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The Ones We Sent Away

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Ones We Sent Away

#61

Post by strken »

crdrost wrote: post #42
fortran77 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "what if the obesity epidemic has nothing to do with calories in vs calories out, and actually there is some toxin which the body has to sequester in subcutaneous fat and that's why everyone's getting obese" Everyone loses weight on a caloric deficit. And "doubly labeled water" experiments show that people vastly underestimate how many calories they actually eat each day. See this often cited paper: https://www.nej…

Just to be clear, I am trained as a physicist and I am not criticizing the thermodynamics as incorrect but rather insufficient . It is also incorrect, which is to say that there is only a vague relationship between the kilocalories reported on the side of the box and the actual marginal energy absorbed into your body. This is due to multiple factors. The most basic is measurement methodology: “count up the carbs in g…

The thing about CICO is that it's not a very good scientific model for obesity because it says nothing about hunger or satiety, but tracking calories is useful for ordinary people looking to control their food intake, so it sticks around.

CICO doesn't have any opinion on the relative satiation offered by sugars vs proteins, or bread vs potatoes, but it turns one's diet into a marketplace for satiation, which does teach which foods are the best "value" per kcal (even if a kcal is itself very inaccurate).

Maybe we'll see it as a dated but situationally valid tool, like leeches or "Red sky at night, shepard's delight".

Re: The Ones We Sent Away

#62

Post by nradov »

avidiax wrote: post #43
throwaw1yyy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from people who work in those companies: those cars could be in every city and they’d run great (except snow. snow is tough, rain not so much) but why aren’t driverless cars there? It’s been decided you want a perfect track record, as close to flawless - to appease regulation bodies. regulation is what kills and regulation is the biggest fear. The cars and tech are always getting better, the ‘slowness’ is deliberate,…

> It’s been decided you want a perfect track record, as close to flawless - to appease regulation bodies. This is why I feel China will be the first to have unlimited self-driving. They would be able to treat self-driving cars the way that we treat trains: liability on the person hit by the train, so long as the train was functioning properly.

Maybe the Chinese self-driving cars will be programmed to kill any pedestrians they accidentally hit. Apparently it's cheaper that way.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/09/why-drivers-in-c...

Re: The Ones We Sent Away

#63

Post by staticautomatic »

pjc50 wrote: post #45
throw__away7391 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, I've seen multiple people end up with their lives completely and utterly detailed, as well as wrecking their family and fiends (yours truly included) and a result of such prescriptions. I don't understand how this goes totally ignored by the public at large.

SSRIs and other anti-depression medication are a lottery. There often isn't a good rationale for picking one over another. Many people get great benefits; some people have to go through trying several drugs to get benefits; a few get dramatically bad side effects.

There’s genetic testing now that can help us avoid some of these problems.

Re: The Ones We Sent Away

#64

Post by crdrost »

strken wrote: post #61
crdrost wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, I am trained as a physicist and I am not criticizing the thermodynamics as incorrect but rather insufficient . It is also incorrect, which is to say that there is only a vague relationship between the kilocalories reported on the side of the box and the actual marginal energy absorbed into your body. This is due to multiple factors. The most basic is measurement methodology: “count up the carbs in g…

The thing about CICO is that it's not a very good scientific model for obesity because it says nothing about hunger or satiety, but tracking calories is useful for ordinary people looking to control their food intake, so it sticks around. CICO doesn't have any opinion on the relative satiation offered by sugars vs proteins, or bread vs potatoes, but it turns one's diet into a marketplace for satiation, which does tea…

Yeah I am inclined to agree. The “calorie counting fad diet,” such as it is, is like other fad diets where it does have good short-term results, and it can have good long-term results for the people who really stick with it: as you say, you can get a sense for a healthier rhythm.

But remember this was a thread about a game where you think about these “K factors” that make us laugh at history, and imagining ourselves being laughed at and what sort of K-factor could that be. When I play this game, it's not really truthfinding, it's fun because it's kind of a constructive way to direct a conspiracy-theory impulse that wants to deny a mainstream view by latching on to all of these little details. By declaring myself as the sheeple up-front, the end place is always Socrates’ “well, at least I know that I don't know!”

In that vein, it is fun to think about SMTM’s thesis or, say, K=“obese people literally have a hormonal imbalance H which makes them feel like shit, and them feeling like shit is why they eat and don't exercise, and these people in the past just thought they would cure the problem by making obese people feel EVEN MORE like shit and the less it worked the more goofy shit they tried!”

It's not that this is something I know to be correct, it's not. But if this became the mainstream scientific view 100 years down the line, they would laugh at me trying to do a smoothie cleanse and drinking kale-ginger-cinnamon grossness, “they didn't know that they just needed more lycopene hahaha that green glass is the wrong color!!” and it's fun to imagine yourself as ridiculous. “Well shit, my conspiratorial instincts have generated an alternative explanation to my preferred one and I don't know what is true, haha, see me walking around like some smarty pants knowing nothing.”

Re: The Ones We Sent Away

#65

Post by bowsamic »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #53
bowsamic wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m not counting the calories of a fucking croissant I had for breakfast today A croissant is very calorific

Hence the lighter lunch

True but also I don’t agree that he automatically chose a lighter lunch intuitively based on the croissant. A croissant is calorific but not filling

Re: The Ones We Sent Away

#66

Post by colineartheta »

asimpleusecase wrote: post #19

I knew a lady who was born with very complex spina bifida. Her parents were wealthy and had very manicured lives. They signed her over to an institution at birth. She grew up with people with profound mental retardation. She receive no education. At 20 she was found by an uncle who always suspected something had happened that was not being disclosed. He began to visit her and teach her to read. He explained that she…

Thank you for sharing this nice story. What an amazing uncle to find her and help her like that.

Re: The Ones We Sent Away

#67

Post by dghlsakjg »

throwaw1yyy wrote: post #31
dghlsakjg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are only 3 cities in the entire US with generally available driverless taxis. All three of which are in sunny areas with generally no real inclement weather. At this point, driverless taxis are more science fiction than reality for a supermajority of Americans, let alone the rest of the world. Meanwhile up in Canada, I'm still struggling with the fact that google has completely mislabeled two of the streets tha…

from people who work in those companies: those cars could be in every city and they’d run great (except snow. snow is tough, rain not so much) but why aren’t driverless cars there? It’s been decided you want a perfect track record, as close to flawless - to appease regulation bodies. regulation is what kills and regulation is the biggest fear. The cars and tech are always getting better, the ‘slowness’ is deliberate,…

According to the DOT over 70% of US roads are in areas that receive snowfall. (https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/weather/weather_events/snow_ice.htm)

The inability to operate in conditions where people are most likely to not be able to use active transportation seems like a pretty major flaw.

Re: The Ones We Sent Away

#68

Post by dghlsakjg »

astrange wrote: post #46
dghlsakjg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are only 3 cities in the entire US with generally available driverless taxis. All three of which are in sunny areas with generally no real inclement weather. At this point, driverless taxis are more science fiction than reality for a supermajority of Americans, let alone the rest of the world. Meanwhile up in Canada, I'm still struggling with the fact that google has completely mislabeled two of the streets tha…

> All three of which are in sunny areas with generally no real inclement weather. This isn't an accurate description of SF, but more importantly, the sun doesn't come out at night.

In terms of inclement weather for driving purposes, SF is more similar to Austin than say, Seattle.

My point wasn't that sunshine specifically helps, but that the complete lack of snow, ice and other roadway altering weather conditions is a serious asterisk that needs to be solved before this technology can be moved out of Beta for most of the US.

Self_driving cars seemingly can't handle snowy conditions. 70% of the roads in the US receive at least five inches of snow per year. (https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/weather/weather_events/snow_ice.htm)

Re: The Ones We Sent Away

#69

Post by foobiekr »

throwaw1yyy wrote: post #31
dghlsakjg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are only 3 cities in the entire US with generally available driverless taxis. All three of which are in sunny areas with generally no real inclement weather. At this point, driverless taxis are more science fiction than reality for a supermajority of Americans, let alone the rest of the world. Meanwhile up in Canada, I'm still struggling with the fact that google has completely mislabeled two of the streets tha…

from people who work in those companies: those cars could be in every city and they’d run great (except snow. snow is tough, rain not so much) but why aren’t driverless cars there? It’s been decided you want a perfect track record, as close to flawless - to appease regulation bodies. regulation is what kills and regulation is the biggest fear. The cars and tech are always getting better, the ‘slowness’ is deliberate,…

People who work there will of course claim that. Maybe they should demonstrate it.

Re: The Ones We Sent Away

#70

Post by foobiekr »

fortran77 wrote: post #21
crdrost wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely. I like to play a game sometimes... more or less based on the idea that bloodletting and rectal feeding and wound probing were medical "best practices" of the past and now seem so obviously ludicrous to us now. So I like to look at something that I think is obvious, some "best practice of our time", and wonder how it might in 100 or 150 years suddenly seem totally ludicrous to posterity with the revelation…

> "what if the obesity epidemic has nothing to do with calories in vs calories out, and actually there is some toxin which the body has to sequester in subcutaneous fat and that's why everyone's getting obese" Everyone loses weight on a caloric deficit. And "doubly labeled water" experiments show that people vastly underestimate how many calories they actually eat each day. See this often cited paper: https://www.nej…

"You know, if we starve people, they lose weight. Obviously it's just self control."

"Yeah. Weird. Well, guess I'll go have a donut or whatever and think it over. It's a mystery why they aren't just thin like us, must be a personal failing."

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