This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
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.
I'm posting my reply here at the top level original post, but it is really a reply, or series of replies, to comments further down.
I used to be obese, I've used semeglutide, and I no longer am. There's more too it than that though.
I didn't grow up fat. I've always been a bit on the big side though. When I was 22 I was 6'3" and about 255lbs. I was very active, had a black belt in Judo, competed regularly and had excellent cardio. I was, probably genetically, just big. I was also jacked from 2-4 days a week hitting the weights. My favorite cardio has always been swimming.
About 8 years ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I don't want to get into the finer details but it was rough. After many surgeries I've been cancer free for about 4 years now. There were bad complications from a surgery and I was bed ridden on and off for almost a year with a wheelchair after for a while. During these years my dietary and activity habits of a lifetime vanished. This post is really about habits.
After beating the cancer, regaining my mobility, and returning to the world my appetite came roaring back one day. My ability to be physically active lagged behind. Additionally I became severely depressed. My career trajectory was irrevocably trashed by the cancer. I wasn't "tough" any more, lost my black belt (you have to actually maintain activity in Judo where the belts are competition classes that reflect ability, no ability=no belt). My finances were ok despite being out of work so I consoled myself with snacks. Lots of snacks. You don't really think about your dietary habits, built unconsciously over a lifetime, until they are gone. I was overeating all the time and was constantly starving. I could eat so much that it was physically difficult to stand up and walk around, and I was still starving. All the time.
Obesity is a physical symptom of mental unwellness, and its like quicksand. Or maybe its like any other addiction. Imagine being a heavy smoker, deciding you need to quit, but you still have to smoke 2-3 cigarettes a day for the rest of your life, or you would die. Food addiction can't be "quit" in the classic sense like drugs or alcohol. You can live without those. There also aren't trillions of dollars in advertising to sell you heroin everywhere, nor huge R&D departments to develop super-tobacco. Food has all of these things.
I couldn't be active, I was in constant pain (And still am), got more depressed about it, and ate more. Rinse and repeat until I was about 100lbs overweight. It was impossible to reign in with just "willpower", if such a thing even exists. After returning to my meditative practice I was determined to make a change so I spoke with a doctor who suggested the semeglutide.
It took about 5 weeks for the berserk, constant hunger to switch off. The other primary effect is I felt full faster. Through some mechanism this drug speeds up the internal sensation that says "you're full now". This was enough to reforge my relationship with food. No calorie counting, no "willpower", no tricks.
Being heavy itself is self-reinforcing. Being fat makes you want to eat more. This drug short-circuits this feedback loop and provided the slack in my bad habits I needed to readjust. The body gets used to a certain amount of caloric intake and screams at you if it doesn't get it under normal circumstances, but the body can be "trained" though reduced intake to expect fewer calories. The drug suppresses that "screaming" for more food, the constant hunger that is only reinforced by eating, not sated.
After about 15 months it was largely complete, by body now expects 1500-2000 calories per day. The doctor was pretty alarmed at how little I was eating for someone who is 6'3'', suggesting 2500-2800. I don't know what happened to my metabolism but at 2500 calories a day I immediately began gaining weight again, fast, so I'm back to about 1700 or so daily. I'm not hungry like I was after the cancer anymore, I've been off the drug for about 6 months now and haven't put any of it back, no longer experience constant hunger, and am swimming again for the first time in 8 years.
I could not have done any of this without semeglutide. Obesity is a tailspin of depression and increased hunger that most people cannot pull out of. People who are very self satisfied in their own weight and judgemental of the obese have no understanding of any of these issues. Their bodies are trained to expect a certain amount of calories and activity and are largely on autopilot. They put almost zero effort into their own weight control, congratulate themselves on their moral superiority for being thin, and wallow in their hatred of others.
This last point often gets overlooked in out culture. Many people absolutely hate fat people. They despise them with a vitriol usually reserved for heretics or murderers. They keep it under wraps as its not socially acceptable to express these opinions in our present culture safely, but will pounce on any opportunity to lash out at the hated other, who they are superior too. Maybe there is some evolutionary advantage to this.
I used to be one of these people. I lived in the gym and the dojo. I reveled in defeating my opponents in competition. I had a lifetime of good diet and exercise habits, until I didn't. This is the opportunity these drugs offer, a break in the dysfunctional cycle of poor diet to give the body time to be re-trained. Even this is too much for some people though. Fat people, being morally inferior, deserve nothing but suffering forever until they die in misery apparently.
Congrats on beating cancer (I have a close family member going through that right now), and I'm quite enthused that you broke the cycle and have found your way back toward good habits!
But I have to ask, who are you talking to in this thread? There's like the one guy with one line who was immediately banned, but where is there anyone with anything even approximating vitriol usually reserved for heretics or murderers? Where is there anyone who is saying that fat people are morally inferior or that they deserve nothing but suffering forever until they die in misery? I see literally no one saying anything remotely like this... but I see multiple people claiming that other people think stuff like this. Like, nobody thinks this.
To the crowd, what is the phenomenon that is causing a variety of folks to conjure up cartoonish fat haters?
It kind of feels like the undercurrent to everything @Walterodim has said in this thread.
There are other examples but I hate this thread so I don't want to find them. I say I sense that undercurrent in those comments because they are the kinds of things I would say back when I was Flex Mentallo, so I might be typical minding, but I don't think I am. He refuses to try to understand alternative perspectives and simply decides they are lying about their values. That is the behaviour of people who believe themselves morally superior.
The first comment is in response to someone that literally said they "can't imagine people spending hours at a time contracting their muscles presumably for fun, instead of enjoying gathering new knowledge or engaging in the debates with educated people from around the world", as though that's actually a set of interests that compete with cycling. The second is a comment that I stand by. I do think maintaining fitness is superior to neglecting physicality, so no objection there.
That said, the idea that I "despise them with a vitriol usually reserved for heretics or murderers" is absurd and completely unsupported. Yeah, I think obesity is usually a product of gluttony and sloth, but no, I don't hate people for having normal human failings. I do hate that we have a massively subsidized medical system that profits immensely from medicalization of everything from obesity to sadness and dispenses hundreds of billions in drugs per year. I'm sure that there are people, such as the topline commenter in this sub thread, that really do benefit from that, but I'm appalled by pharmaceutical solutions to character issues as a normal matter of course.
You say it's a character issue, but it's difficult for me to credit the modern phenomenon of mass obesity to sudden onset degeneracy rather than the mass availability of Oreo biscuits. Maybe we were always gluttons in search of a buffet big enough to kill us.
The Oreo dates back to 1912; it was a slightly sweeter of the 1908 Hydrox. The obesity epidemic is not that old.
In 1912 Joe Average couldn't afford to buy a shit ton of Oreos and also did a lot more physical activity.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link