3 ms·

> This does not lead to a healthier population at all. Based on what data? It sure looks like it results in a healthier population. Your alternative seems to

> This does not lead to a healthier population at all. Based on what data? It sure looks like it results in a healthier population. Your alternative seems to be essentially what we've been trying for decades: hoping, berating people and waiting for human behavior to stop being human.

llamaimperative 2y ago
For one thing because food manufacturers aren’t going to just sit around and watch their revenues get cut by 20-30%. Unless someone can explain why we’re already at the absolute lowest possible “units of satiation per unit of food,” I.e. our food cannot be made worse, then we should notice that we’ve just produced a massive/existential incentive to indeed make our food worse.
- kadoban 2y ago
  If food manufacturers could sell less for more, they'd already be doing it. Why would they wait?
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    This is not how R&D works in practice. They don’t need to show 80% growth YoY. They need to show, say 8-12%. Easy enough, until an exogenous force defaults that to -20%. Suddenly your incentive to develop new methods and technologies has gone up dramatically. No company is operating at full-tilt life or death 100% of the time simply because that’s not how economics works. E.g. when an oil reservoir “runs dry,” it’s not that it is literally dry, but that the remaining oil isn’t economically worthwhile to extract. They don’t call that “losses” or “dry,” they call that “deferrals” because they’ll come back to it when it’s economically sensical to do so.
    - kadoban 2y ago
      Oil is a bad metaphor. Those "dry" wells are only worth it once the price of oil goes up, that's what they're waiting for. Food doesn't seem to have anything similar. If you could make more profitable food _right now_, there's nothing stopping you, no reason to wait.
      - llamaimperative 2y ago
        R&D doesn’t happen by just theorizing what the maximum the market could sustain and then conjuring up those innovations out of thin air. It happens via sustained investment decisions over years. Those decisions are made in light of their costs and incentives, which change over time. Either food can be “improved” under certain economic conditions (which are probably amplified by GLP-1s), or we’re at the theoretical maximum. So you can give an argument why GLP-1s don’t produce strong incentive for R&D or you can argue that a stronger incentive won’t matter because we’re capped out, but historically the “if it could be better it would be better already” argument is disproved by capitalism on a daily basis.
robomartin 2y ago
>> using drugs to control weight is the wrong approach. This does not lead to a healthier population at all. > Based on what data? It sure looks like it results in a healthier population. You are kidding, right? Please. Pretty please. With sugar on top. Go watch the two videos I posted and then come back and see just how ridiculous your answer is. If you think taking a pill and losing weight is equivalent to getting healthy, well, all I can suggest is: Please stop and go learn something, because you truly do not understand what you are talking about.
- kadoban 2y ago
  Obesity is awful for you. This reduces obesity, substantially. It has serious risks and side effects, but certainly appears to be nowhere _near_ as bad as its benefits.
  - robomartin 2y ago
    > appears to be nowhere _near_ as bad as its benefits There is no long term data to be able to make that kind of an assertion. The data so far point to the risks as well as the need to effectively be on it for life: From [0]: <start quote> The Potential Impact of Ozempic on the Body There are some negative implications of Ozempic, particularly its correlation with various health factors, including, thyroid cancer, pancreatitis, and pancreatic cancer, hypoglycemia risks, acute kidney injury occurrences, gallbladder events, gastrointestinal disturbances, and cardiovascular effects. <end quote> What is clear is that embarking on a treatment that has such consequences, including the need to take this drug for life because: <start quote> "What hasn't been even described or reported in the peer-reviewed medical literature is what does maintenance on these medications look like,"..."if you get to your goal weight, and you completely stop these medications, the vast majority, not all, but the vast majority of people will regain the weight that's lost." <end quote> Which is precisely what I have been saying: The root causes are not addressed by a drug at all. It's a quick imaginary solution that is likely to come back in ten to twenty years and overload the medical system with unimaginable problems. This is NOT how you build a healthy society, at all. [0] https://vial.com/blog/articles/what-clinical-research-says-about-the-long-term-safety-of-ozempic/ https://vial.com/blog/articles/what-clinical-research-says-a...

llamaimperative 2y ago

For one thing because food manufacturers aren’t going to just sit around and watch their revenues get cut by 20-30%. Unless someone can explain why we’re already at the absolute lowest possible “units of satiation per unit of food,” I.e. our food cannot be made worse, then we should notice that we’ve just produced a massive/existential incentive to indeed make our food worse.

kadoban 2y ago
If food manufacturers could sell less for more, they'd already be doing it. Why would they wait?
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  This is not how R&D works in practice. They don’t need to show 80% growth YoY. They need to show, say 8-12%. Easy enough, until an exogenous force defaults that to -20%. Suddenly your incentive to develop new methods and technologies has gone up dramatically. No company is operating at full-tilt life or death 100% of the time simply because that’s not how economics works. E.g. when an oil reservoir “runs dry,” it’s not that it is literally dry, but that the remaining oil isn’t economically worthwhile to extract. They don’t call that “losses” or “dry,” they call that “deferrals” because they’ll come back to it when it’s economically sensical to do so.
  - kadoban 2y ago
    Oil is a bad metaphor. Those "dry" wells are only worth it once the price of oil goes up, that's what they're waiting for. Food doesn't seem to have anything similar. If you could make more profitable food _right now_, there's nothing stopping you, no reason to wait.
    - llamaimperative 2y ago
      R&D doesn’t happen by just theorizing what the maximum the market could sustain and then conjuring up those innovations out of thin air. It happens via sustained investment decisions over years. Those decisions are made in light of their costs and incentives, which change over time. Either food can be “improved” under certain economic conditions (which are probably amplified by GLP-1s), or we’re at the theoretical maximum. So you can give an argument why GLP-1s don’t produce strong incentive for R&D or you can argue that a stronger incentive won’t matter because we’re capped out, but historically the “if it could be better it would be better already” argument is disproved by capitalism on a daily basis.

robomartin 2y ago

>> using drugs to control weight is the wrong approach. This does not lead to a healthier population at all. > Based on what data? It sure looks like it results in a healthier population. You are kidding, right? Please. Pretty please. With sugar on top. Go watch the two videos I posted and then come back and see just how ridiculous your answer is. If you think taking a pill and losing weight is equivalent to getting healthy, well, all I can suggest is: Please stop and go learn something, because you truly do not understand what you are talking about.

kadoban 2y ago
Obesity is awful for you. This reduces obesity, substantially. It has serious risks and side effects, but certainly appears to be nowhere _near_ as bad as its benefits.
- robomartin 2y ago
  > appears to be nowhere _near_ as bad as its benefits There is no long term data to be able to make that kind of an assertion. The data so far point to the risks as well as the need to effectively be on it for life: From [0]: <start quote> The Potential Impact of Ozempic on the Body There are some negative implications of Ozempic, particularly its correlation with various health factors, including, thyroid cancer, pancreatitis, and pancreatic cancer, hypoglycemia risks, acute kidney injury occurrences, gallbladder events, gastrointestinal disturbances, and cardiovascular effects. <end quote> What is clear is that embarking on a treatment that has such consequences, including the need to take this drug for life because: <start quote> "What hasn't been even described or reported in the peer-reviewed medical literature is what does maintenance on these medications look like,"..."if you get to your goal weight, and you completely stop these medications, the vast majority, not all, but the vast majority of people will regain the weight that's lost." <end quote> Which is precisely what I have been saying: The root causes are not addressed by a drug at all. It's a quick imaginary solution that is likely to come back in ten to twenty years and overload the medical system with unimaginable problems. This is NOT how you build a healthy society, at all. [0] https://vial.com/blog/articles/what-clinical-research-says-about-the-long-term-safety-of-ozempic/ https://vial.com/blog/articles/what-clinical-research-says-a...