I don’t think the data supports that it is possible for the majority of people. On traditional diets, Between 80 and 85 percent of those who lose a large amount of weight regain it. Source: https://stanfordhealthcare.org/medical-conditions/healthy-li....
Well, it's possible for the majority of people, it's just that the majority of people can't keep up with the things that make it possible. It's a ton of work (and money!) to keep up with a good diet, walk thousands of steps per day, and exercise 4-5x per week. Between needing to drive to do everything and making food as addictive as possible, we've designed everything about contemporary life to work against being healthy.
I just mean it's physically possible, it's not like we as humans are physically unable to and require a drug to do it for us. But most people aren't willing to grind through the beginning phase that is physically and emotionally difficult to get to the part where training becomes beautiful. I've had moments on psychedelics where I've just cried from gratitude that I found my practices and disciplined myself to root out the deep fears and insecurities that held me back. I didn't want to live with them anymore and wanted to see what this body is capable of in this lifetime. It's ridiculous what out bodies are capable of. It's like getting handed a lambo and instead we keep it parked in our garage all the time. But those first 6 months were extremely difficult, literally bloody from injuries, and required a commitment that every week I'd go train 5 times, no excuses.
I think pretty much anyone can find 5-6 hours in a week to go train something, it's really not much time at all.
I think equating censorship and intellectual property is not a good comparison. Copyright laws do not restrict sharing of ideas or opinions just specific textual instances of those opinions. Under copyright, you are free to paraphrase or quote the text to share the core idea. Political censorship prevents you from communicating specific political views, which limits dissent. I don’t see how copyright does that.
That’s a fair point. I think “censorship” was really a poor word choice. I should have used “refusal” to emphasize that this is from an LLM.
It’s really a sign of my poor writing that the ensuing thread is arguing about something other than my main point, which was really just a simple observation about how refusals can tell us something about laws and values of a society.
I think the challenge is that no matter the circumstances our minds are designed to adapt to the situation. This is often called the hedonic adaption. If you live in a modern western country, your life is likely significantly better than the wealthiest and most powerful people from the 14th century. Most likely if you're prone to depression, you will reset to a negative viewpoint even if societal issues are addressed. Below is an excerpt from article discussing research into lottery winners and paraplegics.
"In 1978, a trio of researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Massachusetts attempted to answer this by asking two very disparate groups about the happiness in their lives: recent winners of the Illinois State Lottery — whose prizes ranged from $50,000 to $1 million — and recent victims of catastrophic accidents, who were now paraplegic or quadriplegic. In interviews with the experimenters, the two groups were asked, among other things, to rate the amount of pleasure they got from everyday activities: small but enjoyable things like chatting with a friend, watching TV, eating breakfast, laughing at a joke, or receiving a compliment. When the researchers analyzed their results, they found that the recent accident victims reported gaining more happiness from these everyday pleasures than the lottery winners.
This is how the study is usually written about, in a “gee whiz, ain’t that counterintuitive?” kind of tone. But what’s really striking when you look at the results reported by the researchers is how close their answers actually are: On average, the winners’ ratings of everyday happiness were 3.33 out of 5, and the accident victims’ averaged answers were 3.48. The lottery winners did report more present happiness than the accident victims (an average of 4 out of 5, as compared to the victims’ 2.96), but as the authors note, “the paraplegic rating of present happiness is still above the midpoint of the scale and … the accident victims did not appear nearly as unhappy as might have been expected.”
This is partially because of what’s become known as the hedonic treadmill, or hedonic adaptation, that annoying tendency humans have to get used to the things that once made them happy. I particularly love how the authors of this 1970s paper phrased it:
Eventually, the thrill of winning the lottery will itself wear off. If all things are judged by the extent to which they depart from a baseline of past experience, gradually even the most positive events will cease to have impact as they themselves are absorbed into the new baseline against which further events are judged. Thus, as lottery winners become accustomed to the additional pleasures made possible by their new wealth, these pleasures should be experienced as less intense and should no longer contribute very much to their general level of happiness."
The hedonic treadmill also helps to understand why wealthy people--regardless of how they acquired their wealth--seem desperate to increase their fortunes. They have more money than they could ever need, yet they want more. See Elon Musk and the $50 billion pay package.[1]
I feel like this happens a lot with creative people as well--an artist can become successful and widely respected, but still become deeply unhappy if their skill or audience declines, regardless of financial success. It is the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear about celebrity suicides--Robin Williams, Naomi Judd, Anthony Bourdain.
If there's no increase in wealth or station, there's no dopamine. And that is depressing.
This idea of economic war doesn’t make sense. It’s not zero sum. Growth in the US should contribute to growth elsewhere in terms of trade, tourism, etc.
Is this just a factor of how the human brain works? My wife has stage 4 cancer and one of my strategies to help my kids have more memories is to build uniqueness into our activities, so years from now they can go, do you remember that time we went to x or did y with Mom? I think the human brain is much better at recalling unique events - whether they are bad or good
Starting June 11, 2023, all currently available over-the-counter antibiotics for livestock will be available only as prescription medications. This new rule will impact all livestock species. Over-the-counter antibiotics are moving to prescription only to provide more veterinary oversight. Similar to the Veterinary Feed Directive, placing antibiotics under the supervision of veterinarians should result in more judicious use and less antibiotic resistance.
This change includes but is not limited to the following: Penicillin, Oxytetracycline, Sulfa antibiotics and Mastitis tubes. Some medications are not considered crucial for human medicine and will remain over-the-counter. This includes the following: Ionophores including Rumensin and Bovatec, Parasiticides, such as Ivermectin, Oral pre/pro/postbiotics, and topical non-antibiotic treatments.
Livestock producers must have a valid Veterinary-Client-Patient Relationship (VCPR) in place before they can be prescribed antibiotics by a veterinarian. A VCPR is a working relationship between a veterinarian (veterinary clinic) and a client. Ideally, a VCPR is a documented agreement between both parties that includes a dedicated visit to the animal location(s) the client operates. This visit and documentation must occur at least once every year to maintain the VCPR.
The issue isn't so much antibiotics given to sick animals to make them well, it's the fact that adding a constant low dose of antibiotics to animal feed allows those animals to more efficiently convert feed into tasty, tasty muscle mass.
> Antibiotics are chemotherapeutic agents used for the clinical management of infectious diseases in humans, plants and animals. However a sizeable fraction of antibiotics produced every year all over the world is used for non-therapeutic purposes. In US alone, about 24.6 million pounds of antibiotics are used in animal agriculture annually and a substantial portion of this is used as growth promoters and not for the treatment of infections...
Evidences available in the literature speak volumes on the beneficial effects obtained from antibiotics used as a feed additive. Pigs supplemented with antibiotics in their feed require 10–15% less feed to achieve a desired level of growth.
Adding a constant stream of antibiotics to animal feed to promote faster growth has been common practice since the 1940's.
I've seen some theories tossed around to explain the mechanism, but there is no consensus, aside from the fact that it does work.
Unfortunately, it's also led to us having human disease that no longer responds well to antibiotics that are safe to use in humans.
For instance, with Extensively Drug Resistant Tuberculosis:
> Second-line drugs are more toxic than the standard anti-TB regimen and can cause a range of serious side-effects including hepatitis, depression, hallucinations, and deafness. Patients are often hospitalized for long periods, in isolation. In addition, second-line drugs are extremely expensive compared with the cost of drugs for standard TB treatment.
This is progress but still drastically short of EU regs where livestock/poultry are subject to stricter vaccination requirements. For example, vaccination for salmonella.
In the US, poultry industry and federal/state governments have spent endless effort "programming" people to think that it's their responsibility if they get sick because the meat or eggs they purchased were contaminated and they didn't take enough preventative steps (like cooking it to the point of it being nearly inedible.)
Most US poultry is rinsed in chlorinated water, eggs are washed as well (which ends up destroying the egg's natural coating, so they have to be refrigerated) and so on.
If you vaccinate the entire flock, none of them end up with salmonella.
Not washing the eggs means the outside might have some chicken crap on it, but A) you wash that off before breaking the egg, and B) you're cooking anything the eggshells come into contact with.
People in the US also think they need to refrigerate eggs.
I personally want zero medicine, chemicals or vaccines in my food. It’s frankly gross.
Further, it is your fault if you eat bad meat. We have a responsibility for our own bodies and what we put in them. The fact people can sue is why they wash with bleach.
> People in the US also think they need to refrigerate eggs.
Eggs in the US are washed (by law) before sale, which removes their natural protective coating, therefore requiring they be refrigerated. In other places eggs are sold unwashed and can be left out.
Take a step back and think about what you just said...
"Washing them, removes the protective coating, requiring refrigeration"
Right, so why do they require refrigeration, if they are sanitized?
Further, if they're not sanitized, you can leave them out? What exactly is that protective coating and how does it somehow make the eggs less safe to sanitize them?
US eggs are fine to leave out, they just lose some moisture. That's also true of the ones which are unwashed btw, but washed eggs degrade faster. Both unwashed and washed are better refrigerated.
This study was focused on the US egg export market, so they were looking at moisture loss, which affects how "fresh" an egg looks and tastes, but they did not look at the rate that eggs go bad. Egg exporters don't sell rotten eggs -- that's the consumer's problem -- so that fell outside the scope of the study.
The theory is that sanitizing process makes the shell more permeable, which makes it easier for random bacteria in the environment to infect the egg; thus it risks going rotten faster. Refrigeration slows down the growth of these microbes, thus counteracting the increase in permability.
As I understand it, washing reduces the presence of salmonella on the outside of the egg (which is less of a concern in Europe where vaccination against it is more common). It’s a tradeoff though, as it makes the egg more permeable and therefore susceptible to other spoilage microbes, since the eggs don’t stay in a sterile environment after being washed.
People in the US also think they need to refrigerate eggs
Only folks that care about food safety. Refrigeration is sometimes cultural: Folks in Norway usually refrigerate eggs, even though they look unwashed, but eggs sit on a shelf at stores in Sweden.
I personally want zero medicine, chemicals or vaccines in my food. It’s frankly gross.
So don't eat. Everything has chemicals. You probably don't want to eat sick animals (that's what medicine is for) and vaccines help make sure your food is safer - especially for salmonella. Or produce all of your own food. Good luck grinding wheat, canning and avoiding botulism, feeding animals (or farming even more), and not dying when food runs out.
Further, it is your fault if you eat bad meat. We have a responsibility for our own bodies and what we put in them. The fact people can sue is why they wash with bleach.
This is a horrible misunderstanding of what you have control over. You can handle all meat properly and still get sick: Unvaccinated chickens tend to have salmonella, for example, and it can make you sick. You simply can't see whether or not the spinach you are eating is contaminated by animal droppings either. You don't - and never will - have control over everything you put in your body.
They don't wash with bleach because people can sue: They wash with bleach because they aren't taking other measures to make sure your eggs are safer and because some cultures will reject food if it has little bits of poop and feathers on the shell.
As someone who operates a farm, it’s BS. What this really attempts to do, is force me to hire some licensed person to tell me what I already know. Worse, vets are overloaded and there are shortages.
So I have to pay $500 to get some vet to come out in 1-2 days, to tell me what I already know. In that time, my cattle can die, it can spread all costing me more and benefiting no one. Further, because I can only sell a head for $750-2000 this basically wipes out any potential profit.
This is basically just helping the big players who keep a vet on staff or in a high concentrated area. Most of the small farms in my area are just going to get screwed.
Finally, I’m curious how much evidence there is animals use of antibiotics impact humans. Most diseases don’t spread from animal to human, so I don’t suspect it’s all that impactful. On the other hand, it could be to reduce animal-to-animal diseases. That would make sense.
All that being said, to be honest, I think this is an effort to limit the things we saw during Covid. Basically, people realized they could get any drugs for animals cheap and easy. It’s screwing up the medical system, making it as cheap as drugs in the rest of the world.
Actually, what it's attempting to do is prevent antibiotic being used as growth promoters. If they were only used on animals that are sick it would not be a problem. As it is, it's a serious problem as the sibling comment points out.
But, the net effect is what you say. What other solutions are there? Tax them so other uses aren't economic, perhaps?
> Finally, I’m curious how much evidence there is animals use of antibiotics impact humans.
There's a ton, and it all points to antibiotic overuse in agriculture as the main culprit.
Antibiotics and their metabolites don't just stay in animals, they exist in their waste and percolate throughout the environment, water supply, etc, causing antibiotic resistance in bacteria in the environment.
Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is mainly from misuse in humans and animals, and disease spread between the two, along with ineffective waste treatment and the leaching of antibiotics into the environment[1]. About 80% of antibiotics sold in the US are used in agriculture[2], where they are given to animals not to treat infections, but to prevent them and to stimulate growth.
Here are some diagrams from the CDC[3][4], and some articles[5][6][7] from the CDC.
> Most diseases don’t spread from animal to human, so I don’t suspect it’s all that impactful.
Over 60% of infectious diseases in humans are spread from animals, and 75% of new diseases in humans are spread from animals[3].
I presume there is a chance the harm can be undone. As antibiotics are less used, the few resistant bacteria will compete with the many non resistant bacteria and hopefully go extinct.
Extinction is unlikely, unless having resistance comes at a very high cost to the organism. I would not necessarily assume this is the case, though. These are genes that may have already existed in a subset of these bacteria, just as random genetic variation, and then we came along and selectively bred the ones with a natural resistance to our antibiotics.
Think of it like the black death in humans. When this disease suddenly made the jump to humans, some people had naturally higher resistance and some had lower resistance, all just due to random genetic variation. The disease spared people who were more resistant and killed people who were less resistant, and now humans today carry genes that protect us from this disease, even though we have not had another black plague for hundreds of years. Even if we eradicated the disease entirely, we will probably still carry resistance for thousands of years. It's just a part of our genetic makeup now.
Back to bacteria, even if antibiotic resistance does come at a high cost to the organism and there is selective pressure against it in the absence of antibiotics, it is still very unlikely that we can get back to the way it was when antiobiotics were new. Once a deleterious trait appears in a population, it has a way of sticking around (e.g., see numerous deadly genetic diseases carried by humans).
Basically, the cat is out of the bag. We need to drastically reduce our use of modern antibiotics to buy ourselves time to develop new antibiotics--and we need to keep the new antibiotics very tightly controlled.
But my point is that if you cease to apply a selective pressure, suddenly the organism that were suppressed by this selective pressure thrive. Whereas in the case of the back death the pressure didn't disappear, we just developed a resistance (if that's the case).
From the article: “The inequity between male and female athletes is a result not of inherent biological differences between the sexes but of biases in how they are treated in sports”
I don’t see how this claim can be made based on the available evidence. It could be proposed as hypothesis, but stating this as a fact shows that the author is pushing an end independent of the evidence.
It’s not an unreasonable claim with long distance running. Combine that with theories about persistence hunting, and how we see many traditional people choosing very lightweight weapons when hunting even very dangerous game.
The US is a big country. So the answer is it depends. There are probably more progressive people in the US than any single European country. Where I live in Seattle, I think the majority talk openly with their kids about any sexual topic. In fact, last night I 10 year old asked me what an orgasim is. I told her, no big deal. All the parents I know handle questions in the same way, even with young kids. There are other areas/communities of the country where I suspect that’s not the case.
Unfortunately nuance and the complexity of any society isn’t conveyed via news, television or movies, which is the main way people are exposed to other cultures.
