You say sin, I say disease • Hacker News Board

Re: You say sin, I say disease

#21

Post by mtviewdave » Thu, Nov 25, 2010, 12:51 AM UTC

Evgeny wrote: post #19

ericb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may be ignoring the drive to eat. Your reductionist view does little to account for how hard it is for people who want to lose weight to do it long-term. The reductionist view certainly can provide a comfortable feeling of superiority, though. If you think the drive is inconsequential and easy to ignore then try and hold your breath until you pass out. Just breath less, right? These drives have ways of ta…

Okay, I have to agree - the fact that I can manipulate my weight at will and either stay at the target weight or adjust it if I want to does give me some feeling of superiority in this particular aspect . And I have learnt a few things on the way - for example, that slight hunger is not a sign that you should rush to the fridge. That a 24 or 36 hours fast will not kill you, but is rather good for you. That if I want…

Keep in mind that you've learned some important lessons only for yourself. Extrapolations you make to other people--the minutia of how their bodies work, what sort of impulses and urges they have, how easy or difficult those urges are to control--are basically speculative. And judgments based just on speculation aren't really worth very much.

Re: You say sin, I say disease

#22

Post by Semiapies » Thu, Nov 25, 2010, 1:13 AM UTC

Sin, disease...

What's wrong with a plain old fact?

Are you overweight? Then you're overweight. Are you downright fat? Then you're fat. Religious dogma aside (as I don't care about it), I'm going to say you're not committing a sin or evil act by being heavy. Barring the adenovirus hypothesis panning out or your having a known glandular issue, I'm going to guess that you don't have a disease. You just have a fact.

Are you overweight enough to affect your health? Are you unappealing to the men or women you want to date? Do you just dislike having the weight? Then you have complaints.

Do whatever complaints you have bother you more than you enjoy the aspects of your lifestyle and diet that lead you to being overweight? Then you have a problem.

Problems can addressed, researched, and analyzed. Problems can even be solved, or at least ameliorated. Mind, it's hard to guilt, intimidate, or infantilize people by noting that they might have a problem - assuming you literally mean "problem" and not as a euphemism for disease or sin...

Re: You say sin, I say disease

#23

Post by Semiapies » Thu, Nov 25, 2010, 1:17 AM UTC

archgoon wrote: post #20

lionhearted wrote: post #3

More and more, I'm starting to come to the awful conclusion that most people have very little control over how their lives go. They maybe have a few key decision points in their life - but maybe not all that many. And the rest is autopilot. They watch some subset of the new movies, new TV programs, websites they stumble across. They eat whatever's more or less served near them and eaten by people they associate with.…

>"well, just ban all the food that's unhealthy, and people will eat better..." - but we know where that road leads. Modern Europe?

Where in "Modern Europe" have they banned all the unhealthy foods?

Re: You say sin, I say disease

#24

Post by Evgeny » Thu, Nov 25, 2010, 1:31 AM UTC

mtviewdave wrote: post #21

Evgeny wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I have to agree - the fact that I can manipulate my weight at will and either stay at the target weight or adjust it if I want to does give me some feeling of superiority in this particular aspect . And I have learnt a few things on the way - for example, that slight hunger is not a sign that you should rush to the fridge. That a 24 or 36 hours fast will not kill you, but is rather good for you. That if I want…

Keep in mind that you've learned some important lessons only for yourself. Extrapolations you make to other people--the minutia of how their bodies work, what sort of impulses and urges they have, how easy or difficult those urges are to control--are basically speculative. And judgments based just on speculation aren't really worth very much.

Well I hope I understand that. However, widespread obesity is a relatively recent problem. I'm not convinced that human bodies somehow started to work in a very different way over the span of just a few decades. The amount and compisition of what we place inside those bodies did change though.

Overcoming the urges and impulses would require a certain amount of effort and self-control, but don't other positive changes in life do? To become stronger would involve regular and fairly intensive exercise. To get that better job may require extra studying and less going out. To save for that vacation may require restricting your spending. My approach would be the same in general: set a reasonable goal, formulate the plan, follow the plan. If something is not working, try to find the reason and adjust your goals or plans.

Re: You say sin, I say disease

#25

Post by ryandvm » Thu, Nov 25, 2010, 1:34 AM UTC

lionhearted wrote: post #3

More and more, I'm starting to come to the awful conclusion that most people have very little control over how their lives go. They maybe have a few key decision points in their life - but maybe not all that many. And the rest is autopilot. They watch some subset of the new movies, new TV programs, websites they stumble across. They eat whatever's more or less served near them and eaten by people they associate with.…

You cannot propel yourself forward by patting your own back.

Re: You say sin, I say disease

#26

Post by cabalamat » Thu, Nov 25, 2010, 1:51 AM UTC

Imagine you're a food industry executive. You want people to buy your product, and you want to make a profit. Therefore you are optimising for tastiness and chewapness. While you're not specifically optimising against nutritional quality, or ability to deliver calories without sating appetite, you're not optimising against them either.

Becauee technology is good, and getting better fast, the things optimised for -- taste and cheapness will improve, even if it detracts from other qualities that're perhaps desirable but not optimised for. Therefore over time, food is likely to have a higher tendency to get people overweight.

PG has written an essay on this: http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html

Re: You say sin, I say disease

#27

Post by eitally » Thu, Nov 25, 2010, 2:34 AM UTC

lionhearted wrote: post #3

More and more, I'm starting to come to the awful conclusion that most people have very little control over how their lives go. They maybe have a few key decision points in their life - but maybe not all that many. And the rest is autopilot. They watch some subset of the new movies, new TV programs, websites they stumble across. They eat whatever's more or less served near them and eaten by people they associate with.…

This is why charity (actually helping others, not just blindly writing checks) is so much more rewarding than [egotistical] introspection. You can always help someone else, even if it isn't clear how you can help yourself.

Re: You say sin, I say disease

#28

Post by samd » Thu, Nov 25, 2010, 3:07 AM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #17

samd wrote: post #6

It's a problem in general when we pin the fault of something on a moral failing. It's a cop-out that does nothing to solve the problem. If we want to discourage some behavior in our society we have to look at the causes and try to mitigate them. Unfortunately many people refuse to even consider the reasons for people's behavior.

But what about when it is just a moral failing? What if it is just a matter of developing the modest amount of willpower required to say "Actually on second thoughts I won't have that cheesecake for dessert, an apple will be just fine". In that case the worst thing you can possibly do is to blame it on anything other than personal failings.

I don't think a lack of willpower is a moral failing, but let's suppose it is. How does that help somebody eat healthy? Wouldn't it be more effective to just tell people to avoid cheesecake if they can't help but eat it when it's around? If you could find a way to give people the willpower to do the things they know they ought to do that'd be great, but nobody's managed to figure that one out yet.

Re: You say sin, I say disease

#29

Post by yters » Thu, Nov 25, 2010, 3:14 AM UTC

lionhearted wrote: post #3

More and more, I'm starting to come to the awful conclusion that most people have very little control over how their lives go. They maybe have a few key decision points in their life - but maybe not all that many. And the rest is autopilot. They watch some subset of the new movies, new TV programs, websites they stumble across. They eat whatever's more or less served near them and eaten by people they associate with.…

Monarchy has historically been the preferred form of government among the elite.

Re: You say sin, I say disease

#30

Post by archgoon » Thu, Nov 25, 2010, 3:23 AM UTC

Semiapies wrote: post #23

archgoon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"well, just ban all the food that's unhealthy, and people will eat better..." - but we know where that road leads. Modern Europe?

Where in "Modern Europe" have they banned all the unhealthy foods?

Denmark and Switzerland have both banned Transfats. Also, various bans exist for genetically modified foods in Europe. Sweeteners such as stevia, meats with bovine growth hormone, etc.

I'm surprised people are unaware of this. My apologies for not citing it in my comment, I thought everyone was aware of this, and so I found the original implication that banning foods leads to totalitarianism absurd.