Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Hacker News Sacred Cow: The Unhealthy Lifestyle of The Average Geek

plus.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 50 posts

Re: The Hacker News Sacred Cow: The Unhealthy Lifestyle of The Average Geek

#41

Post by mercer »

mef wrote: post #9

A link to the post in question https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7763106 If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the downvotes are more for the claims of a miracle cure-all smoothie than for some sort of perceived self-promotion.

Yeah, I think it's more the tone of the article that bothers people. It's strong with the 'I found Jesus, have you heard about Jesus, let me tell you about Jesus.'

What I find difficult about that is that I absolutely support someone who is excited about their epiphanies (especially when I think they're good ones!), but it can be really hard to not feel judged or to get annoyed or even downright angry.

Re: The Hacker News Sacred Cow: The Unhealthy Lifestyle of The Average Geek

#42

Post by slavoingilizov »

JelteF wrote: post #11

I would say I'm not very healthy myself. I drink a lot, eat lots of sugar, meat and fat. I have thought about eating more healthy and have tried for a little while a couple of times. However I always fall back to eating unhealthy. The reason for this is that I like eating unhealthy food. It tastes great and gives me joy. I don't mind not growing as old as I could when eating more healthy. This is because I wouldn't e…

The same thing happens to me. I am just starting to worry that "I don't mind not growing as old" is not the worse case scenario here, as you are implying. Apart from not growing as old, you may surprisingly fall into a situation where you can't do some activity even while young. I just screwed up my knee while jogging and it seems to take months to recover. The first day I couldn't really walk, and then the next 3 weeks (and counting) I cannot run. And I blame my sedentary life and plain lack of care during the previous decade for this. The consequences of living unhealthy are just often underestimated. It's not just about living to be older, it's also about what happens in your mid-life.

Re: The Hacker News Sacred Cow: The Unhealthy Lifestyle of The Average Geek

#43

Post by shaunol »

joel_perl_prog wrote: post #21
shaunol wrote: post #12

It's nice to advocate healthy living but I really think you're looking too much into the reason why people may not have found your video particularly interesting. Though you raise a discussion on a topic that may be worth exploring, all you've done is stereotype an entire community - which you yourself are an active participant. Keep in mind, this is a tech community - people that want better living & health advice w…

Isolated quotation: "We see our pasty, doughy, sickly selves in the mirror and somehow just deny the obviousness of the truth. We then armor ourselves against anything that might pierce our bubble of denial, so as to protect our inflated egos. I say "we" and "our" because I'm not so different, either. It's just that, for various reasons, years ago I saw the light re: health and fitness" Isolated even further: "I'm no…

"I'm not so different .. It's just that .."

You include yourself and then exclude yourself in the very next sentence.

I know you're excited and eager to share what you feel has empowered & enlightened you but you shouldn't take it to heart when not everyone else is on the same wavelength.

Re: The Hacker News Sacred Cow: The Unhealthy Lifestyle of The Average Geek

#44

Post by SandB0x »

joel_perl_prog wrote: post #37
mef wrote: post #9

A link to the post in question https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7763106 If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the downvotes are more for the claims of a miracle cure-all smoothie than for some sort of perceived self-promotion.

I guess I'm not allowed to participate in the discussion, I've had to delete several comments already that were getting steadily down-voted. It's not a claim to be a miracle or cure-all. This is exactly the type of cynical, know-it-all bullshit that frustrates me so much. It's nothing else but a claim, based on years of my own personal experience, to the benefits I myself have experienced, and the benefits others hav…

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downmod you.

Re: The Hacker News Sacred Cow: The Unhealthy Lifestyle of The Average Geek

#45

Post by joel_perl_prog »

DanBC wrote: post #34
slavoingilizov wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to show us such a test or study?

http://www.badscience.net/2008/04/cliff-richard-gloria-hunni... That links to a 2008 Cochrane review. Here's the updated review: http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD007176/antioxidant-supplemen...

Isn't the study (not the blog, because...honestly, who cares about a blog reference) about supplements, though?

My smoothie is made from whole foods, only.

Supplements are a very complicated thing. I can't even venture to say whether they're good or not, based on all the conflicting information.

Re: The Hacker News Sacred Cow: The Unhealthy Lifestyle of The Average Geek

#46

Post by frozenport »

joel_perl_prog wrote: post #37
mef wrote: post #9

A link to the post in question https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7763106 If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the downvotes are more for the claims of a miracle cure-all smoothie than for some sort of perceived self-promotion.

I guess I'm not allowed to participate in the discussion, I've had to delete several comments already that were getting steadily down-voted. It's not a claim to be a miracle or cure-all. This is exactly the type of cynical, know-it-all bullshit that frustrates me so much. It's nothing else but a claim, based on years of my own personal experience, to the benefits I myself have experienced, and the benefits others hav…

>>It's not a claim to be a miracle or cure-all.

Read what you wrote:

>>>>If you add this smoothie to your daily life, and change nothing else, you will feel better. A lot better.

How?

>>>>you will feel better and experience benefits.

What kind of benefits?

Re: The Hacker News Sacred Cow: The Unhealthy Lifestyle of The Average Geek

#47

Post by mhd »

mapleoin wrote: post #6
spingsprong wrote: post #2

Just to pick on a tiny part of that post, consuming anti-oxidants hasn't been reliably shown to have any health benefits. If consuming anti-oxidants has any effect, it's not necessarily a positive one, since the body uses oxidation for various processes, for example the immune system. You might be consuming anti-oxidants aiming to benefit your health, yet be negatively impacting your immune system's ability to fight…

I hope you're being ironic, because this attitude is exactly what the article is declaiming.

I see this as the perfect example why the article is mostly wrong. It supposes a personal motivation for "ignoring" allegedly good advice, whereas I'd bet that a lot more readers are looking at things from a objective, scientific angle where just anecdotes don't really count ("every person I tried this on" ain't that much better than "it works for me!").

Probably some variation/inversion of Hanlon's Razor.

Not everyone who wants to see more evidence for every claim and trick is doing that out of sheer denial. There might be some room for the Nirvana fallacy here ("SuperMegaFoodStuff didn't make me into an Adonis in a week, so it's crap"), but in general I'm pro-skepticism.

Re: The Hacker News Sacred Cow: The Unhealthy Lifestyle of The Average Geek

#48

Post by kyberias »

Evgeny wrote: post #35

This is a video where I show how to use real food--fruits, vegetables, flax seeds, etc One thing I do not understand is why would one take perfectly fine real food, such as fruits and vegetables, and then artificially blend them ... if the goal is healthier diet, please eat real food! I'm not going to try the smoothie, but I guess that for me it would be a step down from a healthier diet to a less healthy one.

Why do you think that blending food magically makes it "less healthy" and then it suddenly ceases to be "real food"? Come on, now!

Re: The Hacker News Sacred Cow: The Unhealthy Lifestyle of The Average Geek

#49

Post by bkmartin »

joel_perl_prog wrote: post #37
mef wrote: post #9

A link to the post in question https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7763106 If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the downvotes are more for the claims of a miracle cure-all smoothie than for some sort of perceived self-promotion.

I guess I'm not allowed to participate in the discussion, I've had to delete several comments already that were getting steadily down-voted. It's not a claim to be a miracle or cure-all. This is exactly the type of cynical, know-it-all bullshit that frustrates me so much. It's nothing else but a claim, based on years of my own personal experience, to the benefits I myself have experienced, and the benefits others hav…

Its about anecdotal vs empirical evidence. And lets face it, all these miracle foods are being promoted (in the general health food market) as some saving grace to health. And they are doing it claiming to be, basically, a magic pill. Just put a dash of this, or a spoon of that, into your smoothie or onto some toast or into your oatmeal and BAM! Now you're healthy!

You might be feeling great, but have you done a scientific study to know if its just a placebo effect? My guess is that its not a placebo effect, but not because it has "super foods" in it. But because it has "FOOD" in it. As in, good whole and natural foods. I'm not a vegetarian, or anything close to that. But as a society, we need to eat healthier. This, is something that we should be touting. Eat fruits and vegetables - the more color the better. Eat less highly enriched starches and other highly processed foods. You don't have to stop eating everything that's unhealthy, you have to enjoy life. But if we all ate our recommended servings of fruit and veg we'd be reversing lots of obesity just because we were being intentional about our nutrition. And that is what it boils down to.

Post reply on HN