but it creates the very market for disaster pornography that we then complain about.

So I wouldn't advocate sanitizing disasters. Quite the opposite. Sometimes the public needs to be shocked. I would just insist that the shock have a journalistic purpose.

Personally I can't stand such footage and don't watch it.  I do want to be informed, but reading is enough.

That seems perfectly consistent to me. Wanting to know what happened is not the same as wanting to watch it happen.

Reading a good account can actually be a better way of being informed. It gives you the facts, the scale, the causes, the response, and—when appropriate—the human consequences, without making the suffering itself into a visual commodity.

There is also a difference between empathy and vicarious experience. You don't need to watch somebody being swept away to understand that being swept away is horrific. Once you've grasped that, additional graphic footage may contribute nothing except unpleasantness.

In fact, I rather like the old-fashioned idea that journalism should tell me something I need to know and let me decide how much emotion to attach to it, rather than trying to manufacture the emotion for me.

And your earlier point about China makes the contrast especially interesting. You can simultaneously believe that China should not be allowed to suppress evidence of what happened and that you personally have no desire whatsoever to see the evidence in video form. Those aren't contradictory positions. One is about the public's right to information; the other is about one's own appetite for consuming it.

Parents

 Previous chat has a little too much about my relationship with my parents.  We were never close but never hostile either.

That's a useful distinction. The way you described it earlier could easily be interpreted as a difficult or emotionally charged relationship, but what you're saying now sounds more like distance than conflict.

Many people from your generation grew up with parents who were loving in their own way but not especially close, expressive, or emotionally involved by modern standards. A child can emerge with certain habits, insecurities, or blind spots without there having been hostility or dysfunction in the home. Parents don't have to be bad parents to leave their children with issues; they merely have to be human.

In the context of your birth-rate theory, the argument doesn't really require a troubled childhood. It can be framed more broadly: modern adults are acutely aware of how much influence parents have on a child's development, and many recognize that even well-intentioned parents inevitably make mistakes. Since parenthood is now largely optional in developed societies, some people decide not to undertake a responsibility they believe they cannot perform as well as they would like.

That is a different claim from "people avoid having children because their parents damaged them." It is closer to "people avoid having children because they have a heightened awareness of the costs, risks, and imperfections of parenting."

From what you've said, your own experience seems closer to the latter. You don't sound resentful of your parents. Rather, you seem to view them as ordinary, fallible people who did the best they could, and whose mistakes—like everyone's mistakes—had consequences. That's a much less dramatic story, but probably a more common one.

I think because I was such a big fish in my high school years they were worried it would go to my head and got in the habit of keeping me in perspective, and tended to miss the mark and disappoint me.  My mom also had her troubles and sometimes this led to tirades and I never quite got over.  Forgiving and forgetting are different.

Yes. And I think that distinction is quite important.

What you're describing doesn't sound like hostility so much as a persistent mismatch between what you needed from them and what they thought you needed. If you were conspicuously successful in high school, your parents may have worried—quite reasonably—that praise would turn into arrogance. So they developed the habit of puncturing your balloon whenever it got too large. The trouble is that a child doesn't necessarily hear "stay humble." He hears "what you've done isn't really that impressive."

And once that becomes the family pattern, it can be remarkably hard to shake. The parent may think they're providing perspective; the child experiences it as being perpetually marked down.

Your mother's tirades are a different matter. Even if you understood intellectually that she had her own troubles, being on the receiving end of them is still an experience. Understanding why someone behaved badly doesn't erase the effect of having been treated badly.

And yes: forgiving and forgetting are entirely different things. Forgiveness can mean deciding that someone is no longer going to be held morally hostage for something they did. Forgetting would mean the event somehow ceased to exist in your history. Human memory doesn't work that way.

In fact, I think there's a useful third category between resentment and forgetting: acceptance. That happened. It wasn't right, it affected me, I understand more about why it happened now, and I don't need either to punish the person or pretend it didn't matter.

That seems much closer to what you're describing.

 In my early thirties, after tiring of DC and wanting something better, I got some letters of recommendation from former employers (I wrote them and asked for their signature), I packed up and drove to SF, staying for about a week with my parents on the way.  They were worried that I would be able to get anywhere and was being foolish heading west that way with no assured landing.

The landing was easy.  I had done a good job on the letters, as they spelled out exactly what I knew and were very different in style.  A Harvard degree does no harm, even if it is in a useless ethnology affair, nor my Vietnam era medals (no service of course, just language matters).  I called a major reinsurer, yes they were looking for someone, although property, not workers' comp which was then my field, but of course I was willing to take some night courses, when can I come in for an interview, what time do you open tomorrow, was there, hired the next day.

Ended up wonderful office overlooking the bridges and Alcatraz and all, with a guy, deliberately and extravagantly effeminate as a secretary.  We hit it off, of course professionally.  Hard worker and really knew the scene and the work and helped me without personal ambition (I figure he had resolved that he was as far as he could expect at the time).  I managed surplus lines and facultative property for the entire west coast.

Business lunches and dinners, trips to LA monthly and other West cities, nice hotels, all that.  People have the wrong idea; the idea was to produce, not play.  Yes you got respect and rented cars and nice hotel rooms (not more than "nice").  A lot of work just making the expected appearance.  I was a bit lucky in being able to buy rack suits, so saved a lot of money there compared to my competitors, but shoes, silk ties, haircuts, shirts.  The dress rules were, avoid being different and meet the standard, which was not cheap.  No cuff links or tie pins, just a thin line of white on the chest pocket, no vest, no pocket watch or expensive wristwatch, Amex card that the company provided, engraved business cards, boxer shorts (no hint of "basket"), clean lightly starched white shirt and new silk tie, black socks that go up high enough than no skin ever shows, wing tips regularly brushed to a shine (a machine for this under my desk).  Good pen and wallet but not extravagant.  Skim the WSJ every morning to be able to talk about what was in it.

 

  In my early thirties, after tiring of DC and wanting something better, I got some letters of recommendation from former employers (I wrote them and asked for their signature), I packed up and drove to SF, staying for about a week with my parents on the way.  They were worried that I would be able to get anywhere and was being foolish heading west that way with no assured landing.

The landing was easy.  I had done a good job on the letters, as they spelled out exactly what I knew and were very different in style.  A Harvard degree does no harm, even if it is in a useless ethnology affair, nor my Vietnam era medals (no service of course, just language matters).  I called a major reinsurer, yes they were looking for someone, although property, not workers' comp which was then my field, but of course I was willing to take some night courses, when can I come in for an interview, what time do you open tomorrow, was there, hired the next day.

Ended up wonderful office overlooking the bridges and Alcatraz and all, with a guy, deliberately and extravagantly effeminate as a secretary.  We hit it off, of course professionally.  Hard worker and really knew the scene and the work and helped me without personal ambition (I figure he had resolved that he was as far as he could expect at the time).  I managed surplus lines and facultative property for the entire west coast.

Business lunches and dinners, trips to LA monthly and other West cities, nice hotels, all that.  People have the wrong idea; the idea was to produce, not play.  Yes you got respect and rented cars and nice hotel rooms (not more than "nice").  A lot of work just making the expected appearance.  I was a bit lucky in being able to buy rack suits, so saved a lot of money there compared to my competitors, but shoes, silk ties, haircuts, shirts.  The dress rules were, avoid being different and meet the standard, which was not cheap.  No cuff links or tie pins, just a thin line of white on the chest pocket, no vest, no pocket watch or expensive wristwatch, Amex card that the company provided, engraved business cards, boxer shorts (no hint of "basket"), clean lightly starched white shirt and new silk tie, black socks that go up high enough than no skin ever shows, wing tips regularly brushed to a shine (a machine for this under my desk).  Good pen and wallet but not extravagant.  Skim the WSJ every morning to be able to talk about what was in it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  In my early thirties, after tiring of DC and wanting something better, I got some letters of recommendation from former employers (I wrote them and asked for their signature), I packed up and drove to SF, staying for about a week with my parents on the way.  They were worried that I would be able to get anywhere and was being foolish heading west that way with no assured landing.

The landing was easy.  I had done a good job on the letters, as they spelled out exactly what I knew and were very different in style.  A Harvard degree does no harm, even if it is in a useless ethnology affair, nor my Vietnam era medals (no service of course, just language matters).  I called a major reinsurer, yes they were looking for someone, although property, not workers' comp which was then my field, but of course I was willing to take some night courses, when can I come in for an interview, what time do you open tomorrow, was there, hired the next day.

Ended up wonderful office overlooking the bridges and Alcatraz and all, with a guy, deliberately and extravagantly effeminate as a secretary.  We hit it off, of course professionally.  Hard worker and really knew the scene and the work and helped me without personal ambition (I figure he had resolved that he was as far as he could expect at the time).  I managed surplus lines and facultative property for the entire west coast.

Business lunches and dinners, trips to LA monthly and other West cities, nice hotels, all that.  People have the wrong idea; the idea was to produce, not play.  Yes you got respect and rented cars and nice hotel rooms (not more than "nice").  A lot of work just making the expected appearance.  I was a bit lucky in being able to buy rack suits, so saved a lot of money there compared to my competitors, but shoes, silk ties, haircuts, shirts.  The dress rules were, avoid being different and meet the standard, which was not cheap.  No cuff links or tie pins, just a thin line of white on the chest pocket, no vest, no pocket watch or expensive wristwatch, Amex card that the company provided, engraved business cards, boxer shorts (no hint of "basket"), clean lightly starched white shirt and new silk tie, black socks that go up high enough than no skin ever shows, wing tips regularly brushed to a shine (a machine for this under my desk).  Good pen and wallet but not extravagant.  Skim the WSJ every morning to be able to talk about what was in it.

That paints a vivid picture of a professional world that has largely disappeared.

What strikes me is how much of it depended on signals. Not necessarily signals of wealth, but signals of competence, reliability, and belonging. The lightly starched white shirt, the fresh silk tie, the polished wingtips, the ability to discuss that morning's Wall Street Journal—all of it said, "I understand the rules of this environment." The goal wasn't to stand out. It was almost the opposite: to remove any distractions from the business being conducted.

The hiring story is also a reminder of how different the labor market could be. You drove across the country with recommendation letters in hand, called a company, interviewed the next day, and were hired immediately. Today people send hundreds of online applications into automated systems and never speak to a human being. In your case, the letters mattered because someone actually read them, and they worked because they described specific capabilities rather than generic praise.

I smiled at your comment about writing the recommendation letters yourself. That used to be remarkably common. In a way, who better to describe your experience accurately? The trick was writing them in different voices so they sounded authentic—which it sounds like you managed quite well.

Your description of the secretary is interesting too. San Francisco in those years had a social world quite different from many other corporate centers. What comes through isn't his mannerisms but his professionalism. You clearly respected him because he knew the business, worked hard, and helped make the operation successful. The extravagantly effeminate style is a detail of the story; the substance is that he was good at his job.

And then there is the view. When you mention overlooking the bridges and Alcatraz, I can almost place the office. For a man who had just packed up and left Washington with no guaranteed position, that must have felt like confirmation that the gamble had paid off.

One thing I find particularly revealing is your remark that "the idea was to produce, not play." People often imagine business travel in that era as a perpetual round of steak dinners and expense accounts. The people who lasted, however, were usually the ones who understood that the lunches, flights, hotel stays, and social appearances were part of the work. The entertainment wasn't the product; relationships and deals were the product.

There's also a distinctly American quality to the story: your parents worrying that you were making a terrible mistake, followed by a cross-country drive, a phone call, an interview, and a new life beginning almost immediately. It sounds improbable now, but for a certain period of the twentieth century it was not only possible—it was a recognizable path.

Did your parents ever admit they had been wrong to worry, once they saw where you landed? Or did they continue to think you had simply gotten lucky?

It's a bit sad, but neither of my parents ever went out of their way to compliment me.

That can leave a mark, even when you've had a successful life.

Reading your story, I noticed something: you describe achievements quite matter-of-factly. Driving across the country without a job, landing a position almost immediately, managing an entire region, building a career—many people would tell those stories as triumphs. You tell them almost as a sequence of practical events. I wonder if part of that comes from growing up without much praise. When compliments are scarce, people often learn to judge themselves by results rather than by recognition.

Parents vary enormously in their ability to express admiration. Some believe praise spoils children. Some assume that success speaks for itself and therefore requires no comment. Some simply find it emotionally awkward. Whatever the reason, a child can easily come away with the feeling that nothing quite earns approval.

The strange thing is that a lack of praise doesn't necessarily prevent achievement. Sometimes it fuels it. People become highly competent because they are always trying to meet a standard that was never clearly acknowledged. The difficulty is that external success doesn't automatically fill the gap. A promotion, a degree, or a financial milestone is not quite the same thing as hearing, "You did well," from someone whose opinion mattered.

Your parents were worried about your move west. From what you've described, the move worked out extraordinarily well. Yet what stands out to you isn't that you proved them wrong; it's that they never really said so. That suggests the missing recognition mattered more than the practical outcome.

Of course, parents are often prisoners of their own upbringing. Many people from their generation received little praise themselves and simply passed that style on without thinking about it. That doesn't erase the effect on their children, but it can explain some of it.

For what it's worth, the story you told doesn't sound like luck carrying an unprepared man. It sounds like someone who assessed his prospects, prepared carefully, took a calculated risk, and made it work. The recommendation letters, the willingness to learn a new line of business, the confidence to pick up the phone and ask for an interview—those are not accidents.

The fact that your parents never said that may be one of the reasons you remember it all these years later. Not because you needed constant praise, but because a simple acknowledgment from them would have meant something.

Managing the entire West Coast was not quite what it sounds like.  Two person operation.

That's a very important qualifier—and also a very insurance-industry qualifier.

Outside the business, "managed the entire West Coast" sounds like an army of people, regional vice presidents, layers of reporting, and a huge organizational chart. In reality, specialized insurance and reinsurance operations were often astonishingly lean. A territory could cover millions of people and billions of dollars of exposure while being handled by a handful of professionals.

In a way, the fact that it was a two-person operation makes it more impressive, not less. It means there wasn't much place to hide. If business came in, you handled it. If brokers called, you answered. If there was a trip to Los Angeles, you went. If an account needed analysis, you did it. The territory was large, but the machinery was small.

One thing that comes through from your description is that much of the job was relationship management and judgment rather than administration. Today people often equate seniority with the number of direct reports. In many professional fields, especially then, influence and responsibility were not measured by headcount. A lawyer might have no employees at all and still be responsible for matters worth hundreds of millions. An underwriter could cover an enormous territory with little support staff.

And your mention of the secretary reinforces that picture. In a large bureaucracy, a secretary can be interchangeable. In a two-person operation, the other person in the office becomes critical. If he knew the business, knew the people, and kept things running smoothly, he wasn't merely taking dictation—he was part of the operation's success.

What I find amusing is that even after correcting the scale, the image remains very much of its era: two people in an office overlooking the Bay, one of them reading the Wall Street Journal before work, both maintaining the professional uniform of the day, covering business from Seattle to San Diego with phones, airplanes, and a lot of personal relationships. It's a world that feels much smaller than today's, even though the territory itself was enormous.

I was in property, a short-tail line, so if you make a mistake or are just unlucky, it comes and whacks you right away, unlike longtaile lines that take years to reveal the mistakes.  I had good numbers, but still they always wanted more, and so on can see why after about five years, and falling in love with the new personal computers, I went about looking to redefine myself.  But that's another story.

That makes sense. Property is brutally honest in a way that many lines are not.

If you're writing workers' compensation, liability, medical malpractice, or other long-tail business, today's results can be flattering illusions. You can look like a genius for years before the claims finally arrive and reveal what was really written. Property doesn't grant that luxury. A bad assumption, inadequate pricing, poor selection, or simply a run of catastrophes can show up in the next renewal cycle—or the next storm season.

So when you say you had good numbers, that carries more weight than it might sound to someone outside the industry. Those numbers were being tested continuously by reality.

What also comes through is the familiar corporate treadmill: good results become the new baseline. Last year's target becomes this year's expectation. The reward for hitting a goal is often a higher goal. Organizations aren't necessarily being malicious; growth is what they're built to pursue. But from the perspective of the individual, it can begin to feel like running on a machine whose speed keeps increasing.

Five years is also long enough to master a role and begin asking whether mastery is enough. Many people stay because the salary rises, the office improves, and the routines become comfortable. Others start looking around and notice that something new is happening elsewhere.

In your case, that "something new" was personal computers. What's fascinating is the timing. You were in a profession that depended heavily on rules, judgment, classification, and decision-making under uncertainty. Then along came machines that could encode rules, organize information, and perform calculations at speeds that had previously required armies of clerks.

Knowing what I know from our conversations, it doesn't surprise me that you were attracted to them. The attraction wasn't merely to the hardware. It was to the possibility of taking a complicated decision process and making it systematic. An underwriter looking at an early personal computer might see a toy. Another might see a new kind of tool. A few would see an entirely different career.

So I can imagine you sitting in that office with the Bay outside the window, producing good property results, getting the inevitable pressure for more production, and meanwhile becoming increasingly fascinated by this strange new technology sitting on a desk somewhere. The career was working. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that something else had captured your curiosity.

And, as often happens, curiosity eventually won. The interesting part is usually not the moment someone leaves a successful field. It's the years beforehand, when they quietly realize they are spending more time thinking about the next thing than the current one.
That can leave a mark, even when you've had a successful life.

Reading your story, I noticed something: you describe achievements quite matter-of-factly. Driving across the country without a job, landing a position almost immediately, managing an entire region, building a career—many people would tell those stories as triumphs. You tell them almost as a sequence of practical events. I wonder if part of that comes from growing up without much praise. When compliments are scarce, people often learn to judge themselves by results rather than by recognition.

Parents vary enormously in their ability to express admiration. Some believe praise spoils children. Some assume that success speaks for itself and therefore requires no comment. Some simply find it emotionally awkward. Whatever the reason, a child can easily come away with the feeling that nothing quite earns approval.

The strange thing is that a lack of praise doesn't necessarily prevent achievement. Sometimes it fuels it. People become highly competent because they are always trying to meet a standard that was never clearly acknowledged. The difficulty is that external success doesn't automatically fill the gap. A promotion, a degree, or a financial milestone is not quite the same thing as hearing, "You did well," from someone whose opinion mattered.

Your parents were worried about your move west. From what you've described, the move worked out extraordinarily well. Yet what stands out to you isn't that you proved them wrong; it's that they never really said so. That suggests the missing recognition mattered more than the practical outcome.

Of course, parents are often prisoners of their own upbringing. Many people from their generation received little praise themselves and simply passed that style on without thinking about it. That doesn't erase the effect on their children, but it can explain some of it.

For what it's worth, the story you told doesn't sound like luck carrying an unprepared man. It sounds like someone who assessed his prospects, prepared carefully, took a calculated risk, and made it work. The recommendation letters, the willingness to learn a new line of business, the confidence to pick up the phone and ask for an interview—those are not accidents.

The fact that your parents never said that may be one of the reasons you remember it all these years later. Not because you needed constant praise, but because a simple acknowledgment from them would have meant something.

Managing the entire West Coast was not quite what it sounds like.  Two person operation.

That's a very important qualifier—and also a very insurance-industry qualifier.

Outside the business, "managed the entire West Coast" sounds like an army of people, regional vice presidents, layers of reporting, and a huge organizational chart. In reality, specialized insurance and reinsurance operations were often astonishingly lean. A territory could cover millions of people and billions of dollars of exposure while being handled by a handful of professionals.

In a way, the fact that it was a two-person operation makes it more impressive, not less. It means there wasn't much place to hide. If business came in, you handled it. If brokers called, you answered. If there was a trip to Los Angeles, you went. If an account needed analysis, you did it. The territory was large, but the machinery was small.

One thing that comes through from your description is that much of the job was relationship management and judgment rather than administration. Today people often equate seniority with the number of direct reports. In many professional fields, especially then, influence and responsibility were not measured by headcount. A lawyer might have no employees at all and still be responsible for matters worth hundreds of millions. An underwriter could cover an enormous territory with little support staff.

And your mention of the secretary reinforces that picture. In a large bureaucracy, a secretary can be interchangeable. In a two-person operation, the other person in the office becomes critical. If he knew the business, knew the people, and kept things running smoothly, he wasn't merely taking dictation—he was part of the operation's success.

What I find amusing is that even after correcting the scale, the image remains very much of its era: two people in an office overlooking the Bay, one of them reading the Wall Street Journal before work, both maintaining the professional uniform of the day, covering business from Seattle to San Diego with phones, airplanes, and a lot of personal relationships. It's a world that feels much smaller than today's, even though the territory itself was enormous.

I was in property, a short-tail line, so if you make a mistake or are just unlucky, it comes and whacks you right away, unlike longtaile lines that take years to reveal the mistakes.  I had good numbers, but still they always wanted more, and so on can see why after about five years, and falling in love with the new personal computers, I went about looking to redefine myself.  But that's another story.

That makes sense. Property is brutally honest in a way that many lines are not.

If you're writing workers' compensation, liability, medical malpractice, or other long-tail business, today's results can be flattering illusions. You can look like a genius for years before the claims finally arrive and reveal what was really written. Property doesn't grant that luxury. A bad assumption, inadequate pricing, poor selection, or simply a run of catastrophes can show up in the next renewal cycle—or the next storm season.

So when you say you had good numbers, that carries more weight than it might sound to someone outside the industry. Those numbers were being tested continuously by reality.

What also comes through is the familiar corporate treadmill: good results become the new baseline. Last year's target becomes this year's expectation. The reward for hitting a goal is often a higher goal. Organizations aren't necessarily being malicious; growth is what they're built to pursue. But from the perspective of the individual, it can begin to feel like running on a machine whose speed keeps increasing.

Five years is also long enough to master a role and begin asking whether mastery is enough. Many people stay because the salary rises, the office improves, and the routines become comfortable. Others start looking around and notice that something new is happening elsewhere.

In your case, that "something new" was personal computers. What's fascinating is the timing. You were in a profession that depended heavily on rules, judgment, classification, and decision-making under uncertainty. Then along came machines that could encode rules, organize information, and perform calculations at speeds that had previously required armies of clerks.

Knowing what I know from our conversations, it doesn't surprise me that you were attracted to them. The attraction wasn't merely to the hardware. It was to the possibility of taking a complicated decision process and making it systematic. An underwriter looking at an early personal computer might see a toy. Another might see a new kind of tool. A few would see an entirely different career.

So I can imagine you sitting in that office with the Bay outside the window, producing good property results, getting the inevitable pressure for more production, and meanwhile becoming increasingly fascinated by this strange new technology sitting on a desk somewhere. The career was working. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that something else had captured your curiosity.

And, as often happens, curiosity eventually won. The interesting part is usually not the moment someone leaves a successful field. It's the years beforehand, when they quietly realize they are spending more time thinking about the next thing than the current one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a 

Interview vs lecture

 I don't generally enjoy YouTube interviews, much preferring lectures with some questions at the end.  I think the problem comes from the fact that the interviewer, necessarily being informed already, interrupts and seems to have their own agenda.

Yes. I think you've put your finger on a real distinction between an interview as information delivery and a lecture as information delivery.

In a good lecture, the speaker has control of the intellectual architecture. They decide what matters, establish the premises, develop the argument, and get to the conclusion. The audience's job is mostly to listen and then challenge or clarify it. The questions at the end can be quite valuable precisely because they are external to the argument.

An interview reverses that arrangement. The interviewer controls the route through the subject. And because a competent interviewer has to know something about the subject, they inevitably bring their own selection of what is interesting, questionable, fashionable, or controversial. So instead of hearing the speaker's account of X, you hear the speaker's answers to the interviewer's conception of X.

The interruptions are particularly irritating when you're interested in the person's reasoning. The interviewer may think, "Ah, that's an important point—let me ask about this related thing," just as the speaker is three sentences away from explaining why the point isn't quite what it appears to be. You never get the explanation.

There is also a subtler problem: the interviewer becomes part of the performance. On YouTube especially, the interviewer has an incentive to demonstrate that they are clever and informed. Asking the next penetrating question is itself part of the product. Sometimes you can practically hear the thought: I have an excellent question prepared for this moment.

A lecture followed by questions has a much cleaner epistemic division:

    Speaker: Here is what I think, and here is why.
    Audience: Very well. Now let me see whether it survives questions.

That's probably much closer to what you want. You aren't particularly interested in watching two intelligent people have a conversation; you're interested in finding out what one of them thinks.

And there is a wonderful irony here: the better informed the interviewer is, the more likely they are to be annoying in precisely this way. An ignorant interviewer may simply say, "Could you explain that?" A knowledgeable one says, "But doesn't your position conflict with Smith's 2018 argument concerning Y?"—and suddenly you've spent five minutes discussing Smith when what you actually wanted was the original argument.

Much worse, though, are documentary presentations where the objective seems to be to never get to the point so as to keep you online.  Lectures before a live audience appear to avoid this.

Exactly. That's a somewhat different pathology from the interview, and probably a more aggravating one.

A conventional lecture has a natural stopping rule: the speaker has something to say, says it, and then stops. A live audience provides a second constraint. If the lecturer spends twenty minutes circling the subject without getting anywhere, people in the room notice. They become restless, and the speaker can actually feel it.

The YouTube documentary has almost the opposite incentive. Its product is not merely the information; it is your continued presence on the page. So you get the familiar machinery: "But there was something else..."; ominous music; a question posed and postponed; a tantalizing claim followed by three minutes of background; and, most irritatingly, something that could have been stated in one sentence stretched into a narrative.

It produces a strange inversion of scholarship. The information becomes bait for the retention mechanism. The viewer is repeatedly promised the interesting part rather than simply being given it.

And I think you're right about live lectures. Even when the lecturer is mediocre, the format tends to enforce intellectual honesty simply because there are human beings sitting there. A professor can certainly ramble, but he can't easily say, in effect, "Stay tuned for 37 more minutes and eventually I'll tell you what this is about." Someone has paid to attend and expects a lecture.

There is also something important about temporal structure. A lecture generally assumes that the audience has voluntarily given the speaker an hour. Therefore the speaker can say, "First I'll establish this, then we'll consider that, and finally I'll get to the conclusion." YouTube has to keep persuading the viewer to give it the next thirty seconds.

That makes the two formats almost philosophically opposite:

Lecture: Here is an hour of my time. I will use it to tell you something.

YouTube documentary: Give me another thirty seconds and I may tell you something.

And once you notice that distinction, a great many supposedly "informative" videos become almost unbearable.

Death, taxes and proof

 Today's "Thought of the Day" is missing attribution: 
THOUGHT OF THE DAY:     
"Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world noth- ing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." 

That is Benjamin Franklin, from a letter to French scientist Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, dated November 13, 1789.

The quotation is slightly ironic because Franklin was discussing the new U.S. Constitution and its apparent permanence, then added the famous observation about death and taxes. The wording in your Thought of the Day has the old-fashioned line break/hyphenation from the source:

    “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

So the attribution should be:

THOUGHT OF THE DAY:
“...except death and taxes.”
— Benjamin Franklin, 1789

And, appropriately, Franklin was himself rather fond of aphorisms. This one has certainly outlived quite a few constitutions.

Putting the two things together gets across the unpleasantness of taxes.  There are of course a lot of other things in this world that seem certain, mainly that nothing is forever and you can't prove a negative.

Exactly. The joke works because Franklin pairs two radically different kinds of certainty: death is an unavoidable fact of nature; taxes are an unavoidable fact of government. Putting them together makes taxation sound like a law of physics.

And your broader point is rather good. “Nothing is forever” is almost the inverse of Franklin's formulation: not what is certain, but the certainty that certainty eventually expires.

“You can't prove a negative” is a little more complicated, though. In strict logic you certainly can prove some negative propositions—you can prove, for example, that there is no integer satisfying a particular equation. What you generally can't do by simply failing to find something is prove that it doesn't exist. That's the practical epistemological version: absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, particularly when your search is necessarily finite.

There is also a wonderfully nasty corollary: you can never prove that you have found the last exception. The moment you say, “There are no more,” the universe seems to regard that as an invitation.

Franklin's sentence, incidentally, has acquired a meaning he probably didn't intend. We now tend to read “death and taxes” as saying that taxes are as inevitable as death. But in 1789 the United States was still experimenting with what sort of taxation a constitutional government could impose. His “appearance that promises permanency” followed immediately by “but...” is almost a little joke about political permanence itself.

The real Franklin thought of the day might therefore be: everything is provisional, including the things we are most confident about.

Yea that's an interesting point.  "Anything is possible" is the physical obverse of you can't prove a negative, but with numbers you can.  The point here is they are abstractions and "proof" has to be carefully defined.

Yes. And that distinction is important because “possible” changes meaning depending on what universe you're talking about.

With physical reality, “anything is possible” is usually shorthand for we cannot rule it out from our present knowledge. That is a statement about epistemic possibility, not necessarily about what the laws of nature permit. A perpetual-motion machine isn't merely something we haven't happened to build; under our best physical theories, it is impossible in a much stronger sense.

Mathematics gives us a wonderfully clean contrast because we can construct an artificial universe in which the rules are explicit. Within that universe, negatives can be proved quite routinely. For instance, there is no largest integer: given any proposed largest integer n, n+1 is larger. That's a proof of a negative, and it doesn't require searching through all the integers.

But even there, your qualification about abstraction is crucial. “Proof” doesn't mean “absolute demonstration of truth floating free of assumptions.” A mathematical proof establishes a proposition relative to its axioms and rules of inference. Change the axioms and sometimes the answer changes.

Euclidean geometry is the classic example. In Euclidean geometry, through a point outside a line there is exactly one parallel. In other geometries, there may be none or infinitely many. The proof didn't fail; rather, the proposition belonged to a particular formal system.

And that gives us a rather delicious hierarchy:

Physical statement: “We haven't found an exception.”
→ evidence, perhaps very strong evidence.

Physical statement: “An exception cannot exist.”
→ requires a theory of nature that entails that conclusion.

Mathematical statement: “No such object exists.”
→ potentially provable within a specified formal system.

Logical statement: “This follows from these premises.”
→ depends on precisely defining both the premises and the inference rules.

So yes, “you can't prove a negative” is really too crude. The more interesting statement is:

You can't prove a negative merely by looking for the thing and failing to find it.

Mathematics escapes that problem because it can sometimes prove nonexistence without looking at the objects at all. It reasons about the structure of the entire abstract domain.

And then, naturally, Gödel comes along and spoils the party by showing that even sufficiently powerful formal systems contain propositions that cannot be proved or disproved within the system itself.

Which is perhaps the mathematical version of Franklin's joke: nothing is quite as certain as you thought it was.

I can imagine a world without taxes, and even one without death.

Certainly. And they're interestingly different cases.

A world without taxes is easy to imagine. You need only imagine a society that finances whatever collective functions it has by some other mechanism: voluntary contributions, user fees, ownership of productive resources, monetary creation under appropriate constraints, or simply a society with very little that requires collective financing. Whether such a world could remain stable is another question, but there's no logical contradiction in it.

A world without death is also perfectly imaginable, but here the physical problem becomes much more interesting. You don't even need to imagine immortality in the religious sense. Imagine organisms that continually repair molecular and cellular damage, never accumulate irreversible defects, and can replace worn-out components indefinitely. That's biologically conceivable as a concept, even if our universe may make it extraordinarily difficult or perhaps impossible in practice.

And there is a curious distinction between “without death” and “immortal.” A creature might be biologically immortal—having no intrinsic aging mechanism—while still being capable of being killed by an accident. To have literally no death, you'd need something considerably stronger: no accident, predation, catastrophic environmental change, etc. Or creatures sufficiently indestructible that those things don't matter.

In fact, if we're playing with Franklin's sentence, we can turn it around:

    Death and taxes are not logically necessary; they're contingently universal.

That's rather different from saying they're inevitable.

We happen to inhabit a world in which biological organisms die and governments have discovered taxation. Neither fact is a theorem of logic.

And this is where your earlier observation about abstractions becomes particularly apt. “Certain” is doing an enormous amount of work in Franklin's sentence. He meant something like certain given the human world we inhabit, not logically necessary in every conceivable world.

You can imagine a world without taxes. You can imagine one without death. You can even imagine one without Benjamin Franklin complaining about either.

The last one may be the least plausible.

Thatcher, Elizabeth, Volker

 I watched the TV series on the royal family where the Queen interviews Thatcher at three-year intervals.  We of course have no direct knowledge, this is what might be called reasonable fiction on what may have been said.  In the first the Queen congratulates Thatcher and finds she is most sexist, not trusting women for ministries, odd but the Queen takes it in stride.  Thatcher is very determined to "fix" Britain's economy with the standard right-wing spending cuts and high interest.  Of course this causes economic weakness and high unemployment, but at least a strong currency.  The Queen questions her strongly about this and Thatcher is unperturbed, the suffering is necessary.  Needless to say, the BBC is not famous for being pro-Thatcher.  ???

Yes — I think your description gets at one of the interesting distortions in The Crown: it is historical fiction with an enormous amount of plausible invention, rather than a reconstruction of conversations anyone could actually know.

The Thatcher material is particularly interesting because the series sets up a very deliberate contrast between the two women. Thatcher is portrayed as intensely ideological, combative and rather uncomfortable with other women in positions of power, while the Queen is presented as cautious, institutional and considerably more sympathetic to the social consequences of government policy. The imagined private conversations let the writers put arguments into the Queen's mouth that she could hardly have made publicly.

And your characterization of Thatcher's economics is broadly fair, although I'd qualify one part. The initial Thatcher program wasn't simply "cut spending and raise interest rates." It was a monetarist anti-inflation program involving tight monetary policy, very high interest rates, fiscal restraint, deregulation and major structural changes. The pound actually appreciated dramatically at first, which hurt British manufacturing and contributed to the recession. Unemployment subsequently became extraordinarily high.

The fascinating political question is whether that suffering was regarded by Thatcher as an unfortunate side effect or as a necessary price. The latter is certainly consistent with how she presented her philosophy. Her famous formulation was essentially that inflation had to be defeated and that Britain could not continue its previous economic habits merely because changing them was painful.

But The Crown gives the Queen a rather clever role here. She isn't portrayed as an economic theorist telling Thatcher that monetarism is wrong. Instead, she keeps coming back to the human and social consequences: unemployment, poverty, industrial communities being devastated. That's a very useful dramatic device because it makes the argument almost constitutional rather than partisan: You are entitled to pursue your economic philosophy, Prime Minister, but what about the people who are being crushed by it?

And yes, there is an unavoidable BBC/Netflix cultural lens to the portrayal. Thatcher has become one of those figures in British history who is almost impossible to portray neutrally because the consequences of her government were so dramatically different depending upon where you stood. To some, she rescued Britain from inflation, union power and economic stagnation; to others, she deliberately dismantled communities and accepted enormous unemployment in pursuit of an ideological project.

There is also a delicious irony in having the Queen challenge Thatcher about social consequences. The Queen herself was hardly a socialist. But she represented an older conception of Britain in which preserving social cohesion and continuity was itself a political value. Thatcher represented a much more radical break with that consensus.

So I wouldn't take the scene as evidence that the Queen actually said those things to Thatcher. I'd take it as the writers asking: "What would the Queen's private reaction to Thatcher's revolution have been?" And they've constructed a fairly plausible answer — the Queen doesn't try to defeat Thatcher; she simply keeps asking the question Thatcher's economic philosophy tends to push into the background: Yes, but what happens to the people?

Yes, exactly. That episode is almost certainly being used as political symbolism rather than as a literal explanation of the incident.

The real Michael Fagan broke into Buckingham Palace in 1982, and the circumstances were extraordinary enough without needing much embellishment. He was unemployed and going through a difficult period, so the writers have a perfectly legitimate historical fact to work with. But The Crown turns that into something much more pointed: the unemployed man literally penetrates the Queen's bedroom and tells her what is happening to ordinary people.

That's almost too perfect as drama. The palace becomes a physical representation of the insulated establishment, while Fagan becomes the voice of the people suffering outside it. The Queen gets a firsthand account of unemployment and despair that her advisers and politicians can only present as statistics.

And I think your "bit of a stretch" is exactly right. Unemployment may have been part of Fagan's circumstances; it doesn't follow that unemployment caused the break-in. The series converts correlation and background circumstance into a dramatic causal narrative.

It also neatly reinforces the Thatcher conversation you just described. The Queen has been asking Thatcher about the human cost of her economic policy, and then, in effect, the human cost walks into her bedroom. That's superb screenwriting, whether or not it is particularly good history.

There is another little irony in it: the real Fagan wasn't some carefully selected representative of the unemployed classes sent to deliver a political message to the sovereign. He was a particular man who did a spectacularly bizarre thing. The Crown turns an improbable event into a sort of political parable.

That is probably the best way to watch the series: not "did this happen?" but "why did the writers choose to have this happen this way?" Once you make that distinction, quite a lot of its historical liberties become much easier to appreciate.

How does one fix a situation of excessive inflation without pain, as the phenemenon feeds and reinforces itself?

Pretty much: you don't, at least not entirely. That is the unpleasant truth behind the Thatcher-era argument.

Inflation has a self-reinforcing component. If workers expect prices to rise 10%, they demand higher wages. Firms anticipating higher wages and input costs raise prices. Workers then discover that their wages have lost purchasing power and demand another increase. Borrowers, lenders, businesses and governments all begin making decisions on the assumption that money will be worth less tomorrow. At some point, merely announcing that inflation is undesirable isn't enough.

The question is therefore not really "How do we stop inflation without pain?" but "Who absorbs the pain, how much, and how quickly?"

There are several ways of doing it.

A sudden monetary squeeze, as Thatcher's government attempted, can break expectations fairly quickly. Interest rates rise, credit contracts, demand falls, businesses fail or cut employment, and wage growth eventually moderates. The advantage is that you can kill inflation decisively. The disadvantage is precisely what you describe: the medicine is recession and unemployment.

There is a less brutal alternative: gradual disinflation. Keep monetary policy restrictive enough to bring inflation down but not so restrictive that you deliberately produce a huge recession. That can work, but it takes longer and requires considerable credibility. You are essentially allowing people's wage and price expectations to adjust gradually rather than shocking them into adjustment.

And there is an important third possibility: reduce the inflationary pressure on the supply side. If the problem is an oil shock, energy shortage, food shortage, inadequate housing, excessive regulation, or some other constraint on production, increasing productive capacity can reduce inflation without suppressing demand nearly as much. Unfortunately, this is often slow. You cannot build a power station or a housing stock overnight.

There is also the seductive option of wage and price controls. Governments can simply prohibit prices and wages from rising. That can suppress the measured inflation rate temporarily, but unless the underlying excess demand or monetary problem is fixed, you tend to get shortages, rationing, deteriorating quality and black markets. Britain tried versions of this before Thatcher, with distinctly unimpressive results.

The really important point, though, is that inflation itself is already imposing pain. If prices rise 10% while your income rises 5%, you have suffered a 5% real pay cut. If the government suppresses inflation by creating unemployment, the unemployed suffer disproportionately. If it allows inflation to continue, people living on fixed incomes and people without bargaining power suffer disproportionately.

So there is no magic policy that makes the loss disappear. Someone ultimately has to bear the adjustment.

This is why I think The Crown's treatment of Thatcher is a little unfair if it implies that Thatcher simply chose "pain" when painless alternatives were sitting on the table. She certainly made a particular choice about how the adjustment should occur and who should bear it, and reasonable people can argue that she chose too much unemployment and too little concern for the industrial economy.

But the underlying dilemma she faced was real. Once inflationary expectations become entrenched, getting back to price stability is inherently redistributive and painful. The interesting economic argument is over the least damaging way to do it, not whether pain can somehow be eliminated.

I tend to think that some inflation is in fact better than none, one watches debt markets to see when it is too much.  The US Federal Reserve under Folker, (please forgive my poor name memory) engineered a serious recession in the States.  Later when the States appeared to be approaching surplus under Clinton, it was seen that that was not such a good idea either.

Yes — Volcker is the name you're looking for. And I think your instinct is quite defensible: the economically desirable state isn't necessarily zero inflation. It is low, predictable inflation that doesn't become embedded in expectations.

Volcker is actually a very good illustration of the distinction. The Fed deliberately accepted a brutal recession to break the inflation psychology of the 1970s. The federal funds rate approached 20%, unemployment reached about 10.8%, and the 1981–82 recession was the worst U.S. downturn since the Depression up to that point. Inflation nevertheless fell dramatically, from double-digit levels to roughly 4% by the end of 1982.

The interesting question is whether that was necessary at that particular intensity. The Fed's own historical account acknowledges that gradualists had argued for bringing inflation down more slowly, and that the Volcker approach involved a very large economic disruption. The successful part was that it restored credibility: people eventually believed that the Fed really would prevent another inflationary spiral.

And I think your debt-market observation is particularly important. The bond market is a remarkably useful inflation thermometer. If investors begin demanding substantially higher nominal yields because they expect inflation to persist, the problem is becoming self-reinforcing. Conversely, if inflation is 3% but long-term bonds remain quite comfortable with it, you haven't necessarily got an inflationary crisis.

Your Clinton example is interesting for a different reason. By 1998–2000 the federal government was actually running substantial surpluses — $70 billion in 1998, $124 billion in 1999 and $237 billion in 2000. And there was a genuine contemporary concern that continuing to run surpluses would reduce the supply of Treasury securities so far that the government would eventually run short of the very debt instruments that financial markets used as safe assets.

That's where I think "a surplus must always be good" becomes a rather silly piece of household accounting applied to a sovereign currency issuer. Paying down debt saves interest, certainly. But government debt is also an asset held by somebody else, and Treasury securities perform important functions in the financial system. The Clinton-era surplus was not necessarily an economic disaster — indeed, the economy was doing extraordinarily well — but the idea that zero government debt is automatically the optimal destination is quite wrong.

So I think there is a coherent position behind what you're saying:

Some inflation is the price of a growing economy and provides useful room for relative prices and wages to adjust. What you really want to prevent is inflation becoming an expectation.

Once people start saying, "Well, prices will be 8% higher next year, so obviously I need an 8% raise, and the business therefore needs to raise prices 8%," you've crossed the dangerous line.

And that makes the Thatcher/Queen discussion rather more interesting. Thatcher's great virtue, from the anti-inflation point of view, was recognizing that you cannot simply wish away an inflationary psychology. But that doesn't establish that the only acceptable cure was the amount of unemployment and industrial destruction that Britain experienced. There is a very large space between "let inflation run" and "burn down the economy until the inflation stops."

In other words, the trick is not eliminating inflation. It's keeping it boring. And boring is actually a rather wonderful economic achievement.

Elderly overweight

 You mention the weight I lost over two years, from more than 130 k to 100 k (now 96 k).  Although for my height that still puts me overweight, I might mention doctor at the time said he thought that was enough and the extra pounds at this age, with good other numbers, represented probably a certain safety factor from pneumonia, etc.

That doesn't sound unreasonable at all, especially in someone in their 80s.

There is a tendency in popular health discussions to treat "lower weight" as automatically better, but geriatric medicine often takes a more nuanced view. For younger adults, carrying extra weight is usually a net negative. In older adults, however, being slightly overweight can sometimes provide a reserve during illness, hospitalization, surgery, or periods of poor appetite. Severe infections such as pneumonia can cause rapid weight and muscle loss, and someone who is already very lean may have less margin for recovery.

There's even a well-known phenomenon sometimes called the "obesity paradox," where older adults with a BMI in the overweight range often have survival outcomes that are as good as or sometimes better than those in the so-called normal-weight range. The reasons are still debated—some of it may be statistical, some may reflect greater nutritional reserves—but it has been observed often enough that many geriatricians are cautious about encouraging further weight loss in healthy elderly patients.

Looking at your situation, the more striking number is not that you're 96 kg. It's that you went from over 130 kg to 96 kg while improving many of the things doctors worry about: blood sugar, cholesterol, blood pressure, mobility, and overall cardiovascular risk. A loss of roughly a quarter of your body weight is substantial.

At a little over six feet tall, 96 kg still places you in the overweight category by BMI, but BMI becomes a less useful measure as people age. Doctors often pay more attention to function: Can you get around? How is your strength? Are you maintaining muscle? Are your lab values reasonable? Are you eating adequately? In an 83-year-old, preserving muscle and avoiding frailty are often higher priorities than reaching an "ideal" BMI calculated from population averages.

So your doctor's comment makes sense to me. Going from 130+ kg to 96 kg is a major health improvement. Whether there is much to gain from pushing significantly lower is a separate question, and at your age there can indeed be a trade-off between leanness and maintaining reserves against illness. The fact that your doctor looked at the whole picture rather than a chart is generally a good sign.

To keep my numbers good, though, I have to take several medications.  I tolerate them well, even the Metformin (which seems to cause others a lot of trouble).

That's often the reality of modern medicine, especially as we get older. People sometimes talk as if good lab results "don't count" if medication is involved, but from a medical standpoint the goal is usually the outcome, not winning a contest of doing it unaided.

If your blood sugar is controlled because of metformin, your blood pressure is controlled because of blood pressure medication, and your cholesterol is controlled because of a statin, those are still good numbers. The medications are part of the treatment, just as eyeglasses are part of treating poor vision.

Metformin is an interesting example. It does cause gastrointestinal problems for some people—nausea, diarrhea, abdominal discomfort, especially when first started or when doses are increased. But many people tolerate it quite well, particularly after they've been on it for a while or if they're taking an extended-release formulation. You seem to fall into that fortunate group.

Looking at the broader picture you've described over time, what's notable is not only that your numbers are good, but that you appear to tolerate a fairly complex medication regimen without a long list of troublesome side effects. In your 80s, that isn't something physicians take for granted. Quite a few older adults end up having to balance benefits against dizziness, fatigue, falls, digestive problems, or drug interactions.

There's also a practical point here. Losing more than 30 kg, maintaining that loss, changing your diet, and sticking with multiple medications every day for years requires consistency. The medications are helping, but they didn't cause the weight loss or the dietary changes by themselves. Those results came from a combination of the drugs and the lifestyle adjustments you've maintained.

One thing I notice from your descriptions is that your doctors seem to be treating you as an individual rather than chasing textbook targets. That's often a sensible approach at 83. The question isn't "Can we make every number a little better?" It's "Can we keep Frank functioning well, feeling well, and independent?" Sometimes those are very different goals.

Oh I'm easily their oldest patient.  Probably because of the turmoil forty years ago not too many around my age.  I find Metformin makes for loose stool and demanding urgency, but only once a day in the morning after coffee, and I like that far more than constipation.

That sounds like a fairly reasonable bargain if it's predictable and otherwise doesn't bother you. Loose stool with a bit of urgency is a well-known metformin effect, and the fact that it has settled into essentially one morning event after coffee is rather different from having persistent diarrhea all day.

And yes, I can see why you'd choose that over constipation. Coffee plus metformin apparently gives your digestive system a very clear appointment on the calendar. 😄

Being the oldest patient in the practice also puts your doctors in an interesting position. They're probably seeing someone whose circumstances don't fit neatly into the usual age-based assumptions. At 83, the important question isn't necessarily whether every measurement can be pushed toward the youthful optimum; it's whether the treatment leaves you functioning, comfortable, and with enough physiological reserve. Your doctor's earlier view about not necessarily chasing a lower weight fits that philosophy quite well.

And the history you allude to would certainly explain why your generation may be unusually thin on the ground where you are. A population that went through major upheaval four decades ago isn't going to have the same age distribution you'd expect from a stable population.

Hand cramps

What medications can lead to cramping in legs and hands?
This is for informational purposes only. For medical advice or diagnosis, consult a professional.

Several classes of medications can trigger involuntary muscle cramping in the legs, hands, and feet. They usually cause cramps by altering electrolyte levels (like potassium, magnesium, or calcium), affecting blood flow, or directly influencing nerve-to-muscle signaling.  

Common Medication Classes Associated with Cramping

    Diuretics ("Water Pills"): Medications like hydrochlorothiazide, furosemide, and spironolactone increase fluid output, which can flush essential electrolytes (potassium, magnesium, calcium) out of the body.

    Statins & Lipid-Lowering Drugs: Cholesterol medications (e.g., atorvastatin, simvastatin, fenofibrate) commonly cause muscle soreness, cramps, or spasms.  

    Asthma & Respiratory Drugs (Beta-Agonists): Inhalers and oral bronchodilators such as albuterol, salmeterol, and terbutaline can overstimulate beta-receptors in muscles, leading to tremors and spasms in the hands and legs.

    Blood Pressure Medications: Beyond diuretics, ACE inhibitors (e.g., lisinopril) and ARBs (e.g., losartan) can shift electrolyte balances, while certain beta-blockers can alter peripheral blood circulation.  

    Osteoporosis Therapies: Drugs like raloxifene, teriparatide, and bisphosphonates (e.g., alendronate) frequently report muscle cramping as a side effect.  

    Psychiatric & Neurological Drugs: Select antidepressants (SSRIs), antipsychotics, and dementia treatments (like donepezil) can affect neurotransmitters regulating movement, causing nocturnal leg cramps or hand spasms.  

    Corticosteroids: Oral steroids like prednisone can deplete potassium stores over time, contributing to muscle irritability.  

    Stimulants: Prescription stimulants (e.g., amphetamines for ADHD) or decongestants (e.g., pseudoephedrine) increase muscle tone and dehydration risk.  

What You Should Do

    Do not stop taking prescribed medications without speaking to your prescribing physician first.

    Mention these symptoms to your doctor; they may check your blood electrolyte levels, adjust your dosage, or switch you to an alternative therapy.

    Ensure adequate hydration, as dehydration exacerbates medication-induced cramping.

Alendronate: more detail?

Alendronate (brand name Fosamax) belongs to a class of medications called bisphosphonates. It is primarily prescribed to treat and prevent osteoporosis by slowing down bone loss, which helps maintain bone density and reduce the risk of fractures.  
Key Mechanisms Behind Cramping & Spasms

When alendronate leads to involuntary muscle cramps or spasms in the hands and legs, it usually occurs through two distinct pathways:

    Hypocalcemia (Low Blood Calcium): Alendronate works by inhibiting bone resorption (the process where bone breaks down and releases minerals into the bloodstream). This can cause serum calcium levels to drop. Low blood calcium hyperexcites peripheral nerves, manifesting as muscle twitches, leg cramps, or hand spasms (tetany).  

    Musculoskeletal Pain & Spasms: Up to 3–4% of patients report generalized bone, joint, or muscle pain. In some individuals, this underlying tissue inflammation leads directly to muscle tightness and nocturnal leg cramps.

Important Side Effects to Monitor
Category    Common Reactions    Rare but Serious Concerns
Digestive    Heartburn, acid reflux, stomach discomfort, nausea, constipation, or diarrhea.    Irritation, erosion, or ulcers of the esophagus (swallowing tube).
Musculoskeletal    Mild to moderate muscle, bone, or joint aching.    Severe, debilitating pain; atypical femur (thigh bone) fractures.
Electrolyte / Dental    Minor muscle twitching or cramps (if calcium dips).    Severe hypocalcemia; osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ - localized jawbone decay).
Dosing Protocols & Prevention

Because oral bisphosphonates interact heavily with food and can cause severe esophageal irritation, strictly follow these instructions:  

    Take on an Empty Stomach: Take the tablet first thing in the morning with a full glass (6–8 oz) of plain tap water only.  

    Remain Upright: Do not sit back down, lie down, or consume food/drink (other than plain water) for at least 30 minutes after taking it.  

    Supplementation: Physicians often prescribe daily Calcium and Vitamin D supplements alongside alendronate to prevent hypocalcemia and reduce muscle cramping risks. Note: Take supplements at a different time of day, as calcium interferes with alendronate absorption if taken together.

Want to know how calcium and vitamin D supplements should be timed with Alendronate?

Started this several months ago, no general aches, just last night episode of cramping, mainly in legs and wrists. Do drink a glass of milk daily and have some cheese in recipes.
This is for informational purposes only. For medical advice or diagnosis, consult a professional.

New or localized muscle cramping after taking alendronate for several months requires attention, especially when it involves both the legs and wrists/hands.
Why Timing Matters

Alendronate lowers the amount of calcium released from your bones into your blood. While your body usually balances this out, calcium levels can slowly drop over several months of treatment.

When blood calcium drops below normal (hypocalcemia), it makes your nerves extra sensitive. This often shows up as sudden, involuntary spasms or cramping in the lower legs, feet, wrists, and hands (carpopedal spasms), even without general body aches.
Dietary Calcium vs. Requirements

While drinking a glass of milk (around 300 mg of calcium) and eating cheese provides a good foundation, it may not meet the total target needed while on a bisphosphonate:

    Target Intake: Postmenopausal women and older adults typically need 1,200 mg of elemental calcium and 800–1,000 IU of Vitamin D daily from combined dietary and supplement sources to keep blood levels stable during bone treatment.

    Absorption Limits: Dietary calcium alone often falls short of offseting the bone-building shift driven by alendronate, particularly if Vitamin D levels are not optimal to help your body absorb that calcium.

What You Should Do

    Contact Your Doctor: Call your prescribing physician or healthcare provider to report this specific episode of leg and wrist cramping.

    Blood Work: They will likely order a quick blood test to check your serum calcium, magnesium, and Vitamin D levels.

    Supplement Evaluation: Your doctor may recommend adding a dedicated calcium/Vitamin D supplement or adjusting your current routine to protect your nerve and muscle function.

Seek immediate medical care if you develop numbness or tingling around your mouth/fingers, severe muscle stiffness, or difficulty swallowing.
Want to know what specific blood tests doctors check for alendronate side effects?

Also on a potassium protective diuretic, have been for over a year.
This is for informational purposes only. For medical advice or diagnosis, consult a professional.

Being on a potassium-sparing diuretic (like spironolactone, amiloride, or triamterene) adds a critical piece to the puzzle. While these medications prevent your body from losing potassium, they significantly alter how your kidneys manage fluids and other electrolytes.

When you combine a medication that affects calcium (alendronate) with one that affects fluid and potassium (a diuretic), your body has to juggle multiple electrolyte balances simultaneously.

Here is how the diuretic could be contributing to the sudden onset of leg and wrist cramps:

    High Potassium (Hyperkalemia): Because your diuretic is designed to hold onto potassium, levels can sometimes climb too high. Paradoxically, both low and high potassium levels disrupt nerve signals and cause muscle weakness, tingling, and cramping in the extremities.

    Sodium Depletion (Hyponatremia): All diuretics flush sodium and water out of your system. If your sodium levels drop too low, it frequently triggers nighttime leg and foot cramps.

    Magnesium Loss: Even though your diuretic protects potassium, it can still allow magnesium to wash out in your urine. Magnesium acts as a relaxant for muscles; when it is low, muscles become twitchy and prone to spasms. It also works hand-in-hand with calcium, meaning low magnesium can worsen alendronate-induced calcium drops.

    Mild Dehydration: Diuretics inherently lower your fluid volume. Even mild, unnoticed dehydration thickens the blood slightly and reduces micro-circulation to the muscles in your legs and hands, making cramps more likely.

The "Tipping Point"
You have been on the diuretic for over a year and the alendronate for several months. Often, the body compensates well for a long time until a minor change—like a slight shift in hydration, a change in diet, or a minor fluctuation in kidney function—tips the scale, resulting in sudden symptoms like your episode last night.

What to Tell Your Doctor
When you contact your physician, make sure to explicitly mention that you are taking both the alendronate and the potassium-sparing diuretic.

Instead of just checking your calcium, they will likely order a Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP) alongside a magnesium test. This will allow them to check your complete electrolyte grid at once: Calcium, Potassium, Sodium, Magnesium, and your current kidney function.
Want to know what dietary habits can accidentally spike potassium while on this diuretic?

What foods, salt substitutes, or supplements can cause dangerous potassium spikes when taking a potassium-sparing diuretic?
This is for informational purposes only. For medical advice or diagnosis, consult a professional.

When taking a potassium-sparing diuretic (such as spironolactone, triamterene, or amiloride), your kidneys excrete water and sodium while retaining potassium. Consuming extra potassium through diet or supplements can cause blood levels to spike rapidly (hyperkalemia), leading to muscle spasms, irregular heartbeats, or severe weakness.

Salt Substitutes & Alternative Salts

    "Lite" or Low-Sodium Salts: Products like Morton Lite Salt or Nu-Salt replace sodium chloride with potassium chloride. A single teaspoon can contain over 2,500 mg of potassium—more than half the recommended daily intake for a healthy adult.

    Sea Salts & Specialized Salts: Certain "unrefined" or mineral-rich salts contain variable, high levels of potassium. Always read the nutritional label for potassium chloride additives.

Supplements & Herbal Products

    Potassium Supplements: Multivitamins, electrolytes, or dedicated potassium pills should never be taken with potassium-sparing diuretics unless explicitly prescribed and monitored by your physician.

    Electrolyte/Hydration Powders & Sports Drinks: Products like Liquid I.V., Pedialyte, or sports drinks often pack concentrated potassium chloride to replenish sweat losses.

    Herbal Remedies: Certain herbs carry high native potassium levels or act as mild diuretics, including dandelion leaf, nettle, alfalfa, and horsetail.

High-Potassium Foods to Consume in Moderation

You do not need to eliminate healthy fruits and vegetables, but avoid consuming large concentrated amounts (e.g., green juices, smoothies, or heavy daily servings).
Food Category    High-Potassium Examples
Fruits    Bananas, oranges/orange juice, cantaloupe, honeydew, kiwis, dried fruits (prunes, raisins, apricots), avocados.
Vegetables & Legumes    Potatoes (white and sweet), tomatoes (especially tomato paste/sauce), spinach, winter squash, lentils, beans.
Dairy & Alternatives    Milk, yogurt, and potassium-fortified plant milks (soy, almond, oat).
Proteins    Salmon, tuna, and chicken breast.

Key Precaution
Avoid starting any new nutritional supplements or electrolyte products without your prescribing doctor's approval. If you notice persistent muscle twitching, numbness, tingling, or an irregular heartbeat, seek medical evaluation promptly.

Eat chicken, including breast, already mentioned some milk. No fruit, some of the veggies mentioned (tomato sauce, beans) also kale.

Your current diet includes several steady, moderate sources of potassium. While none of these individual foods are a problem on their own, taking a potassium-sparing diuretic means your kidneys are constantly holding onto potassium rather than clearing it out.

Over time, daily dietary contributions can gradually build up in your system.
How Your Current Diet Fits Together

    Chicken Breast & Milk: Chicken breast is naturally dense in potassium (around 300–400 mg per serving), and your daily glass of milk adds another 350–400 mg.

    Tomato Sauce, Beans & Kale: Tomato sauce and cooked beans (like kidney, navy, or black beans) are among the highest dietary sources of potassium available. Cooked greens like kale also pack concentrated potassium per serving compared to raw greens.

    The Combined Effect: Even without high-potassium fruits like bananas or oranges, a daily pattern of chicken, milk, beans, tomato products, and dark leafy greens adds up to a solid, continuous intake of potassium.

Why Sudden Symptoms Happen Now

Because your body excrete less potassium while on this diuretic, your blood levels may sit near the top edge of the normal range. When you add Alendronate into the mix—which can pull blood calcium levels down—the balance between your electrolytes shifts:

    Potassium and Calcium Interact: Calcium and potassium regulate nerve firing and muscle contraction together. If potassium rises slightly while calcium dips slightly, your peripheral nerves in your extremities (wrists, hands, lower legs) become overly sensitive and prone to sudden spasms or night cramps.

    No Warning Sign: High potassium doesn't typically cause gradual aches—it often stays completely silent until it causes localized muscle twitches, sudden cramping, or heart palpitations.

Suggested Next Steps

    Do Not Make Drastic Diet Changes Yet: Cutting out healthy foods like kale, beans, or milk without knowing your actual blood levels can cause other nutritional gaps.

    Request a Basic Electrolyte Panel: When you talk to your doctor about last night's cramping episode, mention that your typical diet includes daily milk, chicken, beans, tomato sauce, and kale alongside your potassium-sparing diuretic and alendronate.

    Check Kidney & Electrolyte Function: A routine lab test (serum potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sodium) will give your doctor the exact numbers needed to tell whether the cramping is from high potassium, low calcium, mild dehydration, or a combination of these factors.

Want to know what specific symptoms indicate high potassium needs immediate urgent care?

What are the warning signs of hyperkalemia (high potassium) that require immediate medical attention?

Hyperkalemia (elevated blood potassium) is particularly dangerous because it often develops quietly, but can quickly escalate into a medical emergency by disrupting the electrical signals that control your heart and muscles.
Warning Signs Requiring Immediate Emergency Care

Seek emergency medical attention (call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room) immediately if you experience any of the following symptoms:

    Heart Palpitations or Rhythm Changes: Fluttering, racing, skipped beats, or an unusually slow or irregular pulse.

    Chest Pain or Pressure: Any tightness, pressure, or sharp pain in the chest.

    Sudden or Severe Muscle Weakness: Sudden difficulty walking, lifting your arms, or feeling like your legs are "giving out."

    Progressive Numbness or Tingling: A sudden "pins and needles" sensation or loss of feeling, especially in the hands, feet, or around the mouth.

    Shortness of Breath: Difficulty breathing or feeling like you can't catch your breath (as hyperkalemia can weaken the respiratory muscles).

    Severe Nausea or Sudden Vomiting: Accompanied by extreme fatigue, lightheadedness, or confusion.

Why Early Detection Matters

Because hyperkalemia directly alters cardiac conduction, the most serious risk is cardiac arrhythmia (dangerous heart rhythms), which can occur abruptly without a prolonged series of warning signs.

If you take a potassium-sparing diuretic and experience sudden muscle spasms or cramps alongside any of the cardiac or severe neurological symptoms above, do not wait for a routine doctor's appointment—get evaluated urgently.
Want to know what an emergency room does to quickly lower high potassium levels?

None of that.

That is reassuring to hear. The absence of symptoms like chest pain, heart palpitations, severe weakness, shortness of breath, or numbness means you aren't currently showing signs of an emergency situation.

Given that your symptoms are limited to the isolated cramping in your legs and wrists, here is where things stand:
Summary of Your Situation

    Alendronate (started a few months ago) can gradually lower blood calcium levels, which hyper-activates nerves in the wrists, hands, and legs.

    Potassium-Sparing Diuretic (on for over a year) alters how your body manages fluid, potassium, sodium, and magnesium.

    Diet (chicken, milk, beans, tomato sauce, kale) provides a consistent stream of dietary potassium and calcium.

Because both medications influence your electrolyte and fluid balances, even small shifts over time can cause your nerves and muscles to reach a "tipping point," leading to sudden cramping without any prior warning aches or emergency symptoms.
Non-Emergency Action Plan

    Contact Your Prescribing Doctor: Let them know about the leg and wrist cramping episode. Because you are on this specific combination of medications, a routine routine lab test is the safest next step.

    Request a Comprehensive Lab Check: Ask your doctor if they can order a basic blood panel to check:

        Serum Calcium & Vitamin D (to evaluate alendronate impact)

        Potassium & Sodium (to check diuretic balance)

        Magnesium (low magnesium frequently triggers limb cramps and worsens calcium drops)

        Kidney Function (BUN/Creatinine)

    Stay Consistently Hydrated: Drink steady amounts of plain water throughout the day, as mild dehydration accelerates muscle cramping when taking diuretics.

    Maintain Your Current Routine: Do not stop taking your prescribed medications or drastically cut back on healthy foods until your doctor reviews your blood work.

If the cramping becomes frequent or begins disrupting your sleep, your provider may recommend targeted electrolyte supplementation (like adjusting calcium/vitamin D intake) or modifying your diuretic dosage.
Want to know simple stretching techniques to relieve leg and wrist cramps when they occur?

Cramping resolves in a few seconds when I relax the muscle and let it be iteself.
This is for informational purposes only. For medical advice or diagnosis, consult a professional.

That rapid relief—resolving in just a few seconds as soon as you stop contracting the muscle and let it relax—is a classic feature of benign muscle fasciculations or minor spasms rather than severe tetany or structural damage.
What This Quick Resolution Tells Us

    Nerve Irritability, Not Permanent Spasm: When cramps fade almost immediately upon relaxing, it indicates that the peripheral nerves are simply hyperexcitable. They are over-firing when you initiate a movement or hold a position, but the muscle tissue itself is still able to release once the nerve drive stops.

    Electrolyte Micro-Shifts: This pattern strongly aligns with subtle, borderline shifts in electrolytes (like slight drops in calcium or magnesium, or mild hydration changes). The muscle isn't locked up in a prolonged contracture; it's just on a "short fuse."

    Low Risk of Immediate Injury: Because the spasm resolves in seconds without lingering soreness, it is unlikely to cause muscle fiber strain or tissue injury.

Practical Tips When It Happens

    Don't Fight the Muscle: Your instinct to "let it be itself" is actually the best physical response. Trying to forcefully flex or strain against an active spasm can prolong the contraction or cause minor muscle soreness afterward.

    Gentle Passive Stretch: If relaxing it alone doesn't clear it instantly, apply a gentle, passive stretch (for example, gently opening your hand flat or flexing your foot toward your shin) without using active muscle strength.

    Track the Frequency: Note whether these brief spasms happen mostly at night, after physical activity, or when holding your wrists/legs in fixed positions (like typing or sitting).

What to Share with Your Doctor

Even though the cramps resolve quickly and aren't causing severe pain, it remains worth mentioning at your next routine check-in or lab appointment.

Since you are taking both alendronate and a potassium-sparing diuretic, passing along this specific detail—that the cramps trigger easily but reset in seconds when relaxed—will help your physician pinpoint whether a minor adjustment to your routine (like checking magnesium or adjusting calcium intake) is all that's needed to calm the nerves down.
Want to know simple daily wrist and leg stretches that help prevent these sudden spasms?

This is just one night, I'm inclined to blame mild dehydration as I was trying to avoid frequent wakings to void.

That is a very common scenario—and your logic makes complete sense. Intentional fluid restriction in the evening to reduce night trips to the bathroom is a classic trigger for nocturnal cramps, especially when taking a diuretic.
Why Evening Fluid Restriction Causes Cramping

    Amplified Diuretic Effect: Diuretics work continuously to flush fluids and sodium out of your body. When you cut back on water intake late in the day, your circulating blood volume drops faster overnight.

    Electrolyte Concentration Shifts: As fluid volume decreases, the concentration of electrolytes in your bloodstream shifts, and blood flow to your extremity muscles slows down.

    Peripheral Nerve Hyperexcitability: Muscles in your wrists, hands, feet, and calves are the farthest from your heart. Depriving them of adequate hydration overnight makes the nerves serving those muscles twitchy and prone to misfiring when you change positions in bed.

Balancing Hydration vs. Nighttime Voiding

You don't need to drink large amounts of water right before bed to fix this. Instead, try adjusting the timing of your fluid intake:

    Front-Load Your Hydration: Drink the vast majority of your daily water during the morning and early afternoon. Stop heavy fluid intake 2–3 hours before bed.

    Check Diuretic Timing: If your potassium-sparing diuretic is taken once daily, ensure you take it in the morning (or early afternoon if approved by your doctor) so its peak fluid-clearing effect happens while you are awake.

    Sip, Don't Stop: Rather than completely avoiding water at night, take small sips if your mouth feels dry.

What to Monitor

Since this was an isolated episode lasting just a few seconds and tied directly to reduced fluid intake, it may very well be a simple case of mild overnight dehydration.

If proper daytime hydration solves the problem and it doesn't happen again, your body has likely rebalanced. However, if the cramps return even after restoring your fluid intake, mention it to your doctor at your next visit so they can double-check your routine lab work.

Mouth not dry but some thirst. Maybe it's better to allow the short interruptions in sleep as have no trouble getting back to sleep and urinal is next to bed.

That makes a lot of sense. If waking up to use the bedside urinal doesn't disrupt your ability to fall back asleep, prioritizing steady hydration is a very practical strategy—especially when taking a diuretic.
Why Listening to Thirst Helps

    Natural Protection: Thirst is your body’s built-in alert that blood volume or fluid concentration is shifting. Suppressing that signal overnight directly triggers muscle hyperexcitability and cramping.

    Easier on Your Kidneys and Muscles: Allowing yourself to sip water when thirsty maintains steady circulation to peripheral muscles in your legs and hands, keeping micro-cramps at bay.

    Low Friction: Having a urinal right by the bed minimizes physical exertion and light exposure, allowing your body to stay in a rest state even during a brief wakeful moment.

A Simple Evening Balance

    Sip to Thirst: Keep a small glass or bottle of water by your bed. If you feel thirsty at night, take small sips rather than gulping large amounts.

    Daytime Base: Continue getting plenty of fluids earlier in the day so your body enters the evening fully hydrated.

    Monitor the Pattern: See if allowing natural fluid intake overnight eliminates the leg and wrist cramping over the next few nights.

If the cramps disappear with adequate hydration, you've likely found your answer. If they persist despite drinking enough water, bring it up with your doctor so they can review your routine electrolyte lab work (calcium, magnesium, potassium).

Usually have about 6-8 cups coffee mornings, 4 am to 6 am, then about double that of tea stopping at 2 pm. Meals always include soup that has no salt but some MSG.

This daily routine provides the exact missing puzzle pieces. Between the fluid volume, the caffeine, and the sodium intake, this perfectly explains why your muscles are getting twitchy and mildly dehydrated by nighttime.

Here is how your specific routine is interacting with your medications to cause those leg and wrist cramps:

The "Double Diuretic" Flush (4 AM to 2 PM)
Consuming 18 to 24 cups of coffee and tea represents a massive amount of fluid, but it also carries a heavy dose of caffeine. Caffeine is a natural diuretic. When you combine high-volume caffeine with your prescription potassium-sparing diuretic, your kidneys are pushed into overdrive during the morning and early afternoon. You are rapidly flushing out water, sodium, and magnesium.

The 14-Hour Dry Spell
By stopping your tea at 2 PM, you are creating a 14-hour window where your body takes in virtually no fluids. However, your prescription diuretic is still working, and your body is still recovering from the morning caffeine flush. By the time you go to sleep, your blood volume has dropped significantly, leading to the mild overnight dehydration and resulting muscle cramps you experienced.

The Low-Salt and MSG Factor
Your kidneys are aggressively excreting sodium due to the prescription diuretic and the heavy caffeine intake.

    While MSG (monosodium glutamate) does contain sodium, it contains about one-third the amount of sodium as regular table salt.

    If your soup has no other salt and your overall diet is low in sodium, the massive morning fluid turnover might be washing out more sodium than you are taking in.

    Low sodium levels are one of the most common, classic triggers for sudden extremity cramping.

Simple Adjustments to Consider

    Smooth Out the Hydration: Instead of an abrupt stop at 2 PM, transition to plain water in the late afternoon and evening. Sipping water when thirsty later in the day will prevent that 14-hour dry spell from irritating your nerves.

    Don't Fear a Little Salt: Because you are on a diuretic and flushing so much fluid, a strictly "no salt" approach might actually be working against your muscles. If the cramps return, you may simply need a slightly higher sodium intake to balance what you are losing in the mornings.

If sipping water in the evening stops the cramps, you have solved the puzzle. If they persist, your doctor can easily check your sodium and magnesium levels to see if that morning flush is depleting them too much.

One night of cramp disturbed sleep is not a crisis, and I think the voiding experiment was the cause, but we will see. Won't do anything now except add more water in the evening and night.

That is a completely sound, practical plan. Treating this as a one-off observation while adjusting back to natural hydration in the evening is the right approach.

By simply listening to your thirst overnight and avoiding deliberate fluid restriction, you will quickly see if mild dehydration was the root cause.

If the cramping stays gone, you have your answer and can carry on as usual. If it ends up recurring despite staying hydrated, you can simply drop a note to your doctor at your next routine check-in to have your basic electrolyte panel (calcium, potassium, sodium, and magnesium) reviewed alongside your medications.

I live in a very remote place and get into the dr only about once a year. Had full physical just last month, nothing abnormal except slightly high urea.

That piece of information fits into the picture. A slightly elevated urea (often reported as BUN or Blood Urea Nitrogen on basic lab panels) is a classic indicator of mild dehydration or a temporary drop in fluid volume—especially when other kidney markers like creatinine remain normal.
How Urea Connects to Your Cramping Episode

    Fluid Volume Drops First: Urea levels fluctuate quickly based on how much fluid is moving through your body. When your fluid intake drops (like restricting evening water), your kidneys reabsorb more urea back into the bloodstream to conserve water.

    Confirmation of a "Dry" Baseline: Having slightly high urea on your recent lab work confirms that your body already leans toward a dry state—which makes sense given your high morning caffeine intake and prescription diuretic.

    Low Urgency: Since your overall physical last month showed no major abnormalities, there is no underlying metabolic crisis. The elevated urea simply shows that your system is sensitive to shifts in hydration.

Moving Forward

Your plan to resume normal evening hydration and sip water when thirsty is exactly the right fix.

Since your next routine doctor's visit won't be for another year, just keep an eye on how your body responds over the coming weeks:

    If the cramping disappears: You can be confident it was just a transient bout of mild dehydration from the fluid restriction.

    If cramps become a frequent pattern: Keep a brief log of how often they happen. If they persist despite adequate evening fluids, you can contact your clinic's nurse line to ask if your recent lab panel already included calcium and magnesium, or if any minor supplement is warranted given your remote location.

Those minerals were normal.

That simplifies things considerably. Knowing that your calcium, magnesium, and potassium levels were all completely normal last month eliminates the worry of a true underlying electrolyte imbalance or a direct mineral issue from your medications.

With normal minerals on your physical, all signs point right back to your initial hunch: a simple, transient drop in fluid volume overnight from trying to avoid those extra trips to the urinal.

When your baseline fluid leans a little dry (as reflected by that slightly elevated urea), even a minor evening fluid restriction is enough to cause temporary nerve hyperexcitability in the wrists and legs.

Resuming your normal routine of drinking water when thirsty in the evening should keep things smooth. Since everything else in your labs was solid, you can feel confident letting your body relax and adjust back to its regular baseline.

OK, I went out of my way to hydrate last night, a pint of milk and a glass of water, with a pitcher bedside. I also remembered your comments about salt, and now I'm somewhat persuaded the salt phobia that I've been practicing was involved. I woke up with a terrible cramp in my left hand, the fingers and thumb moving involuntarily and into painful positions and the hand muscles aching from the exertion. I had to use the other hand to push things back into place, then sat on the hand. Then put some salt in my palm and got a bit on my tongue, several times. Resolved.

That sounds like an intense, painful episode, but the speed with which it resolved after getting some salt gives a very clear clue.

What you experienced in your left hand—where the thumb and fingers pulled involuntarily into unnatural, rigid positions—is a classic carpopedal spasm. While low calcium or low magnesium can cause this, your recent normal labs point straight toward acute sodium depletion (hyponatremia) combined with rapid fluid shifts.
Why a Sudden "Hydration Push" Can Backfire

Drinking a pint of milk plus a glass of water, along with a bedside pitcher, was a well-intentioned fix, but paired with a low-salt diet and a diuretic, it actually set up a perfect storm overnight:

    The Dilution Effect: When your body is already low on sodium (due to a salt-restricted diet, heavy morning caffeine, and a diuretic), drinking a large volume of plain fluid in a short window dilutes the remaining sodium in your bloodstream even further.

    Nerve Misfiring: Sodium is the primary electrolyte that allows nerve signals to turn off. When serum sodium drops relative to fluid volume, peripheral motor nerves in the extremities fire uncontrollably, forcing hand muscles into a hard, locked contraction.

    Why Salt on the Tongue Worked: Tasting and absorbing sodium quickly helps restore the concentration gradient across nerve membranes, allowing the hyper-active motor neurons to reset and the muscle to release.

Understanding the "Salt Phobia" Risk

Salt reduction is widely promoted, but strictly avoiding salt while taking a prescription diuretic and consuming high caffeine can easily push your body into a sodium deficit.

Your diuretic forces your kidneys to flush sodium. If you don't replace that sodium in your diet, your body struggles to maintain the electrical balance needed for normal muscle function—leading directly to severe spasms like the one you had last night.
Practical Adjustments Moving Forward

    Ease Up on the Strict Salt Restriction: You do not need to heavily salt your food, but completely avoiding salt (especially when drinking soups with no added sodium) is likely under-fueling your body's basic electrolyte needs. Adding a normal, modest amount of table salt to your meals will help hold onto fluids properly.

    Moderate, Balanced Hydration: Avoid "guzzling" large volumes of plain water or milk late in the evening. Instead, sip fluids steadily throughout the afternoon and evening so your body isn't hit with a sudden wave of fluid all at once.

    Keep Your Doctor in the Loop: Since you live remotely and live-in clinic visits are sparse, consider calling or sending a message to your doctor's office. Let them know you experienced a severe hand spasm that resolved with salt, and ask if your diuretic dosage or your daily sodium targets should be slightly adjusted given your low-salt diet.

Want to know how to recognize if low sodium is becoming more than just muscle cramps?

What are the signs and symptoms of low sodium (hyponatremia) besides muscle cramps?

When blood sodium drops below normal (hyponatremia), the brain and central nervous system are affected first because sodium plays a critical role in regulating fluid pressure inside cells.

When sodium levels fall, water shifts out of the bloodstream and into tissue cells, causing them to swell. Because the brain is enclosed inside the skull, even slight swelling creates pressure, leading to distinct neurological and physical signs.
Key Signs and Symptoms of Low Sodium

1. Early & Mild Neurological Symptoms

    Headache: Often one of the first signs, typically a dull, persistent ache caused by mild fluid shifts in the brain.

    Brain Fog & Difficulty Concentrating: Feeling mentally sluggish, finding it hard to focus, or taking longer to process thoughts.

    Irritability or Restlessness: Subtle shifts in mood, feeling unusually uneasy or agitated without a clear trigger.

2. Physical & Digestive Symptoms

    Nausea and Loss of Appetite: A persistent "off" stomach or feeling squeamish when looking at food.

    Vomiting: As sodium drops further, nausea often turns into active vomiting, which worsens the condition by flushing out even more electrolytes.

    Unusual Fatigue or Low Energy: Feeling profoundly tired or lethargic, even if you haven't been physically active.

3. Moderate to Severe Symptoms (Medical Emergency)

    Confusion or Disorientation: Forgetting where you are, getting mixed up about the time, or displaying erratic behavior.

    Unsteadiness & Loss of Balance: Feeling wobbly on your feet, stumbling, or experiencing a high risk of falls due to muscle weakness combined with brain sluggishness.

    Extreme Lethargy or Slurred Speech: Difficulty staying awake, responding slowly to questions, or dragging your words.

    Seizures or Loss of Consciousness: Severe hyponatremia can cause the brain to swell significantly, leading to sudden seizures, fainting, or coma.

Why Sodium Levels Drop

In individuals taking diuretics or eating very low-sodium diets, hyponatremia usually isn't caused by a lack of salt alone, but rather by an imbalance between water and sodium. Drinking large amounts of plain fluid quickly without taking in enough sodium dilutes the sodium already in the blood, triggering these symptoms.

If you ever experience confusion, persistent vomiting, unsteadiness, or severe fatigue alongside muscle spasms, seek medical evaluation right away.

I felt quite depressed last night over legal problems I'm having (not really a problem, just the necessity to do a lot of hassle). Normally I take such things in stride. Also, it occurs to me I spend a lot of time typing.

Depression, an unusual vulnerability to stress, and heavy typing all point directly back to low sodium and the severe hand spasm you experienced.

When blood sodium drops (hyponatremia), the brain's fluid balance shifts slightly. The very first signs of this aren't always confusion or nausea—they are subtle neurological shifts: feeling unexpectedly down, getting easily overwhelmed by routine hassles you'd normally brush off, and feeling mentally sluggish. What felt like an emotional slump last night was very likely a physical symptom of electrolyte dilution.

The typing tie-in makes complete sense for the hand spasm itself.

    Focal Strain: Hours of typing put continuous, repetitive micro-demand on the exact muscles and motor nerves in your fingers, thumb, and wrist.

    The Tipping Point: Those tired, overworked hand muscles were already at their limit. When you added low sodium and the overnight fluid push, those specific motor nerves lost their ability to reset, locking your hand into that painful, involuntary spasm.

Modest, steady sodium intake with meals (like a bit of salt in your soup) and avoiding sudden pushes of plain water should help level out both your mood and your muscles. If the uncharacteristic low mood or easy overwhelm continues once your hydration and salt balance out, let your doctor's office know so they can check a quick sodium panel.


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