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Jack Dorsey Is Gwyneth Paltrow for Silicon Valley

nytimes.com

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Re: Jack Dorsey Is Gwyneth Paltrow for Silicon Valley

#61

Post by komali2 »

wpietri wrote: post #8

This is really a perfect title. As somebody who grew up in Michigan not far from Battle Creek, I've always been interested the history of wacky self-improvement regimes. (You may remember "The Road to Wellville" as one look at that. [1]) E.g., the inventor of Graham flour believed in all sorts of self-harshness: "Graham created a theology and diet aimed at keeping individuals, families, and society pure and healthy -…

Ah, Battle Creek! Also where the Kellogg brothers got up to their weirdness.

John Harvey Kellogg was involved in the weird dietary movements of the era as well. Ran a sort of spa / psych hospital thing, recommended people eat super plain food and chew each bite 45 times, that sort of thing. Tried to make "pre-digested" food which led eventually to Corn Flakes.

Lots of weird health anecdotes out of there. Anything from one of the Kellogg brothers leaving the table during a meal and coming back with a pail of his own fresh shit, inviting others to smell it and describing it as "as if it were a warm loaf of bread," to recommending circumcision in young adults as a preventative measure to masturbation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg

Re: Jack Dorsey Is Gwyneth Paltrow for Silicon Valley

#62

Post by _bxg1 »

pcbro141 wrote: post #38

Never understood the disdain for people for trying wacky sounding self-improvement techniques. Just like I wouldn't make fun of the 17% of Americans who take antidepressant pills to feel happier, I'm definitely not going to make fun of people fasting or using sauna to feel happy.

I think the disdain comes from seeing marketing outweigh science. What people really disdain are companies that offer snake oil in bad-faith, but they secondarily disdain the people who fall for it. The benefits of antidepressants are backed up with science; the benefits of faraday tents are not.

Of course, it's still not really right to disdain people for being overly-optimistic to the point of being gullible.

Re: Jack Dorsey Is Gwyneth Paltrow for Silicon Valley

#63

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

cnahr wrote: post #41
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just said that anyone who isn't fat or diabetic has a lifestyle that is automatically better than someone who does. That's not the case.

Are you for real? This is ridiculous. Obesity is a serious proven health risk.

You're arguing from a point of attacking the opposite instead of boosting your own point.

Do you remember Heroin Chic?

Re: Jack Dorsey Is Gwyneth Paltrow for Silicon Valley

#64

Post by shrimp_emoji »

AimForTheBushes wrote: post #3

Can't read the article without making an account but the first paragraph is a real zinger. >Young men are staggering around, hungry for days. They are throwing themselves into ice baths and cryotherapy pods. There are not enough beds at the silent vegan meditation centers to accommodate them. They need more near-infrared bulbs.

Really??

I can read it just fine, without an account. Maybe it's because I have JavaScript disabled (via NoScript)? If so, someone else's comment here that the paywall is porous is quite true.

Re: Jack Dorsey Is Gwyneth Paltrow for Silicon Valley

#65

Post by joelrunyon »

jerf wrote: post #35
joelrunyon wrote: post #26

I'm curious how they compare "fasting" - which people have been doing for thousands of years and has traditions in nearly every major historical + religious culture and cost nothing with "jade eggs." Doesn't quite seem equivalent...

I've been doing some fasting lately, and what has deeply shocked me is precisely that I'm not "staggering about hungry for days". It's surprisingly easy once you get over the initial hump. (Note: I'm not saying it's necessarily easy in an absolute sense; I'm saying it's surprising how easy it is. Based on my upbringing I would have guessed after hour 4 I'd be in constant serious hunger, and it's not like that.) I've…

For a lot of people - what they think is "hunger" is really just "boredom." That - or a carb addiction.

Once you start reading about autophagy, fasting doesn't really seem that crazy after all.

Re: Jack Dorsey Is Gwyneth Paltrow for Silicon Valley

#66

Post by fwip »

komali2 wrote: post #43

> “It’s such a strange service — who wants to be in the cold? You need to hear about it from someone you trust,” said Michael Garrett, the head of Reboot, a spa that offers cryotherapy around the Bay Area. (Cryotherapy is when you make yourself get cold.) Love the author's snark. >He said the cold therapy gives him a high, as blood rushes to his head and chest, and he believes practitioners are addicted. “I’m addicte…

When you pay for something, you justify to yourself why it's better than a free or cheap alternative. "I'm really glad I paid extra for USB-C, it's so nice to plug it in the right way the first try."

I can't remember the exact phrase for this, maybe "cost bias?" Related to, but distinct from, the sunk-cost fallacy.

Re: Jack Dorsey Is Gwyneth Paltrow for Silicon Valley

#67

Post by jonny_eh »

hammock wrote: post #51

Is Jack Dorsey really "tech's biggest manfluencer"? He didn't invent [ed: start a trend in pop culture] keto, cold showers, intermittent fasting, or meditation. There have been (modern, trend-driven) communities around each of these for 10+ years. And there are loads of people who ALL of these together, just like Jack. I wouldn't be surprised if Dorsey is only 2 degrees removed from Joe Rogan, for example. And in bet…

Influencing isn't about inventing, it's about… influencing.

Re: Jack Dorsey Is Gwyneth Paltrow for Silicon Valley

#68

Post by abakker »

Notorious_BLT wrote: post #39

I'm firmly of the opinion that a lot of wellness fads spring up fields like tech because its a field where traditional religious views are rarer. People latch on to these new belief systems that are like religion in most ways beside name. They all have a set of rigid rules to follow and rituals to perform, and they all have some type of self-denial or sacrifice as one of their core values. Fasting, temperance, Whole3…

this is kind of flippant, but I suspect that a big part of it is that remaining rational and skeptical, and trying to be belief-free is exhausting.

Rituals - even things like having morning coffee or an after work walk are things that I can say calm me down because they require little mental effort. The more you aim for variety the more effort it takes.

Beliefs are like the mental equivalent to acclimating to consistent and unvaried exercise. It stops requiring thought and no longer pushes you to improve.

given the breadth of ideas we are always exposed to now, I'd say that these semi-religious tendencies are defense mechanisms.

Re: Jack Dorsey Is Gwyneth Paltrow for Silicon Valley

#69

Post by nimbius »

As someone with a firmly blue-collar perspective on the world, these weird sacred cows of the city that people elevate to the status of guru are as mysterious for me as they are asinine.

I read up on Gwyneth Paltrow after reading the article, and checked her website where I found idiotic products that made my heart stop with some of their claims. When my heart finally started again I cursed god for letting me live to see things like $300 leather sandals, a $75 candle to "clear my energy" and a $70 crystal drinking straw that radiates heart opening...whatever the hell that means.

Now theres a guy telling people how to eat in Silicon Valley, and I cant help but remember how this ended last time. Steve Jobs was essentially a station of the cross at the holy church of silicon valley who could do no wrong, speak no evil, and walked a path of enlightenment akin to a god of knowledge...

until he died from trying to cure a common cancer with fruit cups and meditation, instead of medical science. Thats the part we dont seem to talk about very much, and I feel like it would do wonders to scale the wind back from the sails of these quacks. Being directly attributed to the cause of death for a diet related disorder would give these self-proclaimed lords of the human body a chance to reconsider their podcast --or at least hire a lawyer-- before they click upload.

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