4 ms·

It would evidently be bad for people to be blobs of fat, remember that in WALL-E they couldn't even stand up. That level of physical impairment is awful whethe

by nsajko 10y ago

It would evidently be bad for people to be blobs of fat, remember that in WALL-E they couldn't even stand up. That level of physical impairment is awful whether you're mortally ill or not.

drdaeman 10y ago
There is "The Futurological Congress" scenario for this ;)
blowski 10y ago
Why? If I value eating whatever I like above having a small waist, why would it be bad for me to be a blob of fat? The only reason I should lose weight is for health reasons, but if there's a magic pill that would remove that reason, then why should I care? I kind of agree with you, but I don't think it's immediately obvious.
- viraptor 10y ago
  For example design / civil engineering. Unless we can adjust literally everything to be supported by arbitrary-width any-direction conveyor belt system, we'll have issues with transport. Unless we can easily sell devices that are adaptable to any body shape/position (this goes from "screen for fat fingers" to "can't reach the panel on the wall"), we'll have issues with interfaces. And so on - this applies to thousands of ideas. We already see those 2 problems right now: Existing issues about how to handle people who don't fit in economy seat on a plane without disturbing the next person. Smartphone (and previously calculator) design doesn't work for people with bloby fingers. We barely started to make essential services available to disabled people who don't actually have a choice of moving on their own, or read, or... If we can't handle that special case, I don't think we can easily handle those self-inflicted issues as a norm.
  - philh 10y ago
    Broadly, your argument sounds like "people shouldn't become voluntarily disabled because society isn't very good at accommodating disabled people". I feel like we'd become better at accommodating disabled people if there were more of them. And that would be good for people who don't have a choice about their disability. As an example, "large screens for fat fingers" also sounds good for people with poor motor control.
    - viraptor 10y ago
      Sure, we'd adjust - we'd have to. But that can be said about every possible change. The level of oceans raises 5m - we'd also adjust. It doesn't mean it's something that makes sense to prepare for right now. It's not like we don't accommodate disabled people because we hate them. It's because it needs serious redesign everywhere. If every other person became voluntarily disabled today's cities would become unusable. It would likely have a social split between people moving out to suburbs and flat towns and active people who can use existing dense infrastructure. It would have high impact on taxation to support the change. It would have ripple effect on everything. Now, would this be a net positive change just because we also improved life for those naturally disabled?
- sxg 10y ago
  There is no "magic pill" for some of the issues associated with massive obesity. One issue you can get is obstructive sleep apnea where you're so fat your tongue blocks your throat at night, and you can't breathe. This eventually leads to pulmonary hypertension and heart failure. You can "fix" this with a CPAP machine, but it's not pleasant. Another issue is that you can be so fat that your chest muscles aren't strong enough to allow you to breathe. There's no real fix for this other than losing weight.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    Joint pain and reduced mobility are also issues with obesity.
    - blowski 10y ago
      Lets assume that all the physical health problems are solvable with a magic pill, even if this is 500 years in the future. Is there an intrinsic, rather than pragmatic, reason why mass obesity would be a bad thing? To use the given WALL-E example, what would be so bad about living in that world?
      - asab 10y ago
        WALL-E is set in a post-apocalyptic world where the last few survivors who escape to space become lazy and ignorant. When they return to Earth at the end of the movie, they finally realize how much they had lost, such as the ability to dance. For such a magic pill to exist would be wonderful and I'd love to have that option, but WALL-E as an example undermines your argument...
- antisthenes 10y ago
  Being a blob of fat is a great thing: you're contributing a ton to GDP, you're completely dependent on others for physical tasks, requiring more services, contributing to GDP even further and you'll die before retirement, thus saving society from having to pay you Social Security. It's not for me, personally, but I'd love if we had more blobs of fat! I'd maybe even start a fat blob washing company!
- tdkl 10y ago
  You probably like breathing too.

by nsajko 10y ago

It would evidently be bad for people to be blobs of fat, remember that in WALL-E they couldn't even stand up. That level of physical impairment is awful whether you're mortally ill or not.

drdaeman 10y ago

There is "The Futurological Congress" scenario for this ;)

blowski 10y ago

Why? If I value eating whatever I like above having a small waist, why would it be bad for me to be a blob of fat? The only reason I should lose weight is for health reasons, but if there's a magic pill that would remove that reason, then why should I care? I kind of agree with you, but I don't think it's immediately obvious.

viraptor 10y ago
For example design / civil engineering. Unless we can adjust literally everything to be supported by arbitrary-width any-direction conveyor belt system, we'll have issues with transport. Unless we can easily sell devices that are adaptable to any body shape/position (this goes from "screen for fat fingers" to "can't reach the panel on the wall"), we'll have issues with interfaces. And so on - this applies to thousands of ideas. We already see those 2 problems right now: Existing issues about how to handle people who don't fit in economy seat on a plane without disturbing the next person. Smartphone (and previously calculator) design doesn't work for people with bloby fingers. We barely started to make essential services available to disabled people who don't actually have a choice of moving on their own, or read, or... If we can't handle that special case, I don't think we can easily handle those self-inflicted issues as a norm.
- philh 10y ago
  Broadly, your argument sounds like "people shouldn't become voluntarily disabled because society isn't very good at accommodating disabled people". I feel like we'd become better at accommodating disabled people if there were more of them. And that would be good for people who don't have a choice about their disability. As an example, "large screens for fat fingers" also sounds good for people with poor motor control.
  - viraptor 10y ago
    Sure, we'd adjust - we'd have to. But that can be said about every possible change. The level of oceans raises 5m - we'd also adjust. It doesn't mean it's something that makes sense to prepare for right now. It's not like we don't accommodate disabled people because we hate them. It's because it needs serious redesign everywhere. If every other person became voluntarily disabled today's cities would become unusable. It would likely have a social split between people moving out to suburbs and flat towns and active people who can use existing dense infrastructure. It would have high impact on taxation to support the change. It would have ripple effect on everything. Now, would this be a net positive change just because we also improved life for those naturally disabled?
sxg 10y ago
There is no "magic pill" for some of the issues associated with massive obesity. One issue you can get is obstructive sleep apnea where you're so fat your tongue blocks your throat at night, and you can't breathe. This eventually leads to pulmonary hypertension and heart failure. You can "fix" this with a CPAP machine, but it's not pleasant. Another issue is that you can be so fat that your chest muscles aren't strong enough to allow you to breathe. There's no real fix for this other than losing weight.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  Joint pain and reduced mobility are also issues with obesity.
  - blowski 10y ago
    Lets assume that all the physical health problems are solvable with a magic pill, even if this is 500 years in the future. Is there an intrinsic, rather than pragmatic, reason why mass obesity would be a bad thing? To use the given WALL-E example, what would be so bad about living in that world?
    - asab 10y ago
      WALL-E is set in a post-apocalyptic world where the last few survivors who escape to space become lazy and ignorant. When they return to Earth at the end of the movie, they finally realize how much they had lost, such as the ability to dance. For such a magic pill to exist would be wonderful and I'd love to have that option, but WALL-E as an example undermines your argument...
antisthenes 10y ago
Being a blob of fat is a great thing: you're contributing a ton to GDP, you're completely dependent on others for physical tasks, requiring more services, contributing to GDP even further and you'll die before retirement, thus saving society from having to pay you Social Security. It's not for me, personally, but I'd love if we had more blobs of fat! I'd maybe even start a fat blob washing company!
tdkl 10y ago
You probably like breathing too.