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 -
If studies found that adults were making continually poorer decisions year after year, and that by 2030 half of all adults chronically made poor decisions, and this was ever-increasing, then I would look for non-volitional factors at play. Lead poisoning? Something involving early life? Something involving complex social-environmental reinforcement mechanisms? That’s what I would begin to look at. Do Americans today lack willpower relative to Americans in 1980 or did other things change? You could have bought lots of pastries and sugar and candy as early as the 1920s, when few were obese. Milk was cheap and highly caloric, alcohol plentiful.
Hunger is different from a typical rational decision. When people are very hungry they will resort to cannibalism and murder, which proves this. Alright, so somewhere between “quite famished” and “eating my crewmate” we may have the polyphagia of the obese. I agree with your (1) and (2), my disagreement is: (A) the problem stems from how their body non-willfully reacts to the cues of food, with enhanced hunger and decreased inhibitory control, versus (B) they really ought to want to be skinny more. We already have evidence of (A) in other cases, like certain drug treatments reliably increasing appetite and increasing weight gain despite not affecting their willpower.
Why? Why is it so hard to believe that humans are flawed creatures who, by and large, are not good decision makers? Why is it so unlikely that faced with unlimited temptation, most people will fail to resist?
Food is delicious. Exercise is unpleasant. That's a sufficient explanation.
Sugary food existed in the 1920s, but not in such abundance and variety, and not as cheaply. It wasn't so easy to pack HFCS and fat into absolutely everything. Fast food was still a luxury. Prepared meals were very much so. And the ratio of sedentary desk jobs was much lower.
Americans eat many more calories today, on average, and burn much fewer. There are probably cultural factors as well, that made eating fast food and sweets as staples more acceptable, and that caused a decrease in activity levels. But you are looking for some explanation for why people are bad at resisting temptation, and the answer is the question.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link