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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   777 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 8, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Ever since the halcyon days of early 2020, where some yahoo dared us rationalist corona panickers to buy puts on cruise companies, I’ve been trying to recreate this missed opportunity (turns out, it wasn’t priced in).

Ozempic’s been getting a lot of good press in rat circles. Leaps calls on novo nordisk/eli lily?

I think eventually that these kinds of drugs will be shown to have extremely negative consequences for anyone who’s not extremely morbidly obese (or at least in bad enough shape that the side effects are less serious than the obesity). Of particular concern is the number of people who are using this product for aesthetic reasons rather than as medically necessary treatment. Women have used this stuff to fit in their wedding dresses as an example.

Long term, given that this substance acts like a hormone, I think that homeostasis will eventually strike leading to the body becoming less sensitive to semiglutide and therefore the person cannot feel full. And there have been some reports of things like stomach and intestinal issues, so I’m not sure about that either.

There have been lots of these pills in the past starting with fenfen in the 1990s. Most of them overhyped or have serious side effects (fenfen worked, but since it was basically an amphetamine, it caused a lot of heart problems and was withdrawn). The thing I keep coming back to is that people are so desperate for something like a skinny pill to be true that the public and doctors pounce on it without thinking about the long term effects. So that’s why I’m shorting it. I’m expecting wrongful death or serious injury lawsuits to kill it in all but the most serious cases and thus limit the profit from it.

Good point. All the hyped anti-aging drugs haven’t panned out either. Because things very very rarely do, and it’s good to always keep in mind that nothing ever happens. I hadn’t really considered it here, because like most rats/transhumanists I tend to pattern-match every criticism of ozempic, or of a hypothetical anti-aging drug, with a kind of moralising, small-minded complaint - ‘it’s the easy way out’ , ‘it’s unauthentic thinness’, ‘aging/dying is a part of life’ etc – I immediately dismiss.

I’m not going to say it’s impossible that this one is the one, but I think as far as putting money down, I’d wait a year or so to see if the hype is just hype or if it’s real, or if there’s not going to be issues with side effects making the product only “worth the risk” for people who are either going to lose several hundred pounds or die. If the product is only going to be used on the population of people who weigh 300+ lbs, that’s a much smaller customer base than if it can be used by every woman looking to lose ten pounds to fit a swimsuit or wedding dress. If it’s just morbid obesity, it’s life changing for those people, but I don’t think it’s something that’s going to spike the stock price like if you cured a common and deadly disease like cancer

If it’s just morbid obesity, it’s life changing for those people, but I don’t think it’s something that’s going to spike the stock price like if you cured a common and deadly disease like cancer

There are a LOT of morbidly obese people. This would still be a major customer base.

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