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To Fight Global Warming We Must Tax All Recreational Exercise

15 points by getp 18y ago

ardit33 18y ago
it is a very blog entry, from the creator of Freakonomics. There is no real study, no real data, and wikipedia is quoted. Not worth the read, insubstantial and borderline trollish. Disapointing comming from somebody like him.
- jcl 18y ago
  Of course, he's trolling in response to similar behavior from the authors of the Lancet article. The authors propose solving a health problem with economics, giving climate change as a motivation. Levitt is pointing out climate change is a poor motivation for what they are trying to accomplish, and, if you follow their reasoning to its logical conclusion, it will actually encourage worse health problems.
- mtts 18y ago
  Though it's somewhat longer than this, "A Modest Proposal", I assume, would meet with a similar response from you, no? For what it's worth, I thought it was reasonably funny.
- TrevorJ 18y ago
  I would argue that in the context of his blog it's not trollish. I think satire is a lost art, certainly the works of Swift could be seen as trollish in some context as well. Now, does it belong on the front page of hacker news? No, probably not, but that's a different issue.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
Antiglobalism 18y ago
Very good. How do we solve the overpopulation problem, which is the root cause to global warming?
mattmaroon 18y ago
"There are about 300 million Americans who consume about 1,500 calories per day." Fail. When surveyed, the average American claims to eat around 2,000 calories a day, and studies have shown that people greatly underestimate that. Also, over 3,800 food calories per person disappear daily. Even if you consider that much of it is waste, the average number of calories eaten per day is well above 2,500. Guess who just read "In Defense of Food"?
- gojomo 18y ago
  We'd better tax leftovers, too.
  - eru 18y ago
    Not if they are left in the fridge. An air-tight fridge to be sure.
xirium 18y ago
I believe that the Good Lord gave us a finite number of heartbeats and I'm damned if I'm going to use up mine running up and down a street. -- Neil Armstrong
- edw519 18y ago
  Maybe he shoulda done the math. Using his logic, if exercising increases you pulse rate from 70 to 140 beats per minute for 30 minutes per day and decreases your pulse rate from 70 to 60 beats per minute the other 23 1/2 hours per day, how much longer would you live after 50 years of this?
  - xirium 18y ago
    Neil Armstrong could be right. He may be referring to Kleiber's law ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber%27s_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber%27s_law ) and the Metabolic theory of ecology ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_theory_of_ecology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_theory_of_ecology ). Apparently, "for most organisms, the average # of heartbeats in a lifetime is equivalent. Elephant ~ 30 beats/min. Shrew ~ 1,000 beats/min" ( http://members.cruzio.com/~zdino/psychology/ecology.htm http://members.cruzio.com/~zdino/psychology/ecology.htm ). "The size of these hearts differs enormously, but over the course of each species’ lifetime, they appear to beat the same number of times - approximately 1 billion" ( http://www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitionsandevents/pastexhibitionsandevents/heart/WTD027771.htm http://www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitionsandevents/paste... ).
    - Agathos 18y ago
      I think edw519's point flew past you. Here it comes again: A resting athlete's heart rate is lower than a resting couch potato's heart rate. What does that mean in the context of what you just posted?
      - xirium 18y ago
        Altheles may have a genetic predisposition to be more healthy. Regular exercise may reduce risk of clotting but it may not have much influence on the upper bound of your lifespan. A search for '"twin study" resting heart rate' found that a few genes significantly affect resting heart rate ( http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2350/7/17 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2350/7/17 ) and that environment significantly affects active heart rate ( http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/94/8/1864 http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/94/8/1864 ).
gojomo 18y ago
Also, for the next Earth Hour [1], we should consider the first minute to be 'Earth Minute', and all hold our breaths in the dark against global warming. [1] http://www.earthhour.org/ http://www.earthhour.org/

15 points by getp 18y ago

it is a very blog entry, from the creator of Freakonomics. There is no real study, no real data, and wikipedia is quoted. Not worth the read, insubstantial and borderline trollish. Disapointing comming from somebody like him.

jcl 18y ago
Of course, he's trolling in response to similar behavior from the authors of the Lancet article. The authors propose solving a health problem with economics, giving climate change as a motivation. Levitt is pointing out climate change is a poor motivation for what they are trying to accomplish, and, if you follow their reasoning to its logical conclusion, it will actually encourage worse health problems.
mtts 18y ago
Though it's somewhat longer than this, "A Modest Proposal", I assume, would meet with a similar response from you, no? For what it's worth, I thought it was reasonably funny.
TrevorJ 18y ago
I would argue that in the context of his blog it's not trollish. I think satire is a lost art, certainly the works of Swift could be seen as trollish in some context as well. Now, does it belong on the front page of hacker news? No, probably not, but that's a different issue.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

Antiglobalism 18y ago

Very good. How do we solve the overpopulation problem, which is the root cause to global warming?

mattmaroon 18y ago

"There are about 300 million Americans who consume about 1,500 calories per day." Fail. When surveyed, the average American claims to eat around 2,000 calories a day, and studies have shown that people greatly underestimate that. Also, over 3,800 food calories per person disappear daily. Even if you consider that much of it is waste, the average number of calories eaten per day is well above 2,500. Guess who just read "In Defense of Food"?

gojomo 18y ago
We'd better tax leftovers, too.
- eru 18y ago
  Not if they are left in the fridge. An air-tight fridge to be sure.

xirium 18y ago

I believe that the Good Lord gave us a finite number of heartbeats and I'm damned if I'm going to use up mine running up and down a street. -- Neil Armstrong

edw519 18y ago
Maybe he shoulda done the math. Using his logic, if exercising increases you pulse rate from 70 to 140 beats per minute for 30 minutes per day and decreases your pulse rate from 70 to 60 beats per minute the other 23 1/2 hours per day, how much longer would you live after 50 years of this?
- xirium 18y ago
  Neil Armstrong could be right. He may be referring to Kleiber's law ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber%27s_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber%27s_law ) and the Metabolic theory of ecology ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_theory_of_ecology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_theory_of_ecology ). Apparently, "for most organisms, the average # of heartbeats in a lifetime is equivalent. Elephant ~ 30 beats/min. Shrew ~ 1,000 beats/min" ( http://members.cruzio.com/~zdino/psychology/ecology.htm http://members.cruzio.com/~zdino/psychology/ecology.htm ). "The size of these hearts differs enormously, but over the course of each species’ lifetime, they appear to beat the same number of times - approximately 1 billion" ( http://www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitionsandevents/pastexhibitionsandevents/heart/WTD027771.htm http://www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitionsandevents/paste... ).
  - Agathos 18y ago
    I think edw519's point flew past you. Here it comes again: A resting athlete's heart rate is lower than a resting couch potato's heart rate. What does that mean in the context of what you just posted?
    - xirium 18y ago
      Altheles may have a genetic predisposition to be more healthy. Regular exercise may reduce risk of clotting but it may not have much influence on the upper bound of your lifespan. A search for '"twin study" resting heart rate' found that a few genes significantly affect resting heart rate ( http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2350/7/17 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2350/7/17 ) and that environment significantly affects active heart rate ( http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/94/8/1864 http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/94/8/1864 ).

gojomo 18y ago

Also, for the next Earth Hour [1], we should consider the first minute to be 'Earth Minute', and all hold our breaths in the dark against global warming. [1] http://www.earthhour.org/ http://www.earthhour.org/