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I've run into resistance to what I pointed out, pretty much every time I've ever pointed it out anywhere online. For some reason people like to believe a myth t

I've run into resistance to what I pointed out, pretty much every time I've ever pointed it out anywhere online. For some reason people like to believe a myth that the US always had a big problem with obesity. Factually that's simply not true at all, it's a relatively recent problem.

quotemstr 8y ago
As a meta point, I've found people over the past few years less willing to even entertain facts that contradict their worldview. I blame the culture war, which has broken, in a serious way, the ability for lots of people to think critically and evaluate arguments on their own. People instead interpret posts that don't confirm their conclusions as attacks on their person, and then downvote, block, and counterattack as needed.
- hef19898 8y ago
  Point in case the down votes on your post and the OP above as of now. Let's hope that changes again.
narrator 8y ago
There is no official explanation for the obesity crisis except people are lazy and eat poorly. The only alternative to this is that officials are ignoring other explanations. This, in most people's minds, is conspiracy theory to even suggest and that's what makes people uncomfortable. Most people don't know how to answer questions outside their limited domain expertise without relying on authority figures. Telling them their authority figures are unreliable on such an important topic seriously complicates their lives.
- FiveSquared 8y ago
  Really, conspiracy theory are nuts 99 percent of the time. Also, the officials are elected by the people which differs government from the Martia. Besides, even in tribes we have authorities. And without authority, Somalia happened.
lsc 8y ago
I think that it is fairly well acknowledged that obesity, both in the US and globally, has gotten a lot worse fairly recently. There's a lot of different theories, and a lot of controversy as to why but the idea that wide scale obesity is a fairly recent problem is not controversial. I'd guess that the reason why the top comment here was downvoted, if it was downvoted, is that many people feel it's an obvious problem; calories in and calories out and the falling costs of calories in and the increasing cost of calories out explains the whole thing for me. You take an organism that has lived essentially on the edge of starvation for hundreds of thousands of years, and you put it in an environment where calories in are almost free and where for most of them, calories out are not? and yeah, those organisms are going to overeat. (Just my opinion, but it's a common one) (the complaints about downvotes were downvoted because they are complaints about downvotes; those are obligatory downvotes.)

quotemstr 8y ago

As a meta point, I've found people over the past few years less willing to even entertain facts that contradict their worldview. I blame the culture war, which has broken, in a serious way, the ability for lots of people to think critically and evaluate arguments on their own. People instead interpret posts that don't confirm their conclusions as attacks on their person, and then downvote, block, and counterattack as needed.

hef19898 8y ago
Point in case the down votes on your post and the OP above as of now. Let's hope that changes again.

narrator 8y ago

There is no official explanation for the obesity crisis except people are lazy and eat poorly. The only alternative to this is that officials are ignoring other explanations. This, in most people's minds, is conspiracy theory to even suggest and that's what makes people uncomfortable. Most people don't know how to answer questions outside their limited domain expertise without relying on authority figures. Telling them their authority figures are unreliable on such an important topic seriously complicates their lives.

FiveSquared 8y ago
Really, conspiracy theory are nuts 99 percent of the time. Also, the officials are elected by the people which differs government from the Martia. Besides, even in tribes we have authorities. And without authority, Somalia happened.

lsc 8y ago

I think that it is fairly well acknowledged that obesity, both in the US and globally, has gotten a lot worse fairly recently. There's a lot of different theories, and a lot of controversy as to why but the idea that wide scale obesity is a fairly recent problem is not controversial. I'd guess that the reason why the top comment here was downvoted, if it was downvoted, is that many people feel it's an obvious problem; calories in and calories out and the falling costs of calories in and the increasing cost of calories out explains the whole thing for me. You take an organism that has lived essentially on the edge of starvation for hundreds of thousands of years, and you put it in an environment where calories in are almost free and where for most of them, calories out are not? and yeah, those organisms are going to overeat. (Just my opinion, but it's a common one) (the complaints about downvotes were downvoted because they are complaints about downvotes; those are obligatory downvotes.)