Funny Events of the "Woke" world

TheMysteriousGX

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No, they're not, and if you think that, you either lack reading comprehension skills, or you're trolling.
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Re-read the article, that isn't said at all.
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That's not what the "fat people" are saying. Again, to quote the article:

"We [fat advocates] are solving for the wrong problem. The [health] crisis isn't obesity. It's weight stigma."

That's one hell of a claim to make. If true, everything we know about obesity is wrong. Or, more likely, the claim is BS.
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That's one hell of a projection.
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...I don't see the issue. It's pointing out that the fat acceptance movement has reached the point where it's asking for medical advice to be rescinded.
You don't see the issue at people yelling at Nike for having mannequins of fat people for use with selling athletic clothes, yet think that the problem with getting fat people to exercise isn't stigma? Ever think that maybe, just maybe, medical advice can be wrong? Like your dude brings up "how many more people are obese now", without mentioning that the definition of obese is based entirely around BMI and changed overnight in the '90s. You accept that argument in it's entirety *while calling it a red herring when pointed out*, but somehow the medical advice that's been based on that for decades couldn't possibly be wrong?
No, but if your advocacy is making claims that obesity/excess fat doesn't affect your health, or when people like Rebel Wilson are shamed for LOSING weight, then your credibility is taking a nosedive.
A few people being stupid in instagram comments is not a movement

It's extremely rich for you to ask what does and doesn't exist when you're the one making claims about stuff existing that definitely doesn't.

Does fat shaming exist? Yes. Is obesity a health hazard? Yes. Has fat acceptance reached the point where medical misinformation is being posted/medical information being rescinded? Yes.

Fittingly enough, at the time of writing this, I've just come from a 3km jog, which is something I do each day, every day, even now when it's winter, and usually in the morning. Let me tell you, I don't do it for shits and giggles.
Pray tell, what precisely is the point of that last statement? Is it the minimum amount of exercise required for you to take a fat person seriously? Does that standard only apply to fat people? Can you do a Lizzo set?

Shame doesn't make anybody healthy. At best it causes disordered eating and yo-yo dieting, which is less healthy than just being fat
 
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Hawki

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You don't see the issue at people yelling at Nike for having mannequins of fat people for use with selling athletic clothes,
I read the article, none of it comes off as "yelling."

yet think that the problem with getting fat people to exercise isn't stigma?
No, I think obesity is the real problem, and pretending it isn't doesn't make it better.

Ever think that maybe, just maybe, medical advice can be wrong?
Yes, medical advice can be wrong, and has been wrong at various points. But if you want to claim that medical advice on a subject is wrong, I'd say you're the one with the burden of proof. Doctors could be wrong about the harm cigarettes cause, but at this point in time, it would be very difficult to prove that. Similarly, doctors could be wrong about obesity being linked with hypertension and diabetes for example, but again, you'd need evidence for that.

Like your dude brings up "how many more people are obese now", without mentioning that the definition of obese is based entirely around BMI and changed overnight in the '90s. You accept that argument in it's entirety *while calling it a red herring when pointed out*, but somehow the medical advice that's been based on that for decades couldn't possibly be wrong?
Yes, this is a red herring. First, it doesn't matter where you set the BMI limits, the trends are the same. Obesity has steadily risen on a global level. If, today, the BMI for being obese was set at 35 rather than 30 for instance, you'd have less obese people in the world, but the trend would still be going upwards.

Second, if you want to claim that it's wrong, you need something more compelling than the cutoff mark being shifted. Cutoff marks don't change the overall picture. If you raise the threshold for absolute poverty, more poor people are added to the world, but the trend of poverty reduction remains the same. That we're on course for 3C warming by the end of the century rather than 4C doesn't mean the crisis is solved, it just means we've gone from apocalyptic to terrible.

Third, I've already posted a counter-claim in the article, stating that the effects of obesity are misdiagnosed, that the effects are due to weight stigma. Now, I don't agree with that, practically every health expert in the world wouldn't agree with that, and if you do agree with it, you haven't posted any evidence.

A few people being stupid in instagram comments is not a movement
No, but organizing conferences is.

Pray tell, what precisely is the point of that last statement?
That I take health guidelines seriously. That while jogging isn't pleasant, it does roughly meet the 30mins of physical activity per day recommended, when combined with the time I spend walking to and from work, plus the amount of time I spend on my feet itself.

Is it the minimum amount of exercise required for you to take a fat person seriously? Does that standard only apply to fat people?
Stop asking stupid questions. I don't care how much exercise someone takes to take them seriously, that's rediculous. What's harder to take seriously are claims that obesity isn't a detriment to health, that the medical science is wrong, that the real source of poor health is stigma, that all the claims I quoted earlier aren't just a bunch of gobbledygook.

Can you do a Lizzo set?
I had to look up who that even was, and I'm still confused.

Shame doesn't make anybody healthy. At best it causes disordered eating and yo-yo dieting, which is less healthy than just being fat
And being obese doesn't make anyone healthy either, and denying it's a health problem only makes it worse.

The obesity trend has only gone in one direction globally, and it isn't a good one.
 
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Gergar12

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The human race will go extinct no matter what we do. All species go extinct.

A few years back a little book called All Tomorrows inexplicably went viral for some reason, mostly because people seemed to dig the body horror angle. If you want to read that book, the full text is actually online if you search for it. But there's a couple of really obvious and important themes which a lot of people straight up missed despite the fact it's remarkably unsubtle.

The first is that whatever descendants humanity leaves behind, they will not be like us. Our species, our culture, our way of life is doomed to obliteration in the vastness of time and space. Even without deliberate modification, humans will eventually just evolve into something else. That's how life works. The process that got us to this point is just going to continue. This form we exist in now is not special or favored in any way, and the universe doesn't care about the continuation of things that look like us.

The second point is that because of this, our motivation for what we do has to come from the present. The worst impulses of humanity tend to come from belief in some final state or higher goal that will retrospectively justify everything. The idea that any particular species or, worse yet, any particular "race" has some grand destiny that justifies suffering in the present is bullshit, because the destiny of every species is to eventually go extinct and be replaced by something else.

Work, create and innovate because it makes you happy, because it fills your tiny life and because it might lead to a better future for your children and people you care about, not because you think it will help your species to endure forever. It won't, but that's okay.
I don't agree with this. And maybe it's my conservative disposition. I don't care if human beings in the future don't look like us, I don't care if humans go on a mating spree with aliens and or robots. I want some part of the human species to remain in the future, as someone who believes humans ought to be a part of the future. I don't care if it's unlikely. I would rather work towards a better future with humans in it in some shape or form vs without.

I would prefer we be smart and successful enough to be in power in some shape or form, but only so that we can protect ourselves, and hopefully other biological races in the universe, and or multiverse. A lot of the problems we have is due to survival instincts anyway. Whether humans realize it or not, a lot of the reason we overinvested in capital is not for economic efficiency it's for the geopolitical realization that the existing power needs to be as dynamic as possible to be said power. Yes, current problems like climate change, and inequality are important, but we cannot overinvest in current problems either, if we do too much of that we could be lifted behind some other alien race that just overtakes us if some alien race hasn't already. That said I still want a good environment and climate change to be fought off, as well as universal healthcare in the form of single payer.

I am not going to go around killing alien babies, and or murdering AI children, which I mention for the purpose of this debate I am not a monster. But I would prefer if we human beings were a part of the future, and you may disagree, and as a worker who isn't in power, you would be wise to do so, and focus on your own life, and your specialization of what you do. But radical life extension is a thing. It's already proven many animals can live forever minus diseases that can kill them, but not age. You may live longer than the standard 70-90 years most people die from discounting things like poverty or war. I may do so too or I may not, and I won't see my tiny life affecting the future. But it’s not out of the realm of impossibility, and given how much we have invested in it, I think we will start to see returns on it pretty soon.

Here's the problem with the selfish current thing of Liberalism ideology. They care about happiness, and their own life, and the current thing. I don’t. It’s the same thing with conservatives who just want money. But why? Creating not-needed interstate taxes is money creation, and so is joining a cigarette company’s board. But those aren’t the things that will create a good future. I am pretty sure there are many people who would find the above things to be happiness too. If you spent your life just hoarding money, or living for the moment that’s fine, but if everybody did that we are screwed as species.

Most people don’t fight the coming change if there is enough force, money, and or usefulness out of it. It’s central to my theory on how to effect change you need to aggregate some form of power, and just push to get the change you want depending on the cost-benefit analysis. It’s part of the reason I don’t like the left, despite being forced to join them as conservatives don’t like people of color, young people, and change and I am/like all of them. I wouldn’t even join conservatives if they did include Asians in their coalition because racism and classism aren’t dynamic, and I generally like humans.

As for a line I won’t ever cross for humanity, biological life, Earth, etc. It depends. There are always exemptions to the rule. Every dollar you spend could have gone towards X, Y, and Z. And while human beings tend not to be violent directly look at all of the wars. What if in order to fight off an alien race that will defeat you, you must kill just one child of said alien race? Or else your species get bombed out of the third dimension altogether. While generally, and in 99% of cases I like to act morally I have my own cost-benefit analysis. I once talked to an engineer who argued we needed to get rid of nuclear weapons even if it kills the entire human race and could have been used to protect us. I don’t agree we should only get rid of it if something else better than it invalidates its existence in that case morally will get you killed. Whatever works, works.

And again, maybe I am wrong, maybe all alien races are peaceful across the known universe or multiverse. In which case I will adjust. Look at cluster munitions, the left loves to tie on hand behind its back as many of its members, but not all myself included are mentally ill, unpragmatic, and dangerously naive which before you people come at me with personal attacks I am ins some ways, but on humanity, I will act according to my cost-benefit analysis and have done it.

I am learning how loitering munitions work, AI works, which vehicle(s) to target in a military convoy first, etc. I also am an active part of my workplace community. Granted I am a poor neighbor so people don’t like me in my actual community near me. But I do have friends outside of it. As for dating, it depends if I live longer with a radical life extension or not. If I can live to age 700 no I am not dating right now so that I can prepare for the war against either AI, aliens, or just action needed against great possible humanity-based extinction events either caused by us or not. And all of his isn't a dig at you, I don't find much joy in personal attacks.

Edit: Spelling, and grammar.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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No, I think obesity is the real problem, and pretending it isn't doesn't make it better.
Two things can be problems
Yes, medical advice can be wrong, and has been wrong at various points. But if you want to claim that medical advice on a subject is wrong, I'd say you're the one with the burden of proof. Doctors could be wrong about the harm cigarettes cause, but at this point in time, it would be very difficult to prove that. Similarly, doctors could be wrong about obesity being linked with hypertension and diabetes for example, but again, you'd need evidence for that.

Yes, this is a red herring. First, it doesn't matter where you set the BMI limits, the trends are the same. Obesity has steadily risen on a global level. If, today, the BMI for being obese was set at 35 rather than 30 for instance, you'd have less obese people in the world, but the trend would still be going upwards.
BMI is bullshit though. And it's our sole definition for obesity.
Second, if you want to claim that it's wrong, you need something more compelling than the cutoff mark being shifted. Cutoff marks don't change the overall picture. If you raise the threshold for absolute poverty, more poor people are added to the world, but the trend of poverty reduction remains the same. That we're on course for 3C warming by the end of the century rather than 4C doesn't mean the crisis is solved, it just means we've gone from apocalyptic to terrible.
Congratulations, you put in way more thought than that stupid article
No, but organizing conferences is.
That is not connected whatsoever to those instagram comments.
That I take health guidelines seriously. That while jogging isn't pleasant, it does roughly meet the 30mins of physical activity per day recommended, when combined with the time I spend walking to and from work, plus the amount of time I spend on my feet itself.
So fuck what?
Stop asking stupid questions. I don't care how much exercise someone takes to take them seriously, that's rediculous. What's harder to take seriously are claims that obesity isn't a detriment to health, that the medical science is wrong, that the real source of poor health is stigma, that all the claims I quoted earlier aren't just a bunch of gobbledygook.
Might be helpful if you ever read the full statements then, instead of cherry-picked quotes from the guy trying to demonize the conference and link everything back to marxist crt intersectionalism

I had to look up who that even was, and I'm still confused.
She's a very fat person with excellent cardio who regularly holds high-energy dance routines while using woodwind instruments. Conservatives hate her because she doesn't show appropriate levels of shame for being fat, which means she's "glorifying obesity" and what not
And being obese doesn't make anyone healthy either, and denying it's a health problem only makes it worse.
"Being obese" means nothing because BMI is as bullshit as IQ is. Get a better definition
 

Hawki

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Two things can be problems
And what's your point? There's a global obesity epidemic. That kind of demands more attention than smaller problems.

BMI is bullshit though.
Citation needed.

Yes, BMI isn't perfect (a muscular person can be classified as obese based solely on weight), but it does its job well.

And it's our sole definition for obesity.
And? Even without BMI, someone can observe the problems associated with obesity. Problems I've already listed, and any nutritionist can provide further detail on.

That is not connected whatsoever to those instagram comments.
They're very much connected, because they're expressing the same pseudoscientific belief that obesity isn't a health concern.

So fuck what?
As in unlike you, I actually follow medical advice.

Might be helpful if you ever read the full statements then, instead of cherry-picked quotes from the guy trying to demonize the conference and link everything back to marxist crt intersectionalism
The quotes in the article are quotes from the conference itself.

"Being obese" means nothing
That is absolutely insane, and if you want to make that claim, you'd have to amass a wealth of evidence that goes against every health professional on planet Earth.

because BMI is as bullshit as IQ is.
Again, citation needed. You keep claiming BMI is bullshit, you haven't provided a shred of evidence for it.

Get a better definition
Get a better education.
 

Avnger

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As in unlike you, I actually follow medical advice.
And this is what it actually comes down to.

This issue gives you an excuse to feel yourself morally superior over other people, and you're upset that people are trying to take away the "high horse" from which you shame others.
 

Hawki

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And this is what it actually comes down to.

This issue gives you an excuse to feel yourself morally superior over other people, and you're upset that people are trying to take away the "high horse" from which you shame others.
I don't feel superior, nor have I shamed anyone.
 

Ag3ma

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I read the article, none of it comes off as "yelling."
It might not, but something about it smells a little off: I wonder how fair a representation of the conference it actually is. It may be more a representation of some of the extremes of the conference, or an exaggeration of some to all of the conference, picked for maximum value for a hit job.
 

Ag3ma

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I don't feel superior, nor have I shamed anyone.
You've uncritically posted an article by someone who does seem to feel superior, in approving terms, and then defended it against criticism. If you chose that association, you should probably own it.
 

Hawki

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You've uncritically posted an article by someone who does seem to feel superior, in approving terms, and then defended it against criticism. If you chose that association, you should probably own it.
Well again, none of the article comes off as feeling superior. If anything, the people who come off as superior are the people he's quoting, not to mention GX himself, who's calmly made assertions that fly in the face of scientific consensus.

But all of this is academic as to whether obesity is a health issue or not, but apparently, even that is up for dispute.
 

Hawki

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Articles often don't come across as superior to readers who agree with their sentiments.
You realize by this logic anyone could claim anyone else is superior on the basis of disagreement, right? Or, to borrow a quote from Hitchens, " “If someone tells me that I've hurt their feelings, I say, 'I'm still waiting to hear what your point is.'

But even that's a moot point, because stating that an article comes off as smug/superior/whatever is academic to the actual content. I don't particularly care if you or anyone else find the article as such, what I do care about is what's true. So, among the claims made by individuals within the article, as well as on this thread, are:

-Obesity is not the cause of obesity-related diseases, mental anguish is.

-That there is no link between being excess body fat and health outcomes (which, if true, would overturn global consensus on the matter)

-BMI is a load of bollocks, and cannot be used to get a sense as to whether someone is overweight/obese or not (yes, BMI isn't perfect, but it does its job well enough if you account for muscle mass)

-That overweight people are an "oppressed group," and lack equal rights (apparently I therefore lack equal rights, but would gain them if I lost enough weight)

How you feel on the facts of the matter aside, I'll leave up to you, but before you post, I'll point out that the obesity epidemic has only gone one way over the decades, and not in a good direction.
 
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TheMysteriousGX

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-Obesity is not the cause of obesity-related diseases, mental anguish is.
True, but the article doesn't give context
-That there is no link between being excess body fat and health outcomes (which, if true, would overturn global consensus on the matter)
True, but the article doesn't give context
-BMI is a load of bollocks, and cannot be used to get a sense as to whether someone is overweight/obese or not (yes, BMI isn't perfect, but it does its job well enough if you account for muscle mass)
True (and false)
-That overweight people are an "oppressed group," and lack equal rights (apparently I therefore lack equal rights, but would gain them if I lost enough weight)
True (and true). Lotta stories out there of people who got told they just need to lose weight, then dying of the cancer the doc didn't bother to screen for, or getting surgery for the torn tendon the doc ignored, etc
How you feel on the facts of the matter aside, I'll leave up to you, but before you post, I'll point out that the obesity epidemic has only gone one way over the decades, and not in a good direction.
Yeah, weird how decades of blatant shaming tactics didn't pan out. I wonder why fat advocates are going in a different direction these days after a generation of abject failure on the "call people fatties until they develop an eating disorder" Weight Watchers plan
 

Terminal Blue

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My partner has likely ADHD (undiagnosed and taking ages to get anywhere with it) and I wasn't aware of that aspect of it, so thanks. I've never understood how into nice food they are, because it's just food.
If I remember right, you're also in the UK, and yeah, NHS provision for adult ADHD is truly terrible. It's a system that seems to be built to be deliberately hostile to anyone going through it, and is especially for people who actually have ADHD. It's only gotten worse now that Panorama has inexplicably decided they weren't done fucking things up for neurodiverse people after being almost entirely responsible for popularizing the belief that vaccines cause autism.

To give serious advice for a moment, I would genuinely consider going private if you can find an affordable consultant. There are downsides to doing that, you have to beg your GP for shared care agreements and once you've done it you're kind of locked in as it's basically impossible to get a bridging agreement to allow you to still receive medication if you then want to switch to an NHS consultant, but the quality of care in the private sector is just vastly, vastly higher. If you live in or around London and you might be interested in going private, send me a PM and I can point you to the consultancy I use.

But yeah, the food thing is very real. One thing I didn't realize until I was medicated was that having ADHD is just living in this state of constant, mild irritation. Everything in the world is either a little bit boring or a little bit overwhelming, all those physical feelings you get in your body are very intense and annoying, as a result, you end up just too ground down to fight anything. It's like when you have a bit of a shit day and you end up ordering takeout or buying a pack of chocolate or something just to get a little lift. With ADHD, every day is that bad day. You always feel like you've been ground down and just want to make it better, and as a result you don't quite feel in control of your own life.

Weirdly, excercise is another huge thing. There's a lot of weird stuff related to the way physical movement and cognition relate to each other, also endorfins. ADHD is relatively common in athletes, probably for this reason.

Just as a point of scientific pedantry, it's more that their neurones don't respond to dopamine strongly enough rather than not having enough dopamine. Or as it could be put, not having enough dopaminergic activity.
Thanks for clarifying.

I love the online ADHD community and they've helped me a lot over these past couple of years, but they do tend to play a bit fast and loose with the actual science around a few things, and dopamine is definitely one of them. I always appreciate actual expertise.
 
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Ag3ma

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I love the online ADHD community and they've helped me a lot over these past couple of years, but they do tend to play a bit fast and loose with the actual science around a few things, and dopamine is definitely one of them. I always appreciate actual expertise.
There may be different causes of ADHD, but the most common as far as I am aware is mutation in the DRD2 gene, which encodes for a dopamine receptor (a receptor being a protein that binds a signalling molecule such as neurotransmitter and causes changes in cellular activity). However, as is the case in numerous conditions, there may be other mutations in other proteins that end up with pretty much the same symptoms.

If I remember right, you're also in the UK, and yeah, NHS provision for adult ADHD is truly terrible. It's a system that seems to be built to be deliberately hostile to anyone going through it, and is especially for people who actually have ADHD.
This might be something that varies by area: most people I know with ADHD in the UK have not found the process difficult - unless you count the sheer length of time to get seen, diagnosed and treated, plus of course also titration. However, time to treatment has been increasing problem across the NHS, seeing as the government thinks the healthcare service can operate without funding. And then in some areas of the country, they are handing out Ritalin to children like it's candy.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Indeed, and each time you've convinced nobody.



What good will answering this question do? You won't accept any answers that focus on actual responses, because you don't believe any of them work. What's the point?
Testing working doesn't make sheer logical sense because you can't get a positive result (assuming you do indeed have covid) before you have symptoms (whether the rapid tests that weren't available initially or the lab tests would take too long to get back results). And once you have symptoms, then you know to not be around others. Thus, what's the point of testing?

The US followed "the science" from lockdowns to mask mandates to vaccine mandates to 6-feet distancing to removing swings/basketball hoops from parks.

Yeah, there's a 50/50 chance they didn't say "chewed"

Also, like, are you mad that the training didn't want people to fly off the handle at being misgendered? Getting some mixed messages here
Pretty sure it was chewed but could've been a synonym. I'm definitely not gonna rewatch the video. The 3 other guys listening didn't hear "Jewed" either.

The fact that it portrayed the person as being hysterical and needing to be calmed down is pretty poor messaging. Understanding where both sides are coming from is important in anything. Most interpersonal issues come down to people just not talking to each other and making assumptions.

:rolleyes:

Yes, if you keep birthrates below the replacement threshold forever, you will run out of people. Few people saying we should have lower birthrates are saying that we should have them forever, just to the population reaches a more sustainable amount.

I mean, c'mon, don't go all phoeniximgs on this.
Uhh... I'm fine with less people. I think the main issue short-term with less people being born is that fact the elderly population becomes too high (since they had higher birth rates at their time) and there aren't enough young to take care of and cover the costs of the elderly population (social security and whatnot). I couldn't care less about a constantly growing economy.

Oh my god. You have to be insane to think lockdowns had no benefits.



No, I didn't give you shit studies. You said they were shit because you either misread or wilfully misinterpreted them. And you are also scientifically illiterate (do you not remember that you even had to have the meaning of a p value explained to you?) so you can't even tell whether a study is shit, hence why you keep posting them. What's even funnier about this claim is that the one you complained most about was one you first introduced, albeit indirectly.

Let me remind you that you cited a lying, pseudoscience website which you claimed had meta-analyses showing HCQ and IVM worked, and I pointed out that website misleadingly presented studies and had clearly inaccurate meta-analysis (hence also why I ended up explaining p values to you). That paper first entered debate because it was one of those the website lied about. You later then claimed it was shit because it didn't have enough data on deaths. What you ignored in order to claim that was that determining deaths from infection wasn't actually the aim of the paper.

The reason you're making this pissy little claim is the most feeble of "Nuh-uh, you too!" accusations because you've literally nothing better.



No, I think the US (and to a lesser extent UK) governments presented a load of superficial evidence supplemented by fabricated evidence that plenty of people found convincing enough to persuade them into supporting the war. You don't seem to understand what evidence is: it's not the same thing as true, objective proof. Evidence is simply information in support of a conclusion. It can be of varying strength, and it can also be wrong.



They've been pointed out to you multiple times. Seriously, do you have a memory problem?



And thus you promptly tell everyone that you are not aware of the science of how masks work, even despite all the many times it's been mentioned. Great job there.
Missing the point, not that the lockdowns had literally no benefits but the benefits didn't cover the massive costs of doing the lockdowns (everything you do has benefits and costs, why would I say lockdowns had no benefits at all?). There's no evidence that lockdown benefits covered the costs or even came close.

You literally linked to studies that didn't even meet the requirements that you yourself said were what a good study was as you gave me a study with less people in it than was the minimum of what you said was needed. IVM did work for large portions of the worldwide population because tons of people unknowingly had stuff that IVM helped against, but not because it directly worked for covid. The fact that you're not consistent in your evidence is my issue with you. You were completely against IVM but yet for Remdesivir when the Solidarity trial showed it didn't work and the WHO even said it didn't work. IIRC, there was a trial months/year later that showed Remdesivir did very slightly help. But during a solid chunk of time the evidence for both IVM and Remdesivir was basically the same but yet you wouldn't condemn the use of Remdesivir.

I know evidence required doesn't need to be 100%, that is a standard that you'll never meet for most things. There was no actual evidence that Iraq had WMDs that even pointed to it being simply more likely than not.

I'm not saying Marty was never wrong but the fact that you claim he is unreliable is pure nonsense. How are you going to say his herd immunity prediction makes him unreliable when that was the scientific consensus at the time? His prediction was sooner than others IIRC because the others underestimated the covid infection rate. The problem with every scientists' herd immunity take was that covid is something you don't get herd immunity to (for the long-term). Remember when they said the vaccines stop transmission and every case of covid in a vaccinated person was a "breakthrough" infection and then that just became super common? If this is the standard you want to set for someone being unreliable, then Fauci is unreliable and pretty much everyone that had any take on covid is unreliable. What did Marty do/say that makes him grossly more unreliable than anyone else? John Oliver's Last Week Tonight talked about herd immunity as well, does that make his covid episode misinformation and unreliable because looking back now we know that it's wrong? The episode was misinformation (at the time) though because he claimed you needed 90% vaccinated to reach herd immunity as they didn't take into consideration natural immunity at all for building up to herd immunity.

How Much Herd Immunity Is Enough?

Scientists initially estimated that 60 to 70 percent of the population needed to acquire resistance to the coronavirus to banish it. Now Dr. Anthony Fauci and others are quietly shifting that number upward.


Good masks work, bad masks don't. When did I ever say N95s didn't work? Problem is when someone is yelled at for not wearing a mask, what the person yelling at them wants them to put on is at least a cloth mask (that has no evidence of working).


Since you clearly don't know what the world "intersectional" means, let me help you out.

Whether or not fat people are an oppressed group is neither a particularly interesting question (the answer is obviously yes) nor has anything to do with intersectionality. Intersectionality would describe the way in which body weight interacts with other social identities. Fat stigma is extremely and measurably gendered, for example. Fat women are generally treated very differently to both fat men (straight men, certainly) and thin women, in ways that aren't necessarily comparable to either. Did you think it was just coincidence that every single image of a person in that article is a woman?

How about another one. According to a pilot study at one weight management clinic, 30% of the people being treated for chronic obesity also had symptoms consistent with (typically undiagnosed) adult ADHD. People with ADHD don't produce enough of the neurotransmitter dopamine, and one way to get your brain to release dopamine is to eat, especially energy-rich food like carbohydrates.

But even setting aside actual neurodevelopmental disorders, different people also very clearly have very different reactions to food in a way that is not reducible to their personal motivation, willpower or quality as a person. One thing that makes this incredibly obvious is that many, many drugs affect the way people react to food. There's a very clear neurochemical dimension to the whole thing, which makes the assumption that everyone possesses an equal natural ability to manage their own weight and that those who can't are therefore bad or weak people very clearly ableist.

Meanwhile, approximately 10,000 people a year in the US die as a result of eating disorders, with many others being permanently disabled. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate among any form of mental illness, and are a very direct consequence of body image issues resulting from societal attitudes to weight. Unlike deaths from chronic obesity, deaths from eating disorders overwhelmingly affect young people who would otherwise be healthy.

I don't even feel this should need to be stated but here we are. Fat stigma does not help people lose weight. For most overweight people it actually, demonstrably does the opposite. The desperate reaching to try and construe the ability to mock or bully people as "helping" them is frankly sad, pathetic and transparent. It is far, far more neurotic and unhealthy than any supposed denial of the problems caused by obesity, and in fact it legitimates those responses because other people weren't put on this earth to amuse you. It's none of your business what other people do with their bodies, it's none of your business what they eat, whether they get sick or how they die. If someone starts acting like my body is their business, my automatic response is to put the middle fingers up too.

Obesity isn't a problem that can be tackled in isolation just by bullying people into eating less, it's a holistic problem that likely has very complex and individual causes. But, at the end of the day, obese people are still people. They have just as much right to control their own lives as anyone else, and that means if they don't want to lose weight trying to bully or force them is both unethical and likely to be worse than ineffective.
If this is all MAINLY true, and I'm more than willing to accept there's a degree of validity in it all, then why are people now suddenly obese at such high rates? Didn't people have to contend with the very same issues pointed out say 100 years ago? And the obesity rate was far far far far lower. The problem is that people have really bad diets and also don't know what's actually good food because the whole war on fat public health messaging.

Does fat shaming exist? Yes. Is obesity a health hazard? Yes. Has fat acceptance reached the point where medical misinformation is being posted/medical information being rescinded? Yes.
There's so much misinformation messaged by the government on obesity. That official government doctor went on 60 Minutes this year saying obesity is mainly a genetic disease; that's not only false but it's also both misinformation and disinformation, it's very dangerous messaging. Just go to like any official government page about eating healthy like the CDC link below and you'll find scores of just misinformation. The CDC page says that saturated fats and dietary cholesterol is bad, that is literally only true in Superman's Bizarro world. It says to try beans instead of meats, why? That makes no sense switching out something more nutrient rich for something less nutrient rich. I eat quite a bit of beans because I love chili and get it often but replacing meat with beans is stupid. Then, at the bottom it tells people to make an even less healthy mac and cheese by using low/no-fat milk and cheeses. This messaging is beyond ridiculous.

Seeing Bill Maher used as a credible opinion makes me wanna eat a whole cheesecake.
What did Bill actually say in that clip that was wrong or bad? He wasn't making fun of fat people, just telling them like it is.

That I take health guidelines seriously. That while jogging isn't pleasant, it does roughly meet the 30mins of physical activity per day recommended, when combined with the time I spend walking to and from work, plus the amount of time I spend on my feet itself.
Exercise is a bit of a red herring in the obesity problem because diet is at least like 80% of the problem. You just can't outrun a bad diet unless you're very young. And exercising and keeping the bad diet isn't going to help much because exercise in reality doesn't burn nearly as many calories as you'd think it does. I have a Facebook friend (mainly a high school acquaintance and friended her as she was in charge of our high school 10th anniversary thing) that constantly posts pics of herself working out and she's really not losing any weight or very slowly. I feel bad for her because she's trying and all but trying in the wrong way. Not that exercise is bad or anything but it only assists in getting to a healthy weight and even more important, metabolically healthy.

BMI is bullshit though. And it's our sole definition for obesity.
Yes, BMI is technically bullshit but it's not a bad way to quickly identify a possible and likely weight problem. Yes, someone like an athlete will get labeled as obese because their muscle percentage is so high (and muscle weighs more than fat). But 90+% of people coming into the doctor's office and getting weighed and height taken (and thus calculating BMI) aren't athletes and they are highly likely to be obese if the BMI says as much. And also it's not like the doctor isn't going notice the person is an athlete or body builder or something like that; the doctor is not gonna tell those people that they are obese and need to lose weight. What do you want the alternative to be? The doctor telling the patient to basically strip naked and feel around their love handles to see if they are overweight or do some expensive unneeded scan? The #1 solution in the link below to find body fat % is skinfold calipers, which is basically the doctor feeling your love handles. It's pretty funny that these "BMI is bullshit" articles are about how it overall stigmatizes fat people when the people that it's hurting most are the skinny fat people that have tons of visceral fat around their liver and other organs and the doctor usually doesn't realize they are "fat" because they don't look it and their BMI isn't really a warning sign either. Being skinny fat is close to as bad as being normal fat.


And this is what it actually comes down to.

This issue gives you an excuse to feel yourself morally superior over other people, and you're upset that people are trying to take away the "high horse" from which you shame others.
Wanting others (friends, family, co-workers, strangers) to be healthy and live longer is someone wanting to be morally superior to them?
 
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Ag3ma

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Missing the point, not that the lockdowns had literally no benefits
You said, #5480:
The lockdown crowd has provided no evidence that lockdowns had any actual benefits (or even would have in the first place).
You literally linked to studies that didn't even meet the requirements that you yourself said were what a good study was as you gave me a study with less people in it than was the minimum of what you said was needed.
There mostly aren't "requirements" or "minimums", there's only methodological validity and statistical strength. And again, I remind you that were raging here over a paper I presented for looking at drug effects on viral load and general disease progression, for which it was a study with a reasonable size. You claimed it was too small because you ignored all that and only looked at deaths. And again, I remind you that this was a study you (indirectly) originally used to defend your own position.

IVM did work for large portions of the worldwide population because tons of people unknowingly had stuff that IVM helped against, but not because it directly worked for covid. The fact that you're not consistent in your evidence is my issue with you. You were completely against IVM but yet for Remdesivir when the Solidarity trial showed it didn't work and the WHO even said it didn't work. IIRC, there was a trial months/year later that showed Remdesivir did very slightly help. But during a solid chunk of time the evidence for both IVM and Remdesivir was basically the same but yet you wouldn't condemn the use of Remdesivir.
Whilst both remdesivir and IVM had mixed results, the studies in support of IVM were very low quality, whereas the studies in support of remdesivir were done to a much higher standard. To stress this, you also need to bear in mind that the Solidarity trials did ultimately find a (very small) therapeutic benefit to it, and the WHO eventually approved it.

Thus history has vindicated my judgement on both IVM and remdesivir. Maybe having a decent idea what one is looking at does count for somethng...

I'm not saying Marty was never wrong but the fact that you claim he is unreliable is pure nonsense.
Marty Makary is a rent-a-gob.

How are you going to say his herd immunity prediction makes him unreliable when that was the scientific consensus at the time? His prediction was sooner than others IIRC because...
He wasn't with the scientific consensus though. The actual experts in the field viewed his prediction as somewhere between extraordinarily optimistic and just wrong. Makary, let's recall, is an gastrointestinal surgical oncologist. You wouldn't put him in your top 100 to diagnose schizophrenia, and you shouldn't put him in your top 100 for the epidemiology of respiratory diseases, either. He didn't have the best expertise to offer that opinion, and yet he did so anyway, with a massive op-ed in a major newspaper. See also his grossly inaccurate view on pediatric covid deaths.

This isn't just happening to be on the wrong side of a 60:40 balance of evidence with a well-considered opinion, this is someone who is not properly clued in to the subjects he aspires to tell the world about. And yet he thought he was fit to spray his bullshit all over news feeds at the highest level anyway. Arrogance? Self-aggrandisement? Attention-seeking? Who knows.

This is not the behaviour of a reliable source.
 
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Silvanus

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Testing working doesn't make sheer logical sense because you can't get a positive result (assuming you do indeed have covid) before you have symptoms (whether the rapid tests that weren't available initially or the lab tests would take too long to get back results). And once you have symptoms, then you know to not be around others. Thus, what's the point of testing?
Firstly: this is factually completely wrong. You can test positive after ~5 days exposure, before symptoms manifest.

Secondly: many of the symptoms of covid are shared with other, less mortal pathogens, like colds and influenza. So even if you did exhibit certain symptoms, you still wouldn't know it was covid unless you tested.

You don't know what the hell you're talking about at all.

The US followed "the science" from lockdowns to mask mandates to vaccine mandates to 6-feet distancing to removing swings/basketball hoops from parks.
"The science" doesn't constitute a set of instructions for government. The sooner you realise this, the sooner you'll be on the same page as the grown-ups.
 

Hawki

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If this is all MAINLY true, and I'm more than willing to accept there's a degree of validity in it all, then why are people now suddenly obese at such high rates? Didn't people have to contend with the very same issues pointed out say 100 years ago? And the obesity rate was far far far far lower. The problem is that people have really bad diets and also don't know what's actually good food because the whole war on fat public health messaging.
Well, yeah, the answer as to why there's more obesity now is that we're moving far less, eating far more food, and eating far more processed food at that. This isn't rocket science.

As the original article itself states, the fat acceptance movement can't be held responsible for these trends, but it doesn't help anyone to claim, among other things, that there's no link between excess body fat and health outcomes.

It says to try beans instead of meats, why? That makes no sense switching out something more nutrient rich for something less nutrient rich. I eat quite a bit of beans because I love chili and get it often but replacing meat with beans is stupid.
Well, it might actually be better to eat beans instead of meats, if only for the sake of the environment (plus animal welfare), not to mention that eating too much red meat is bad for you (if you have to eat meat, eat white more than red). As to whether you're getting the same amount of protein/nutrients, that's harder to say, as I've seen all kinds of claims on the subject.

Generally speaking, I try to minimize my meat eating, but that's more for env. reasons rather than health ones.

Exercise is a bit of a red herring in the obesity problem because diet is at least like 80% of the problem. You just can't outrun a bad diet unless you're very young. And exercising and keeping the bad diet isn't going to help much because exercise in reality doesn't burn nearly as many calories as you'd think it does. I have a Facebook friend (mainly a high school acquaintance and friended her as she was in charge of our high school 10th anniversary thing) that constantly posts pics of herself working out and she's really not losing any weight or very slowly. I feel bad for her because she's trying and all but trying in the wrong way. Not that exercise is bad or anything but it only assists in getting to a healthy weight and even more important, metabolically healthy.
Yes, I know, exercise by itself can't do much. I had a temporary sugar fast years back which lost me 15kg in a matter of weeks, which was more effective than anything else (indeed, a lot of that weight has been put back on, though the best case scenario is that it's muscle - certainly some people I've talked to think so). But even then, it's generally recommended that you get 30mins of moderate exercise in a day at minimum.
 

Hawki

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