3 ms·

Creating these foods is engineering, we shouldn't conflate it with science or medicine. Engineering can serve a lot of functions in society no doubt, but the pr

Creating these foods is engineering, we shouldn't conflate it with science or medicine. Engineering can serve a lot of functions in society no doubt, but the price signal baked into the engineering process often makes it so that long-term human welfare is averaged out to matter very little. Whew that was taxing to write in HNglish. My man, look at your second paragraph, even the high tech mitigation strategy you came up with is what can be done in short enough term to be part of a product development process, it won't change anything from the situation now. The problem is not acute toxicity that is measurable in the short term, we have that nailed down or else people would be dropping dead fulminated from new Oreo flavors, but rather very long-term effects, sensors to respond rapidly will do nothing when the problem is what your diet does to you over the course of years.

im3w1l 4y ago
Well there must be something happening in the short term, that then leads to long term harm. For instance, in smokers it takes a long time to kill you, but in the short term you can see that the lungs become unhealthy. Or with Oreo likewise, but you can see that the scale is showing an unhealthy weight. These are obvious things, but there may be many more subtle signs to look for.
- forgetfulness 4y ago
  But we only notice that these are the signs to look for once people got hurt from the long term effects. There's suspicions in recent years that seed oils cause cognitive decline and adverse metabolic effects, I don't think it's the consensus yet but the studies are out there. The culprit is being pinned down as the high concentrations of linoleic acid, but this is all in hindsight, after decades of having people consume these things, there's absolutely no way you'll be able to run a controlled experiment for something like this even with gizmos that measure everything that you, right now, think you should measure. Heck how are you going to know which of the technological marvels that people are consuming all the time is the one to blame?
  - im3w1l 4y ago
    Yeah the idea is to catch earlier then "after a few decades of having people consume these things". I'm not saying it's easy of course. But there must be a causal chain, a mechanism by which these acids lead to harm. And if we can find an earlier link in the chain maybe we can find the issue after just a few months of consumption. Or maybe even a week. If we can shorten the timeframes this much then attribution becomes much much easier.
- sph 4y ago
  The body is remarkably resilient, and constantly bombarded by toxins, viruses, and other issues. Our immune system is constantly fighting pre-cancerous cells because of background radiation, mutation, or other factors, until it can't any more. Good luck telling if you product causes long term health effects just by analysing short term biology. Too much statistical noise.

im3w1l 4y ago

Well there must be something happening in the short term, that then leads to long term harm. For instance, in smokers it takes a long time to kill you, but in the short term you can see that the lungs become unhealthy. Or with Oreo likewise, but you can see that the scale is showing an unhealthy weight. These are obvious things, but there may be many more subtle signs to look for.

forgetfulness 4y ago
But we only notice that these are the signs to look for once people got hurt from the long term effects. There's suspicions in recent years that seed oils cause cognitive decline and adverse metabolic effects, I don't think it's the consensus yet but the studies are out there. The culprit is being pinned down as the high concentrations of linoleic acid, but this is all in hindsight, after decades of having people consume these things, there's absolutely no way you'll be able to run a controlled experiment for something like this even with gizmos that measure everything that you, right now, think you should measure. Heck how are you going to know which of the technological marvels that people are consuming all the time is the one to blame?
- im3w1l 4y ago
  Yeah the idea is to catch earlier then "after a few decades of having people consume these things". I'm not saying it's easy of course. But there must be a causal chain, a mechanism by which these acids lead to harm. And if we can find an earlier link in the chain maybe we can find the issue after just a few months of consumption. Or maybe even a week. If we can shorten the timeframes this much then attribution becomes much much easier.
sph 4y ago
The body is remarkably resilient, and constantly bombarded by toxins, viruses, and other issues. Our immune system is constantly fighting pre-cancerous cells because of background radiation, mutation, or other factors, until it can't any more. Good luck telling if you product causes long term health effects just by analysing short term biology. Too much statistical noise.