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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   45539 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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I find it kind of objectionable to call wanting people to not suffer from something that very clearly makes life less pleasant a disgust reaction. There's a way that it fits, in a "I'm disgusted by needless suffering" sense, but the word has such a connotation of being unreasoned that it makes the whole comparison feel unfair. The difference between me and fat positive activists is not that one of us is disgusted and the other isn't, it's that one of us has given up on solving the root problem.

What is the "root" of the problem? Is it that people get fat? Or is it that fat people suffer increased health risks, beauty-ism, and are a literal poor fit for clothes and spaces? I'm going to do a little bit of mind-reading and assume that in your world where the problem is solved, everyone is thin.

A fat-activist does not have any disgust to fat people, and aesthetically values diversity of size, In her world where the problem is solved, there are fat people, but they don't suffer health risks due to improved medical technology, nor beautyism or logistical issues because of social engineering.

To make another unfair comparison to your position -- would you say glasses solve the root problem of poor eyesight? Of course, nobody is disgusted by poor eyesight...

You might argue that you consistently are taking the path of least resistance:

  • the easiest solution to fat people probably is a world where everyone is thin (based on what the past was like)

  • the easiest solution to poor eyesight seems to be glasses

The question then, is what is the fat-acceptance movement doing differently? You say they've given up on solving the root problem, but (if my mind-reading was correct) you would be modeling fat-positive types as giving up on making everyone thin. I do not think they want everyone to be thin. I think they are willing to implement more difficult solutions (medicine, social engineering) to achieve their preferred aesthetics.

I suspect even, that they are so against memocide, that they would approve of societal interventions to increase fatness, because interventions to decrease it are problematic. Whether or not they can do this openly is a political question of optics. This also explains LGBTQ groomers.

A fat-activist does not have any disgust to fat people, and aesthetically values diversity of size, In her world where the problem is solved, there are fat people, but they don't suffer health risks due to improved medical technology, nor beautyism or logistical issues because of social engineering.... I do not think they want everyone to be thin. I think they are willing to implement more difficult solutions (medicine, social engineering) to achieve their preferred aesthetics.

If this was the belief of fat activism then its activism should either be limited until our medical technology reaches this level OR be focused on lobbying for health research and dissemination of the resulting tech.

But this is manifestly not what fat activists do. Instead they idolize fat people like Lizzo today despite the manifestly bad impact on life being fat has. They criticize anti-fat standards as imperialist, racist white strictures and muddy the waters on whether one can be healthy at any size. Fat acceptance involves a significant ambiguity (at best) on whether being fat is bad as such, whereas your hypothetical activist recognizes this and seeks to mitigate it with medical advances that change the biological (not just social) landscape.

You are defending an idea that might be viable and worth looking at in spherical cow land but the dynamics of real world movements differ significantly.

And that difference is important. Because remove that element - focus on medical advances to mitigate the known downsides of being fat- and you have a movement founded on what is fundamentally a delusion : that you can simply think your way out of a medical problem if you call the standard tied to that problem unfair.

Fair enough, you're right that actual fat-activists are not the consequentialists I described in my first post!

I still wouldn't support this hypothetical, steelmanned movement because I find fatness disgusting, but the thought-experiment was novel to me. Maybe I'm just behind.

health risks

This one. Although it's incredible to me that of the options you put forward this one is so small and modified by "risks". I'm someone who needs to work pretty hard to not be fat. If I didn't think about food I would eat and drink to excess constantly. I have seen both sides of fat and thin plenty of times and I can say with zero doubt that it is far better to be fit. Everything you do when you're fat has this unpleasantness almost as a tax. It's unpleasant to lay down, it's unpleasant to sit up, it's unusually difficult to just move in the world, not because of society but because your body is not supposed to be this way, your heart and lungs are no supposed to support twice as much mass as they did in the ancestral environment. I'm fit at the moment and it is difficult to overstate just how much better life is when you're fit. You move through the world with an ease, you sleep better, wake up more easily, it's a genuine pleasure just to move about in the world.

And then the more medical health risks as you've mentioned. Sure, of course, lets get medicine to alleviate what we can of them. I'd celebrate a side effect free pill that would solve these issues. I've seen enough loved ones die decades too early because of these "risks" and I'd cherish those extra decades. But we don't have that medicine. And activism is not going to bring us that medicine. Fat acceptance is not going to bring us that medicine.

would you say glasses solve the root problem of poor eyesight? Of course, nobody is disgusted by poor eyesight

My eyesight is starting to go a bit, I'll be thirty soon and this is around when other people in my family moved to needing glasses. A solution? No. And I'd eat more carrots if that would fix the issue even though I despise that particular vegetable. But we don't have the equivalent solution for eye sight that we do for being fat.

You might argue that you consistently are taking the path of least resistance

I would not phrase it like this no, I'm trying to take the best paths taking resistance into account. I'm aiming for optimal and will take the carrot or kale path if they are worth the expense.

The question then, is what is the fat-acceptance movement doing differently?

They are taking the greased path into a pit of despair and human suffering.

they would approve of societal interventions to increase fatness, because interventions to decrease it are problematic. Whether or not they can do this openly is a political question of optics. This also explains LGBTQ groomers.

I will oppose them so long as there remains breath in my lungs.

You'd welcome medicine to fix those health problems but will it fix the unpleasantness that you spent a paragraph detailing? I think more medicine is good but I'd still prefer a world where everyone is thin. It's less disgusting in my opinion.

My point is that a philosopher of perfect emptiness couldn't choose between these two:

  • making fat people no longer exist

  • making it healthy to be fat

It takes an additional axiom like:

  • most efficient solution

  • fatness is disgusting

  • fatness is beautiful and diverse

In order to really care for one over the other.

I'm normally quite good at decoupling but the whole point is that we don't have this choice. It's not just a matter of efficiency, it's make fat people no longer exist or just be worse off for every marginal increase in obesity. We, at the moment, cannot mitigate the totally natural impacts of obesity. My disgust is totally irrelevant to diabetes and heart disease. The choice in the world that exists is not difficult.

Honestly, it's the opposite. It is a disgust reaction in a sense - because there isn't any specific form to 'disgust', it's a broad term, and because disgust reactions are often correct and useful. Okay, so i'm disgusted at the mold in my floorboards, viscerally unpleasant stringy foam - but it's disgusting because the mycotoxins will make my life worse. So in a sense, you are 'disgusted', or maybe not, but it doesn't matter either way, because - the issue is the root problem.

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