5 ms·

yes, but it has also to be compared to the toll of not paying for these drugs

polski-g 2y ago
IIRC, moves like this actually increase health care costs. This and the anti smoking crusades. Because if people due suddenly at 45 it's much cheaper than paying for a bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy and assisted living at age 75.
- Clubber 2y ago
  Also the extra burden on social security where all people would die at 65/70 due to smoking now die at 85/90. I feel the anti-smoking crusade wasn't about health, it was about neurotic people using the government as a weapon to bludgeon people because they didn't like the smell of cigarette smoke. The government were happy to oblige because they liked all that settlement money and extra taxes. DeSantis in Florida recently said he didn't want to decriminalize pot because he didn't like the smell. Funny. We reap what we sow.
  - silverquiet 2y ago
    I suspect it's more to do with being the number one cause of preventible cancer by far.
    - Clubber 2y ago
      >I suspect it's more to do with being the number one cause of preventible cancer by far. Yes, I'm sure. How altruistic. If only all the vitriol wasn't there, that would be a lot more believable. Now we get to pay around ~$500K for memory care for each of the 400,000 people a year we saved from dying in their 60s.
      - Pet_Ant 2y ago
        Shouldn't we be happy that we have a society where people got to live longer lives? That at least they got to meet their grandchildren? Sure, maybe it raised our taxes, but it created a real palpable good in our world.
      - silverquiet 2y ago
        My aunt is in her 60's and currently dying of cancer most likely caused by a lifelong smoking habit. Her sons would rather she kept living.
        Clubber 2y ago
        I think the drop in smoking rates are good, I think the tactics used to get there were pretty bad. Think of all the side eyes and snide remarks she received throughout her life because of it. Smokers became the new national villain between communism and terrorism. Treated like complete pariahs, and still so. >Her sons would rather she kept living. Absolutely. Here's the historical smoking rates. The biggest drop came around 2010, 2011, right around when vapes really became a thing. All that public shaming was probably unnecessary. https://www.statista.com/statistics/261581/current-adult-smokers-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/261581/current-adult-smo...
        silverquiet 2y ago
        Who dictated "the tactics"? Welcome to humanity and the way it is. I've been obese and I've been in shape - guess what; people treat you differently and make different assumptions about you. If you're drunk or high all the time, people judge you (guilty of that in my past too). My cousins lovingly encouraged my aunt and uncle to quit smoking throughout their lives, but that didn't seem to have much effect either.
        Clubber 2y ago
        Ya smoking is addictive as hell to a lot of people, particularly if they got hooked young. They all know it's bad for them too. So what judgements do you cast on smokers?
        silverquiet 2y ago
        My best friend in the world literally told me this morning that he's trying to quit again (we've been friends long enough that I remember when he started smoking). He said he wishes he could "bitchslap" his younger self. The odds probably aren't good, but I'm going to encourage and help him in any way I can. He's young enough that he can probably still recover from most of the ill effects.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - Steven420 2y ago
      In Canada they add fire retardant chemicals to the cigarettes... So the whole it's about health argument kinda goes out the window. The truth is that some people hate smoking and so what it to be banned
      - silverquiet 2y ago
        My dad was a firefighter and worked in fire prevention as well as investigation back in the day. It was a rather common cause of death that someone would fall asleep smoking and ignite their mattress. Also tons of fires were caused by flicked butts (I have to say that treating the world as their ashtray is one aspect of smokers that I find rather angering). So I believe there was good reason for the fire retardants to be added. Also, I do appreciate the other comments/suggestions down the chain.
  - kiba 2y ago
    This is weird complaining about old people dying at 85/90 as opposed to 65/70. The solution to the social security burden is not to get rid of old people but to make them live longer and healthier lives, the more the better, preferably indefinitely youthful. Then you don't need social security.
  - acdha 2y ago
    > I feel the anti-smoking crusade wasn't about health, it was about neurotic people using the government as a weapon to bludgeon people because they didn't like the smell of cigarette smoke. This just says that you should learn the history before dismissing decades of work by medical and public health professionals. Smoking has significant negative impacts on everyone around the smoker, and when it was legal attempts at isolation were often comically ineffective. Banning it in public spaces or around children and others who can’t consent makes sense on those grounds alone. There’s also a significant time lapse between when people start and when they realize the mistake. Discouraging it significantly reduces the number of people wish they’d understood the negative impacts when they were young, or tried to kick the habit but were unable to do so.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
didushsbxjdbd 2y ago
There’s a 3rd option: what’s the cost of figuring out why we need these drugs in the first place? But that’d require investing in research that likely isn’t profitable. Best to just keep investing in both fattening ourselves up and making drugs to counteract that.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > just keep investing in both fattening ourselves up and making drugs to counteract that The drugs have already caused junk-food companies’ stocks to drop. I know two people who took them, lost weight by changing their eating habits, stopped and kept the weight off. These are cures. The whole it’s unprofitable to cure things hypothesis is bunk to start with, but it’s doubly stupid here.
mensetmanusman 2y ago
There is an argument to be made for natural selection letting this work itself out. Some people might not be suited for an environment of low-cost unlimited calories floating around them.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > an argument to be made for natural selection letting this work itself out This is like, after discovering vitamins exist, arguing that anyone who didn’t luckily eat a balanced diet has useless genes. > people might not be suited for an environment of low-cost unlimited calories floating around them Nobody is genetically suited for modern society. We’re barely suited for an agrarian one.
- acdha 2y ago
  Like other eugenics claims, this is both insulting and ignorant. Natural selection is a slow process for most organisms, especially for anything living as long as humans do, and it’s primarily driven by the likelihood of successful reproduction. Diseases caused by being overweight which mostly affect people by the time they could be grandparents seems unlikely to ever see a significant effect. What’s really bad about this is the assumption that there’s only one axis for measuring fitness when in reality there are many, and ignoring environmental factors as well. Callously saying “let the fat people die off” is implicitly saying that none of them will have a net positive impact on society, and it’s refusing to consider whether some or the blame lies in our culture: for example, we have redesigned life to minimize exercise, heavily subsidize the least healthy foods and lifestyles, and the poor people who are disproportionately affected by this also have the worst access to healthcare. There’s nothing natural about the resulting selection pressure.
- trehalose 2y ago
  Would you say that approach has been working as you desire over the past several decades?
  - mensetmanusman 2y ago
    I’m noting one argument among many for why the government shouldn’t spend an extra half million over a lifetime for this treatment, not that I desire anything one way or the other (beyond wishing people were more active). If one were to point to the far lower fertility rate associated with obesity, then the answer might be maybe.

IIRC, moves like this actually increase health care costs. This and the anti smoking crusades. Because if people due suddenly at 45 it's much cheaper than paying for a bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy and assisted living at age 75.

Clubber 2y ago
Also the extra burden on social security where all people would die at 65/70 due to smoking now die at 85/90. I feel the anti-smoking crusade wasn't about health, it was about neurotic people using the government as a weapon to bludgeon people because they didn't like the smell of cigarette smoke. The government were happy to oblige because they liked all that settlement money and extra taxes. DeSantis in Florida recently said he didn't want to decriminalize pot because he didn't like the smell. Funny. We reap what we sow.
- silverquiet 2y ago
  I suspect it's more to do with being the number one cause of preventible cancer by far.
  - Clubber 2y ago
    >I suspect it's more to do with being the number one cause of preventible cancer by far. Yes, I'm sure. How altruistic. If only all the vitriol wasn't there, that would be a lot more believable. Now we get to pay around ~$500K for memory care for each of the 400,000 people a year we saved from dying in their 60s.
    - Pet_Ant 2y ago
      Shouldn't we be happy that we have a society where people got to live longer lives? That at least they got to meet their grandchildren? Sure, maybe it raised our taxes, but it created a real palpable good in our world.
    - silverquiet 2y ago
      My aunt is in her 60's and currently dying of cancer most likely caused by a lifelong smoking habit. Her sons would rather she kept living.
      - Clubber 2y ago
        I think the drop in smoking rates are good, I think the tactics used to get there were pretty bad. Think of all the side eyes and snide remarks she received throughout her life because of it. Smokers became the new national villain between communism and terrorism. Treated like complete pariahs, and still so. >Her sons would rather she kept living. Absolutely. Here's the historical smoking rates. The biggest drop came around 2010, 2011, right around when vapes really became a thing. All that public shaming was probably unnecessary. https://www.statista.com/statistics/261581/current-adult-smokers-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/261581/current-adult-smo...
        silverquiet 2y ago
        Who dictated "the tactics"? Welcome to humanity and the way it is. I've been obese and I've been in shape - guess what; people treat you differently and make different assumptions about you. If you're drunk or high all the time, people judge you (guilty of that in my past too). My cousins lovingly encouraged my aunt and uncle to quit smoking throughout their lives, but that didn't seem to have much effect either.
        Clubber 2y ago
        Ya smoking is addictive as hell to a lot of people, particularly if they got hooked young. They all know it's bad for them too. So what judgements do you cast on smokers?
        silverquiet 2y ago
        My best friend in the world literally told me this morning that he's trying to quit again (we've been friends long enough that I remember when he started smoking). He said he wishes he could "bitchslap" his younger self. The odds probably aren't good, but I'm going to encourage and help him in any way I can. He's young enough that he can probably still recover from most of the ill effects.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - Steven420 2y ago
    In Canada they add fire retardant chemicals to the cigarettes... So the whole it's about health argument kinda goes out the window. The truth is that some people hate smoking and so what it to be banned
    - silverquiet 2y ago
      My dad was a firefighter and worked in fire prevention as well as investigation back in the day. It was a rather common cause of death that someone would fall asleep smoking and ignite their mattress. Also tons of fires were caused by flicked butts (I have to say that treating the world as their ashtray is one aspect of smokers that I find rather angering). So I believe there was good reason for the fire retardants to be added. Also, I do appreciate the other comments/suggestions down the chain.
- kiba 2y ago
  This is weird complaining about old people dying at 85/90 as opposed to 65/70. The solution to the social security burden is not to get rid of old people but to make them live longer and healthier lives, the more the better, preferably indefinitely youthful. Then you don't need social security.
- acdha 2y ago
  > I feel the anti-smoking crusade wasn't about health, it was about neurotic people using the government as a weapon to bludgeon people because they didn't like the smell of cigarette smoke. This just says that you should learn the history before dismissing decades of work by medical and public health professionals. Smoking has significant negative impacts on everyone around the smoker, and when it was legal attempts at isolation were often comically ineffective. Banning it in public spaces or around children and others who can’t consent makes sense on those grounds alone. There’s also a significant time lapse between when people start and when they realize the mistake. Discouraging it significantly reduces the number of people wish they’d understood the negative impacts when they were young, or tried to kick the habit but were unable to do so.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

didushsbxjdbd 2y ago

There’s a 3rd option: what’s the cost of figuring out why we need these drugs in the first place? But that’d require investing in research that likely isn’t profitable. Best to just keep investing in both fattening ourselves up and making drugs to counteract that.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> just keep investing in both fattening ourselves up and making drugs to counteract that The drugs have already caused junk-food companies’ stocks to drop. I know two people who took them, lost weight by changing their eating habits, stopped and kept the weight off. These are cures. The whole it’s unprofitable to cure things hypothesis is bunk to start with, but it’s doubly stupid here.

mensetmanusman 2y ago

There is an argument to be made for natural selection letting this work itself out. Some people might not be suited for an environment of low-cost unlimited calories floating around them.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> an argument to be made for natural selection letting this work itself out This is like, after discovering vitamins exist, arguing that anyone who didn’t luckily eat a balanced diet has useless genes. > people might not be suited for an environment of low-cost unlimited calories floating around them Nobody is genetically suited for modern society. We’re barely suited for an agrarian one.
acdha 2y ago
Like other eugenics claims, this is both insulting and ignorant. Natural selection is a slow process for most organisms, especially for anything living as long as humans do, and it’s primarily driven by the likelihood of successful reproduction. Diseases caused by being overweight which mostly affect people by the time they could be grandparents seems unlikely to ever see a significant effect. What’s really bad about this is the assumption that there’s only one axis for measuring fitness when in reality there are many, and ignoring environmental factors as well. Callously saying “let the fat people die off” is implicitly saying that none of them will have a net positive impact on society, and it’s refusing to consider whether some or the blame lies in our culture: for example, we have redesigned life to minimize exercise, heavily subsidize the least healthy foods and lifestyles, and the poor people who are disproportionately affected by this also have the worst access to healthcare. There’s nothing natural about the resulting selection pressure.
trehalose 2y ago
Would you say that approach has been working as you desire over the past several decades?
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  I’m noting one argument among many for why the government shouldn’t spend an extra half million over a lifetime for this treatment, not that I desire anything one way or the other (beyond wishing people were more active). If one were to point to the far lower fertility rate associated with obesity, then the answer might be maybe.