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Fiat justitia ruat caelum

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Fiat justitia ruat caelum

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 05 01:56:25 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 359


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Eli Lilly releases data for a new weight-loss drug to tackle obesity : Shots - Health News : NPR
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But why is the typical person storing the calories as fat, instead of raising their temperature by .3 degrees or making them energetic?  And if they are overeating, why are they not feeling satiated? When I'm satiated (not just "full" or "no longer hungry") I have no desire to eat anything at all.  The idea of eating becomes repulsive.


You seem really confident that people are eating more now than is historically normal.  Outside of war or famine, I've seen evidence that people in the past consumed many more calories.




Did the French eat less than Americans in the 30 year period when the obesity epidemic was exploding in America? The answer is absolutely not!  The french “disappeared” an additional 214 calories per day per person during this time.  This means that a 50 year old living in America in 1990 would be four times as likely to be obese as a French person despite being responsible for disappearing 2.4 MILLION less calories between the ages of 20 and 50.




It also looks like the median American ate around 3500 calories a day in 1939.


Do you have any evidence you've seen that we are actually eating more calories today?


I've presented evidence that the calories out side has changed, not due to activity going down, but due to people's basal calorie expenditure going down.  The amount of calories someone in 2020 burns just by sitting on the couch is less than the amount of calories someone in 1920 burnt by sitting on a couch, and according to the researcher, "The surprising conclusion is we spend less energy when resting now than individuals did 30-40 years ago! The magnitude of the effect is sufficient to explain the obesity epidemic."


Even if we are eating more calories today, and this is due to increased convenient "hyperpalatable" foods, do you have any explanation for the decrease in basal calorie expenditure?  (Keep in mind, this is not referring to total energy expenditure, it cannot be explained by saying we're less active today because that is not what is being measured.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for May 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I am not a doctor, this is not medical advice, but it reminds me of the story here: https://www.mechanicalbasis.org/mystory


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Quality Contributions Report for April 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A definitive list of Catholic Dogmas and their teaching weight has been made, yes.  Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludwig Ott is the best at explaining the degrees of authority each teaching possesses.  St. Alphonsus Liguori’s Moral Theology is likely the most thorough explication of Catholic Moral Theology.  As Rev. Thomas Slater, S.J. put it, "Moral theology is still what St. Alphonsus left it."


Ott lists 6 grades of Theological Certainty, ranging from "immediately revealed truths... defined by a solemn judgement of faith (definition) of the Pope or a General Council" to "Tolerated Opinions."  A solemn judgement of faith cannot be just what the Pope said last Tuesday, or even something put in an instructional document like the Catechism.  (The current Catechism of the Catholic Church has many topics with various degrees of authoritativeness, and explicitly states that the degree of authority pertains to the documents outside of the Catechism in which they are defined.  Addition to the Catechism does not increase magisterial authority.)


The Church has not U turned on capital punishment, which is infallibly considered not intrinsically immoral.  The current Pope skirting heresy does not change the fact that capital punishment is good in a lot of situations.  The Pope could even be a full blown heretic and that would still not pose a problem for the Church.  What he cannot do is declare he's changing prior dogmatic teaching using his authority as the Pope.


In the case of capital punishment, Pope Francis is clearly making a prudential judgement, which is still binding on Catholics as my first comment shows.  Prudentially, in most countries today, is is possible to protect society without killing murders.  Much of the benefits to the murderer from killing them are gone as well - in a non-Catholic society it is unlikely that a murderer will repent, go to confession, face the hangman, and go on his way to Heaven.  Instead, keeping the murderer alive for longer gives him the best chance at repentance.  Prudentially, there is a good argument to not practice Capital Punishment.  And as I said above, the Pope doesn't even need a good argument to make Catholics do something under obedience.  He could outlaw the color pink arbitrarily.


"Do not murder" in the Bible has always been consistent with God commanding the Israelites to practice capital punishment one book over.  There is no ambiguity or conflict there.  If you are interested in a more thorough explication of Catholic teaching on Capital Punishment, I recommend, "By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment." (You should be able to pirate it, there's nothing about copyright in Alphonsus' Moral Theology, so it's totally morally fine.) (Also copyright would probably be considered unnatural, like usury, and therefore prohibitions on it are unjust.)


Honestly that reminds me.  I owe a debt to Pope Francis for his ambiguous statements on Capital Punishment.  It is much, much easier to talk about how Church teaching hasn't changed in regards to Capital Punishment than it is to talk about how Church Teaching hasn't changed in regards to Usury, which used to be the go-to zinger.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Eli Lilly releases data for a new weight-loss drug to tackle obesity : Shots - Health News : NPR
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I am sorry if I gave the impression that I believed there was an evolutionary selection pressure to lower BEE.  However, now might be a good time to point out that the earliest mammals had ways to store fat and enter a state called Torpor - low body temperature, high fat storage, low energy expenditure, higher hunger levels.  Echidnas are one of the older branches from the mammal family tree - they lay eggs and exude milk from their skin instead of concentrating it in a nipple. They enter a state of torpor.  Bears famously enter a state of torpor.  It seems to be common to mammalian metabolism and remnants of it remain in most mammals.  It is almost universally useful, for humans included, to lower metabolism during famine, dry periods, winters, etc.


When mammals are not in torpor, they store body fat in a specific ratio: Saturated, Mono Unsaturated, and Poly Unsaturated fats are 4:5:1.   When it is time to enter into torpor, mono-unsaturated foods become more available and body fat becomes more unsaturated, closer to 2:7:1


There are a lot of mechanisms that go on inside a cell that can cause a metabolism bottleneck.  Once the bottleneck occurs, they body can no longer expend the calories as energy and instead has to store them as fat.  I'm not going to go into it here and now.  When I get around to it, I will write an effort post on this and will tag you.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Quality Contributions Report for April 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There are people who argue things like, "our understanding of money has changed" and that sufficiently low interest rates (such that they cover just inflation + a reasonable salary for the employees necessary to facilitate the loan) are acceptable now.


However, I am becoming more and more convinced that the Church hasn't officially developed its teaching in this direction at all.  I think loaning money on interest is still a sin.  It's not a sin to accept a loan under such terms (though should be avoided if possible.)  And yes, this does mean that the Vatican Bank is - at the very least -  a near occasion of sin to a lot of people.  But that shouldn't be surprising, given what we know of Vatican Bank officials.


If you want to learn more in depth, New Polity did a series on "Good Money."


Church Leaders are not very outspoken on this topic these days.  I can only speculate as to why, a charitable guess would be that if the average Catholic understood that the entire system on which they base their livelihood on involves sinning, they will either reject the Church's definition of sin or become scrupulous.  It's rare for people to take the middle way, that we live in a fallen world but it's not a sin to be taken advantage of.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 7, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've heard good things about Writing with Ease, if your interested in expanding the writing instruction.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Equestrian sports are already sex integrated - and for some time the Olympics had mixed shooting, though they stopped in the 80's (don't know why.)


Some long distance swimming competitions are sex integrated, and oftentimes men and women have similar times.  But looking at the Olympics 2020, the top women's time is 1:59:30.8, which would have placed her at 23 (out of 24).  So at the highest levels of competition, it still looks like men have the advantage.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The day after the Daily Wire made some sort of indication they were going to develop kids programming, I bought an annual membership.  I've only watched a DW movie/show a couple times since then, but I've renewed the membership once already.  It doesn't matter that they don't even have any kids programming yet, I want to encourage them to make it.


Angel Studios has three kids shows, one for the preschool age and two that are probably TV-Y7.  They aren't religious in nature, one teaches civics from a right wing stance, but the other two are non-political.  They just don't include anything that would have been objectionable to a Republican 20 years ago.  These shows are free to watch, but new episodes are crowdsourced (so if you want to see what happens next, pay up!)


There aren't many options, but the Right is starting to wage the culture war, in the sense of changing the culture kids are exposed to.


Disney plus includes shows and movies from more than 15 years ago.  If a parent controls the remote, they can show their kids more wholesome programming.  There's even ways to block specific shows in the parental controls.  A truly dedicated culture warring parent could probably manually block all new shows every morning.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I imagine that every kid a family has is a huge cost against this government bank account, due to the cost of public schools.  While I would like it - I could homeschool to save up for retirement - it would create a perverse incentive to lower birth rates further.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You're correct, I meant crowdfunded. Though they also have a system to submit projects for funding and distribution.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In that case, parents will be making choices for their children that can seriously impact them later in life.  It's bad enough now, but I'm imagining a parent running out their children's government bucks on various things, leaving the kid with no social net for the rest of their lives (or until they get children of their own.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Quality Contributions Report for April 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That is a common misconception among Catholics.  Or rather, the Marian dogma of the Assumption is the only ex cathedra statement made since ex cathedra was defined in 1870.


But obviously, the Church existed for a while before 1870 and defined a lot of dogmas prior to that time.  It would be really weird to have a Christian Church where the only thing they are sure of is Mary was assumed into Heaven, and not something like Jesus Christ is True God and True Man.


The ordinary means of infallibility are when all bishops teach the same doctrine, through Church Councils headed and approved by the Pope.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Quality Contributions Report for April 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma has been considered as the definitive single­ volume summary of Catholic dogmatic theology ever since its original publication in German in 1952. This great work by Ludwig Ott presents a comprehensive yet concise outline of the entire system of Catholic doctrine, laying out its sources in Scripture and Tradition as taught by the Magisterium of the Church. The level of authority behind each doctrinal point is indicated and there are frequent references to the teachings of Fathers, Doctors and numerous Saints of the Church.




In Catholic Academia, it is widely regarded as the list, though I don't know how to prove that without going through each college class's syllibi and listing how often it shows up.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for June 7, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
One thing to keep in mind is the review is often of your performance the entire year, not just of you as you stand today. You mentioned that your manager gave you things to improve on, you improved on them, your manager said you were good now. If that's the case, it sounds like "needs improvement" sums up the last year well.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have seen trans women refer to their sexual organs as female penises, usually in the context of a spa serving female only treatment. The logic being, they are a woman, therefore female, therefore any sexual organs they possess are female, regardless of their function. But you will have to take my word for what it's worth because I usually see it on Reddit and Tumblr, two sites with terrible search.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No one responded to you so I am going to give you something tangential to what you are asking, the Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World podcast.


His coverage seems fair, though his metaphysical assumptions might be different from yours. Example episodes:


UFO: https://sqpn.com/2023/04/the-cash-landrum-ufo-incident-radiation-government-experiment-cover-up/


Loch Ness: https://sqpn.com/2022/12/analyzing-the-loch-ness-monster/


Time Slip? : https://sqpn.com/2023/02/the-versailles-time-slip-moberly-jourdain-incident-an-adventure/


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for June 16, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I always called it AI, Artificial Impatience.


On the flip side, my new oven timer beeps once and then stops. Missed the beep? Too bad, hope you like fire.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Taken individually, no single law in any state completely strips parents’ rights over the care and mental health treatment of their troubled minor teens. But pieced together, laws in California, Oregon, and Washington place troubled minor teens as young as 13 in the driver’s seat when it comes to their own mental health care—including “gender affirming” care—and renders parents powerless to stop them.




https://www.city-journal.org/article/when-the-state-comes-for-your-kids


Article presents an example of a 14 year old checking into a youth center and parents unable to retrieve them despite no cps investigation.




One mother I spoke with had had Child Protective Services called on her by her own therapist, after she had explained in therapy why she had chosen not to “affirm” her young trans-identified teen daughter. In that instance, the mom said, the social worker accepted the mother’s explanation that this did not constitute abuse. She counts herself lucky.




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for June 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Fire Within by Fr. Thomas Dubay is the most accessible book I have read. He believes that anyone in any state of life can experience spiritual fruits.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Pachamama happened in October 2019, and COVID possibly began October 2019.  Coincidence? Or demons?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't want to say too much because she is/was a minor, but the girl is the daughter of a former business partner of Alefantis and there were a bunch of other photos of her in weird poses with captions like "Hotard."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not alleging anything, just supplying additional information. I don't know how to interpret the facts. I do know one theory was that the girl had been one of many kidnapped, but that is not the case.


I once wrote a quality contribution (tm) on my opinions around pizzagate at https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/jv161w/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_november_16/gcw167l/?context=3&sort=best


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I was thinking Ithaca, NY might be a good fit for both.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 9, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
First: Congratulations!


I have four kids, oldest is five, youngest is four months.  So I have a decent amount of experience with babies.


Sleep: The Back is Best campaign is probably responsible for a lot of only children.  There was a study showing that booster seat legislation probably acted to prevent more births than the number of deaths it prevented.  I would bet my life savings that the Safe Sleep campaign has also done so.  That said, once you see your baby, you will be willing to suffer quite a lot to give them an extra 0.001% chance of survival.  So here is how to make it suck less.


Sleep sacks are essential.  For kids under 1 month, I prefer the Fleece Halo Sleepsack.  As long as you have AC at home, I recommend the fleece.  The cotton one kept riding up over my babies' faces.  Once the baby starts to free their hands from the sleep sack, around six weeks, I recommend switching to the LoveToDream SwaddleUp or a good dupe.  Always keep doubles of all sleep garments and sheets.  Your child probably will not stay awake for a whole wash/dryer cycle until they are six months.  The first three months you will be doing a lot of tiny loads of laundry.


For the first year, pretty much every week you will have a different baby.  If you don't like what's going on, hang on a week!  It will change (not always for the better.)


The first twelve weeks there is a lot more crying.  Part of this is probably due to the digestion system developing and causing tummy pain and difficulty pooping/farting.  You will learn to cheer on baby farts.  The other trouble is that early on, a baby only has 20-40 minutes of staying awake before they get overtired.  Once overtired, a baby cannot fall back asleep as easily and gets frustrated.  Some babies will take longer to eat than the span of their wake time.  This will be a source of frustration to you.


Pay attention to temperature. Smaller babies need more bundling up - they don't have as much hair, they don't even have bone between their brains and the outside.  If a baby has a hard time getting back to sleep, especially at night, check your thermostat.  You might have a night time setting to make things colder.


There is a difference between cry it out and not responding to every peep your baby makes.  Some babies are just noisy.  If a baby starts making noise, wait a minute before running to touch them.  Pay attention to what the sounds are like.  Are they getting louder, more high pitched, and closer together?  That is a sign of crying.  But the first week or so a newborn makes a lot of weird sounds.  One kid sounded like a van with squeaky brakes.


If you do decide to cry it out, make sure you know what the goals are.  Crying it out will remove your child's reliance on sleep aids that are not present when they wake up at night.  It will not make it so that they are no longer hungry at night, if they are getting half their daily calories at night.  It will not make it so that they don't soak through their diaper and need to be changed every night.  It just helps you get them to sleep when you set them down in their sleep environment, with less crying overall.  Read "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems" by Dr. Ferber before doing anything - I haven't found a blogpost or other resource that explains everything needed.


Something like https://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Price-Deluxe-Kick-Play-Piano/dp/B076HYFZ37 is very helpful for the 3-6 month range.  Babies are like plants.  Outside of a few smiles and songs, they mostly like to be left alone on the floor near something they can grab.


A good range of books (each has their own very different and clashing philosophy, but take what makes sense for you and leave the rest):


On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep - There must have been some edition decades ago where the author advocated for baby torture or something.  This book is loathed by some people.  But when I read it I saw nothing objectionable.  A lot of the advice is the same as what you will find in Happiest Baby on the Block, which is a cherished book.  I liked the presentation here better and overall found this book more helpful.


Elevating Child Care: A Guide To Respectful Parenting - I cannot say I'm a perfect Respectful Infant Educaring (RIE) parent, but starting off approaching problems from the RIE perspective has proven helpful (even if it doesn't always survive contact with the enemy.)    The research seems to indicate that helping kids identify their emotions and not try to repress them helps kids behave better in the long run.  RIE is one parenting philosophy that makes this easy.  I like this book because it creates a narrative, a mindset, in which I can make sense of parenting choices.  I don't know if I can explain it better, but I recommend the book all the same.


How to Talk so Little Kids will Listen - someone already recommended this I think, I like the little kid version.


Bringing up Bebe - Helps set the expectation that you can still have a good life and kids.  Kids are not all you are.


Edit because there's a lot more I could say:


Get a carseat/stroller combo, the kind where you can remove the carseat and plop it straight onto a stroller without waking the baby.


You need to be your child's advocate.  Basic things that you would think a doctor would do often are ignored.  For example, one kid lost 10% of his birth weight and the lactation consultant, pediatrician, etc acted like it was my fault.  They had me nurse him, then feed him milk from a bottle, then pump, every 2 hours day and night.  The whole process took 1.5 hours and then I had 30 minutes of break/sleep in between.  Exhausting.  A year later, at his first dental check up, the dentist mentioned that he had a very bad Posterior Tongue Tie, something that was likely the cause of the poor weight gain and something not one doctor pointed out.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 9, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You have to teach them strategies for when they both want conflicting things.  For example, if both of my oldest want the same toy, I restrain the kids from grabbing it out of the other's hands and ask them to use their words first.


"Can I have that?"


"No!"


Then I ask what they want to try next, find something to trade or to wait for their turn.


Because I have two kids close in age, I am able to teach them this in person, as conflicts happen.  If I didn't have a brood, my single kid would have to learn these lessons in a different environment, most likely from a different person who might not be as good as I at teaching this lesson.