Yeah, because the individual-level studies aren’t worth shit, that’s the point. They’re like the scientific level of analogies. You get these studies that are on like, 15 people or whatever that make some statistically significant finding, then it later turns out that they either very selectively chose their test subjects, the methodology was a complete joke, they p-hacked the findings into worthlessness or all of the above. If the individual level studies scaled up, if they were actually finding something real, they would be reflected in population-level studies. The fact that they aren’t pretty clearly demonstrates that there isn’t a strong correlation.

Low weight is a significant health issue in wealthy countries too. It’s a massive contributor to mortality rates, as much as high adiposity is. But it’s not discussed because it’s less popular to bully people for being skinny as it is to bully people for being fat.

But sure, I’m the one who refuses to change his mind when challenged.

That’s a fun paper, because they basically find no actual negative health effect, then just ignore that fact and continue as if they did.

First, the global focus on the obesity epidemic has largely overshadowed the persistence of underweight in some countries. Our results show the need to address the remaining underweight problem

Second, although adiposity has been consistently shown to be an independent risk factor for several NCDs in individual-level epidemiological studies, at the population level, the effect of rising BMI on the course of mortality reduction has so far been somewhat small in high-income countries

All the study shows is that as people get richer they can overcome being underweight, which is an incredibly good thing - it reduces health risks significantly. Then it goes back to the usual moral panic shit about how that’s actually a bad thing.

Essentially everything you ever heard about weight and fat is ideological, not scientific, in basis. Research consistently finds results that aren’t statistically significant, then just blathers about how that statistically significant result would exist if they could account for x y z. There’s no scientific basis to the claim.

The basics of it are that extremes on either end, of being underweight or very overweight, are health risks. The health risk of being “overweight” are massively overstated, because people like to judge and bully fat people.

Sure I can - find actual average weight, in lbs. of americans in the 1970s and compare them to today. It’s actually pretty easy to change my mind.

The problem is that you can’t find that evidence, because it doesn’t exist, because the studies we have show that average weight hasn’t changed very much.

You’re the person here who is zealously refusing to change their position based on facts, not me - my views are shaped on years of research and review of the scientific literature. Your views are based on your lifetime of being exposed to a media narrative based on pseudoscience. designed to push an ideological goal.

Yes, because BMI is complete junk science. The BMI categories have been changed several times since it was created. It was also devised to work exclusively for white european men. It’s totally worthless for almost every purpose for which it is used.

There’s no real evidence that there are significant average weight differences between today and 70 years ago. Differences in the proportion of the population of “overweight” people is primarily due to changing the definition of what constitutes overweight.

And being fat isn’t a “disease”, any more than having big feet is.

Having a very high weight is known to cause harm, but so is having a low weight, and so is skydiving. Dieting is more harmful to 90% of us than our waistline is, and yet we approve of dieting and refer to fat people as an epidemic.

That measures an effect, not an outcome. Is the goal to improve health, or to sell less sugary drinks? All of the evidence we have around using low-calorie sweeteners is that it does not displace the consumption of other dietary sugars, because there is a compensatory effect.

I invite you to point out what part of my advice you consider to be “shitty”, and back up your case with evidence - because I actually know what I’m talking about.

If healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, pulses, etc. were subsidised instead of animal products then they’d essentially be free. Affordability is a huge problem, at least here in the UK. Thousands of people use food banks because they’re struggling with the cost of living. vegan btw

Everything about public health policy sucks. The best way to improve nutrition and health is by making eating healthy affordable and easy. It’s too hard and expensive for working people to prepare healthy meals for a family also working 40+ hours a week.

So many myths and pseudoscience around health, wellness, etc. Basically everything that is talked about is based on really shaky science at best, and outright lies and nonsense at worst. Way too much emphasis is put on weight loss, dieting, waist circumference and so on. Dieting is hugely unhealthy, weight cycling (losing and regaining weight) has worse health implications than just remaining at your original weight, and for most people the weight they are is fine, the health risks around weight are hugely overstated. The BMI is a worthless metric without any scientific basis. Almost everything that people say about sugar is wrong - it’s not physiologically addictive, it doesn’t cause hyperactivity and it’s not poisonous, and it doesn’t cause type 2 diabetes - the causes of type 2 diabetes are generally not well understood.

The most important thing is having a varied diet with some fruit and vegetables and getting some regular activity - something that you enjoy! Doesn’t have to be major or whatever, if it’s just going for a walk or paintball or whatever, that’s great!

Fad diets are hugely unhealthy, in general, and should be avoided.

Would you support a policy that would see western nations paying developing nations to leave fossil fuel reserves untouched, proportional to the value of the fossil fuel reserves?

That’s the only thing that could make this fair, don’t you think?

Labour aren’t close to centre left, they’re right wing, just not as far right as the conservative party. Take a look at their manifesto, it’s all right wing stuff.

You wrote:

I find AI a HUGE productivity boost, in search

Then when pushed, you walk it back:

search isn’t benefitting from the use of AI

Why make your initial comment of support if you just walk back on it? Got some money riding on it or something?

Not really, labour aren’t much better than the conservatives to be honest. They have pretty much all the same policies. They’re transphobic, pro-Israel, don’t give a shit about preventing climate change, have all the same anti-immigration rhetoric, pro-austerity… they just suck.

I’m not trying to get you to vote for any particular party or candidate, effectively every political party is in on the scam anyways. I’m just trying to help you, I have nothing to gain here. The people in charge are exploiting you and your friends, they’re stealing from all of us, and blaming other scapegoats for it. Don’t believe any of their bullshit, and demand a better world to live in.

Your friends have been scammed by the wealthy ruling elite. They’re voting conservative because they’ve been told that will solve the problems they’re experiencing, but it won’t. It will only make them worse.

Immigration isn’t the cause of the problems that the people of France have been facing. Reducing or ending immigration would make problems worse.

The problem is that rich, wealthy elites control the country for their own benefit, hoarding all of the resources for themselves. Then they blame immigrants for causing the problem instead.

If resources in france were equally distributed, everyone would have ~300,000 euros.

You are angry at the wrong people.

Thank you very much for sharing this, it’s very illuminating. At this point I just assume that every pro-israel news story is a total lie tbh

Optometrists believe that the reason for this is that we’re tending to be inside more than we used to be, rather than going outside as much, so our eyes basically aren’t getting as much exercise in looking at stuff far away.

I was making the point that ad-supported services have been financially viable for centuries without needing to invade personal privacy, and that governments have been regulating industries for even longer - and at this point, your personal choice doesn’t really matter. You might be perfectly happy to eat food cooked in an unhygienic kitchen, for example, but enough people have been harmed in the past for food hygiene regulations to be commonplace worldwide.

Pay or have ads is fine by the EU’s DMA law too. What isn’t fine is the collection of user data without consent. Facebook can show all the ads they want, but if they collect user data to target those ads they need consent.

Think about radio or TV advertising - those aren’t targeted at specific people, but rather they’re targeted based on what channel, time of day and TV shows that they’re around. Meta can do the same stuff, but they just don’t want to give up that lucrative user data.