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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   44987 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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Interesting. The ratsphere started with fears of AI risk, so declensionist, stagnationist, or collapse-oriented arguments like this tend to get a frigid reception here. Then again, maybe that's just reality having a rationalist bias.

The fatdemic. One of the greatest threats to the future of mankind. Every year the percentage of the world's population that becomes fat keeps rising. Till date there has been no reversal in the trends and it is likely that the only way to reverse it would be an authoritarian hand over the people's choices in food. With the abundance of food, as a species we have become weaker, stupider, more lethargic, with a higher propensity to heart disease and other comorbidities and an increased economic constraint over the system than is naturally deserved. In our fatness we have put ourselves in a position where we are almost regressing back in humanity's growth and potential. In our fatness is the clear cut sign of our lacking self control as a species.

I think you're confusing the cart and the horse. Rising obesity is not a problem in of itself. It's a visible symptom of technology outrunning the self-control, prudentia, and conscientiousness of the population — or of technology hurting those, directly. People looking like orbs out of WALL-E doesn't prevent an advanced technological society. It only causes retired pensioners with obsolete skillsets to die earlier.

The peaceful stupidity - It is said that some of the greatest inventions in the history of mankind come during times of war.

I don't know about this. WWII is the most salient event in recent memory, so I think people generalize it to the whole human experience, and in WWII war did drive progress. But, to offer a counter-example, probably the most dramatic period of social and technological progress in human history was the Victorian era from 1815 to 1914. (Looking forward to Vicky 3!) That century is marked by an unusual lack of any bloody general European wars, certainly none that were existentially threatening to England, where the progress was most extreme.

My final point as to the pace of progress primarily focuses on the increasing amount of time, energy, and education required to create new things to progress society. So far at the top of society, our capabilities at the top have kept up with the demands for further returns, the question that comes to mind is, with the failures of our current cultural peak, will we be able to keep progressing as a society?

Read Joseph Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies. You might find it interesting.

That century is marked by an unusual lack of any bloody general European wars

Yeah but, and as a vicky player you should know this, that's only really because Europe had a whole lot of other avenues for war than the homeland.

I don't think the Zulu appreciated how peaceful a time that was for some reason.

Yes, but @dont_log_me_out was talking about Necessity-Is-The-Mother-Of-All-Invention total wars which supposedly drive progress. You'll agree that mobilizing the nation to fight the Wehrmacht is different from sending expeditionary forces to mow down Zulu tribesmen. NATO does tons of stuff like that second thing these days, so the Victorian era would qualify as "peaceful stupidity" by OP's metrics.

I see. Yeah that's a fair argument. Colonial wars probably don't create as much pressure, that said they also helped Europeans get exposed to a lot of things previously unavailable to them, which must have at least offset that somewhat.

I think you're confusing the cart and the horse. Rising obesity is not a problem in of itself. It's a visible symptom of technology outrunning the self-control, prudentia, and conscientiousness of the population — or of technology hurting those, directly. People looking like orbs out of WALL-E doesn't prevent an advanced technological society. It only causes retired pensioners with obsolete skillsets to die earlier.

Obesity is an interesting subject. I think a distinction needs to be made between childhood/teen obesity and adult obesity. People tend to gain weight as they get older, at around 1-2 pound /year, up until around 60. I think looking at childhood/teen obesity gives a more accurate perspective of the situation. Childhood obesity is particularly bad because the complications later in life are perhaps worse.

People tend to gain weight as they get older, at around 1-2 pound /year, up until around 60.

Closer to 1 pound/year on average, IIRC. Not that that's not bad enough.

Though, I'd love to know for sure whether "tend" in this sentence is a law of nature or just another modern abnormality. One of the most astonishing claims from that Slime Mold Time Mold series was:

Common wisdom today tells us that we get heavier as we get older. But historically, this wasn’t true. In the past, most people got slightly leaner as they got older. Those Civil War veterans we mentioned above had an average BMI of 23.2 in their 40s and 22.9 in their 60’s. In their 40’s, 3.7% were obese, compared to 2.9% in their 60s. We see the same pattern in data from 1976-1980: people in their 60s had slightly lower BMIs and were slightly less likely to be obese than people in their 40s (See the table below). It isn’t until the 1980s that we start to see this trend reverse.

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