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I don't think mental illness is an excuse - you are still responsible for getting yourself fixed. But people who literally aren't in control of themselves can't be expected to act "rationally."
Well, yes, if you screen people for their high levels of craziness, they will do crazy things on camera. My 600 Pound Life, for all that it purports to be "helping" its patients (Dr. Now probably really does care about his patients, at least somewhat) is very much a modern freakshow. "Point and laugh at the freaks and then wonder why they don't just stop stuffing their fat faces..."
If the threat of their imminent approaching deaths isn't enough to establish even a modicum of self control they're not really human beings, but automata who have lost their will to live. But it doesn't matter, in any case: because although they claim to have no self autonomy, they are very good at wheedling out benefits and favors from the people around them. It all smacks of bullshit in the end.
The number of people who weigh more than 600lbs is a vanishingly small number. It's not like in the Jersey Shore, where fake tanned sluts and himbos compete to be the stupidest on camera. Being very fat is comorbid with something very wrong with you and it's a pathology that is rapidly spreading in the Western world. They don't need to pick out the crazies and the exhibitionists: they just need to turn on the cameras and watch them do their distorted routines.
If it makes you feel very superior thinking that, okay. But people who are severely depressed, delusional, schizophrenic, and suffering from various other mental illnesses often do, in fact, lack even a modicum of self control. They are human beings. Broken human beings are still responsible for their actions. Yes, they can also be abusive and manipulative.
The reason we have more morbidly obese people is that (a) we have the medical technology to keep people alive in conditions that would have killed them sooner in earlier times; (b) we have a hyperabundance of extremely cheap, calorie-dense food made to be hyperpalatable; (c) we have no real mechanism to force people to stop self-harming in this way except in the most extreme circumstances.
And here's where I have a fundamentally different worldview than yours. There's a turn of phrase... 'makes you feel superior'. That would be incorrect.
That would imply that it is a subjective, egotistic feeling rather than objective fact.
There's nothing wrong with judging people better or worse than others. That may be a mortal sin to a progressive, liberal worldview, but to me it is simply the basis of any ideology that makes meritocratic judgement of worth. If you're a fat person because you were sexually abused or have some sort of mental illness or what have you... that's a sad story, but in the end, you're still being pushed off the bridge into the path of the runaway trolley.
I probably would not survive in the governing ethics of which I prefer... and that's fine with me. But that's probably too personal to debate on, so I'll chalk this one up to a disagreement of values.
We do have different worldviews, but not in the way you think.
Objectively, yes, you and I are probably "superior" to people who are eating themselves to death, at least on most axes.
What I think is a character flaw is feeling some kind of gratification at being such a superior person. Admit it is what it is; you like watching human trainwrecks. (That's why I watch the show.) You don't have to feel sorry for them or have empathy. But I wouldn't take pride in how superior I am or how it makes me a clear-eyed rationalist that I can deny them sympathy.
We wouldn't watch a show called '160 lb people eat healthy food in regular amounts', now, would we? :P
I believe what the West gets wrong is that it attempts to shift the pride of superiority to obviously inadequate people (and eliminate any pesky shame that came along with it.) But that fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of such emotions. You should feel pride in doing something good (and shame when you do something bad.) When you give pride to the weak-willed and shame the strong you upset the incentive structure of society and chaos ensues.
Or, to put it simply, false modesty benefits no one, and false pride harms everyone. To do otherwise to spare feelings is no good.
Why not? I watch a few YT channels that are like that. They are more of "160 lb people cook and eat healthy food in regular amounts", but still.
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