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"Sounds really bad" is orthogonal to "is really bad".

There's a heuristic that goes, "Shortcuts will catch up to people eventually," but I'm ok with letting the evidence bear that out.




Yeah that's the kind of folk wisdom that causes people with psychiatric conditions to stop taking their medications. It's very ignorant and harmful.


I don't think that's a fair analogy. Psychiatric medications don't have a non-pharmacological alternative in many cases. You can't just consciously do something and not be depressed or schizophrenic any more.

However, putting food in your mouth is a completely conscious decision. If people have problems with controlling that then I think that's what should be treated, instead of medicating your body to react to food differently. I think a future where we turn to drugs on an ongoing basis to compensate our unhealthy lifestyles is pretty dystopic.

Again, if someone is obese and struggles to lose weight I think Ozempic sounds like a great way to get on the road to health. I just don't think you should take it for the rest of your life instead of changing your lifestyle.


What you call dystopia, I call paradise. Evolution didn't give us bodies that are adapted to life in modern technological society. The better technology gets, the more unnatural the world gets for our bodies. People who are unfit to live won't die, because technology breaks the evolutionary process. Since we know that technology is better, the only way we can keep having it and thrive is by using more technology to hack our bodies so they're adapted for existence in the modern world.


I don't see it that way. Obesity is caused by deteriorating diets and lack of exercise. I don't think the solution is to keep the poor diet and lack of movement and treat only the resulting obesity. That's WALL-E, not paradise.

Many things get better with time and progress but I don't think our current lifestyles are some kind of evolutionary peak.


What do you think the ultimate causes of poor diet and lack of movement are?

All other things considered, how important is it that proximate or ultimate causes of obesity are addressed?


> What do you think the ultimate causes of poor diet and lack of movement are?

Cheap and plentiful high-calorie food and you're not forced to move if you've got a desk job. That might be modern but that doesn't mean it's better.


Is there any way to validate the claim in a way that excludes type one error?




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