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Given that obesity is sorta culture war related and in the news a lot, I figured this story would be relevant: Weight-Loss Stocks Soar After Obesity-Drug Study Spurs Investor Frenzy
I am more convinced than ever that these drugs are not only the future of wright loss, but similar to Paxil, is also going to a part of culture too and another tool or crutch to mitigate the downsides of modernity, except instead of social anxiety , it's too much food. We're sorta collectively inflicted this on ourselves, as victims of our own success. The pendulum if progress has swung so far towards abundance that we need modern technology just to try to undo it.
Yeah this does seem like the inevitable future.
Honestly it was always felt absolutely absurd to me that people blamed individuals completely for their overweight status. Like yes, a portion of this is always going to come down to personal responsibility, but when the overweight proportion of America and the world so high, maybe there's something more going on.
There have always been poor people, there have always been low class people, there have always been those without personal responsibility and those who have terrible impulse control. But it's only in the recent decades that we've seen such a massive rise of country and international obesity levels. Is there somehow something so unique with modern Americans and modern humanity that we lack that simple impulse control as our ancestors did for millennia?
Maybe to some extent, but to this scale? Probably not.
I think it was always obvious the problem was that we are animals. Animals with genetics and a brain that was meant for a much different environment and world. Modern civilization is an artificial construct we've engaged for a blip in the time scale of our species. The problem was obviously the extremely easily available high calorie, extremely unnutritiousness foods found literally at every corner.
Do we blame the gambling addict completely if we transport them to Las Vegas and tell them to be smart? If they end up gambling, yes it's on them, but it's also partly on us for taking them to Las Vegas in the first place.
I feel like this reality was obvious to us at least by the mid 2000's. If you are a person who believes in sin taxes then we should have supported and pushed for the significant taxing of these foods and used that money to directly subsidize healthier food. If not for the betterment of the individuals in society, than for the fact that society has to face the huge costs of generations of obesity in things like ballooning healthcare costs, part of the contribution to the proliferation of incels, increased insurance liabilities, ect.
But since we successfully convinced everyone that fatness was a unique individual moral failing, jack in the box stays open and everyone and everything pays the huge negative externalities. On top of that we get another point of contention and divide between people in this country where everyone argues with each other and blames each other while those that profit off of this just walk around with the fortunes in their pockets.
Thankfully since that is politically untenable for multiple reasons, the pharma companies have come to the rescue and soon enough massive obesity will be a thing of the past.
I genuinely believe that obesity and the modern health crisis resulting from that have had a hand in a number of the biggest modern societal problems and I think on a much, much, much, much smaller scale we might notice in a decade or two where certain societal problems will have decreased and we might statistically be able to tie it to people no longer being as massively obese in the same way we tie lead in the paint with so many problems. Again, on a hugely smaller scale of course. Just trying to make the point that this is an issue that has an impact on a number of different issues and without it, a lot of affected things will change for the better.
I wonder why you and others seemingly have trust in a wonder drug, or a wonder cure. Don't we have ample evidence to the contrary? Morphine, heroin, methamphetamine, Prozac, Zoloft, OxyContin etc. - all of those have catastrophic effects on society. Any social ill that has come into full effect after decades, and is not caused by any drug, surely cannot be solved with another drug in short order.
What "catastrophic effects" have Prozac and Zoloft had on society?
The normalization of prescription drug use/overuse/abuse, and widespread addiction to anti-depressants.
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