Start Here – The Modeler’s Map

The Pattern is the Point

Welcome to Fire in the Cave.

If you’re here, you likely feel that the “official” version of reality—the headlines, the job market reports, the corporate AI hype—doesn’t quite match the ground-level reality you’re experiencing.

I’m David Howe. For thirty years, I’ve worked as a PK/PD (pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic) modeler. In plain English: I build mathematical models of how drugs interact with biological systems. My entire career has been dedicated to pattern recognition—finding the trajectory in the noise before the magnitude hits.

The Philosophy: Why the Cave?

The name of this Substack comes from two places:

1. The Star-Maps: In The Human Cosmos, Jo Marchant notes that Paleolithic people didn’t just paint animals on cave walls for art; they were likely mapping the stars to track the herds. They were the first modelers, teaching the tribe how to survive by recognizing the cycles of the world.
2. Plato’s Allegory: We are often like prisoners in a cave, watching shadows on the wall controlled by others. When someone escapes and returns with the truth of the outside world, they are often met with disbelief.

Today, the “shadows” are the economic reports that say everything is fine while the AI hyperscalers shed thousands of roles. The “fire” is the analytical light we use to see the truth of the patterns painted on the walls.

What We Explore Here

This isn’t just a newsletter about AI or a newsletter about biology. It is a newsletter about navigating transitions.

• The Jobless Recovery: Why the 2026 economic shift is a “one-way door” that won’t rehire the old way.
• The AI Point of No Return: Moving past “chatbots” into real-time domain reasoning. I share how AI recently derived a complex biological model for me in minutes—work that used to take me hours of manual derivation.
• Personal Resilience: How to use your domain expertise as the steering wheel for AI, rather than being replaced by it.

The Standing Wave

I believe humanity is currently at a standing wave—oscillating in place while believing we’re moving forward. But here by the fire, we can paint new patterns. We can teach ourselves to see what the shadows have been hiding.

Where to Start?

If you’re new, I recommend starting with these pieces to get a feel for the “Map”:

1. The Recovery That Doesn’t Rehire – My deep dive into why 88% of job losses happen in bursts and what 2026 looks like for the “routine” professional.
2. Lying Flat - Start of investigating series of those refusing society. Start of Turchin’s elite overproduction.
3. The Competence Trap - Understanding your happiness marker.

Join the Tribe

The ground is shifting. It has shifted before. Each time, the people who prepared during the “window” came out stronger.

Come sit. Let’s figure out together which of our movements are real—and which are just echoes of someone else’s design.