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> If people can't be arsed doing that and we give easy shortcuts for everything in life, what's the point in being alive? Embrace the shortcuts. Life's too sho

by ben_w 1y ago

> If people can't be arsed doing that and we give easy shortcuts for everything in life, what's the point in being alive? Embrace the shortcuts. Life's too short not to. What's that Plato quote about writing? If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only the semblance of wisdom, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much while for the most part they know nothing. And yet, here were are, conversing at all only because of writing.

sjw987 1y ago
There's a time and place for shortcuts. Health and fitness shortcuts hold more to lose than they do to gain. Sometimes the long way is better long term. A healthy attitude towards eating and fitness can, and usually does, elevate your life experience many times over. Taking a shortcut in these erases any personal development and learning experience you could get from finding a sport you love, changing your views on food. A diatribe about Plato doesn't make the universal argument for taking shortcuts. Do you want the people building your home and infrastructure making shortcuts? Do you want doctors in training to shortcut their studies? Why work out and train longer when you can just take anabolic steroids? Why read (or watch films) if you can just skim the summaries on Wikipedia?
- ben_w 1y ago
  > Health and fitness shortcuts hold more to lose than they do to gain. The entire history of medicine and sports science disagrees with you about that. It's all about knowing what the direct path to the goal is and not meandering around the metaphorical scenic route to those goals. > Taking a shortcut in these erases any personal development and learning experience you could get from finding a sport you love Or enable sports that were otherwise unobtainable. > changing your views on food. More likely that these drugs would do that. UK celebrity chef Jamie Oliver tried to promote healthy eating in schools by showing school kids how chicken nuggets were made. The kids were disgusted… and yet still wanted to eat them, much to Jamie Oliver's surprise. > Do you want the people building your home and infrastructure making shortcuts? Given "shortcuts" in this case means "technology", here's what building a home without "shortcuts" looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eesj3pJF3lA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eesj3pJF3lA > Do you want doctors in training to shortcut their studies? And in this case, "shortcuts" means "reads Gray's Anatomy rather than figuring out anatomy solely from first principles by dissection of corpses".
  - sjw987 1y ago
    I get the impression you're just conflating "shortcut" with "progress", based off of the original Plato example. You clearly know what I was implying with many of the examples there and spun them into different directions. You don't want builders who take shortcuts building critical infrastructure to save time or hassle, nor do you want to be treated by a doctor who took shortcuts in their education and training. If you want to become a professional athlete or sports person, tried and testing training methods, nutrition etc. aren't shortcuts. You still need to do those things consistently for years and years (much like staying in shape in general). If somebody seriously wants to lose weight, they need to discipline themselves to eat better (and maybe supplement that with exercise). Just taking a shortcut weight loss jab without taking anything from it will just lead to the weight going back on (as in crash dieting), becoming an indefinite user of these drugs, or failing completely if the drugs ever become unavailable or develop long term side effects.
lm28469 1y ago
The truth is that we designed a system in which a majority of people cannot thrive and in which a lot of people end up developing problems like obesity or being labeled as ADHD. Now the same system designed a cure, one that you have to pay for and take for years if not for life, just so that you can rewire your perfectly normal brain to fit in the very imperfect mold of what the system needs Taking antidepressant won't fix your depressing environment Taking sleeping pills won't fix your sleep depriving routine Taking ozempic won't fix your stressful job that materialized into an compulsive eating The extreme vast majority of people have perfectly normal bodies/hormones/&c. but are evolving in unhealthy environments, you're merely fixing the last link of the chain, if you stop there, like a lot of people do when they're being advertised magic pills, you're setting up yourself for failure. The fact that all of these lifestyle disease increased 100 folds in the last 50 years should be a clear sign that the problem isn't the human body/brain, but whatever the fuck we're collectively agreeing to take part in. Also the fact that plato was wrong about one piece of progress 2000 years ago doesn't mean every new thing since then was a net positive for humanity. You could have used the same argument for decades about asbestos, leaded paint, leaded gas, freon, &c. and yet here we are...
- shlant 1y ago
  know what makes it easier to fix/change your environment? when you aren't obese and everything in life is so much harder. Guess what? you can both take ozempic AND fix the problems that caused the need to self-medicate with food (for example). In fact, I would be willing to bet that we see research coming out in the next couple years that shows people who lose weight with GLP-1's then go on to make better lifestyle choices because they confer many benefits that are much more obvious and attainable when you aren't obese and just fighting to get around in daily life. It's a two-way issue - having some problems result in you being obese, but being obese also creates problems, makes them worse, and harder to address. Mental health issues for example can both cause obesity and be caused by obesity - if you aren't obese anymore then your mental health improves and you can then go onto address other issues you might not have been able to otherwise. Lastly, you talk about "the system" as if that's not a two way relationship. People who have unhealthy habits they have trouble controlling create demand for services and products that are unhealthy - but if you have less people with unhealthy habits then that demand reduces and so do those unhealthy supplies.

by ben_w 1y ago

sjw987 1y ago

There's a time and place for shortcuts. Health and fitness shortcuts hold more to lose than they do to gain. Sometimes the long way is better long term. A healthy attitude towards eating and fitness can, and usually does, elevate your life experience many times over. Taking a shortcut in these erases any personal development and learning experience you could get from finding a sport you love, changing your views on food. A diatribe about Plato doesn't make the universal argument for taking shortcuts. Do you want the people building your home and infrastructure making shortcuts? Do you want doctors in training to shortcut their studies? Why work out and train longer when you can just take anabolic steroids? Why read (or watch films) if you can just skim the summaries on Wikipedia?

ben_w 1y ago
> Health and fitness shortcuts hold more to lose than they do to gain. The entire history of medicine and sports science disagrees with you about that. It's all about knowing what the direct path to the goal is and not meandering around the metaphorical scenic route to those goals. > Taking a shortcut in these erases any personal development and learning experience you could get from finding a sport you love Or enable sports that were otherwise unobtainable. > changing your views on food. More likely that these drugs would do that. UK celebrity chef Jamie Oliver tried to promote healthy eating in schools by showing school kids how chicken nuggets were made. The kids were disgusted… and yet still wanted to eat them, much to Jamie Oliver's surprise. > Do you want the people building your home and infrastructure making shortcuts? Given "shortcuts" in this case means "technology", here's what building a home without "shortcuts" looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eesj3pJF3lA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eesj3pJF3lA > Do you want doctors in training to shortcut their studies? And in this case, "shortcuts" means "reads Gray's Anatomy rather than figuring out anatomy solely from first principles by dissection of corpses".
- sjw987 1y ago
  I get the impression you're just conflating "shortcut" with "progress", based off of the original Plato example. You clearly know what I was implying with many of the examples there and spun them into different directions. You don't want builders who take shortcuts building critical infrastructure to save time or hassle, nor do you want to be treated by a doctor who took shortcuts in their education and training. If you want to become a professional athlete or sports person, tried and testing training methods, nutrition etc. aren't shortcuts. You still need to do those things consistently for years and years (much like staying in shape in general). If somebody seriously wants to lose weight, they need to discipline themselves to eat better (and maybe supplement that with exercise). Just taking a shortcut weight loss jab without taking anything from it will just lead to the weight going back on (as in crash dieting), becoming an indefinite user of these drugs, or failing completely if the drugs ever become unavailable or develop long term side effects.

lm28469 1y ago

The truth is that we designed a system in which a majority of people cannot thrive and in which a lot of people end up developing problems like obesity or being labeled as ADHD. Now the same system designed a cure, one that you have to pay for and take for years if not for life, just so that you can rewire your perfectly normal brain to fit in the very imperfect mold of what the system needs Taking antidepressant won't fix your depressing environment Taking sleeping pills won't fix your sleep depriving routine Taking ozempic won't fix your stressful job that materialized into an compulsive eating The extreme vast majority of people have perfectly normal bodies/hormones/&c. but are evolving in unhealthy environments, you're merely fixing the last link of the chain, if you stop there, like a lot of people do when they're being advertised magic pills, you're setting up yourself for failure. The fact that all of these lifestyle disease increased 100 folds in the last 50 years should be a clear sign that the problem isn't the human body/brain, but whatever the fuck we're collectively agreeing to take part in. Also the fact that plato was wrong about one piece of progress 2000 years ago doesn't mean every new thing since then was a net positive for humanity. You could have used the same argument for decades about asbestos, leaded paint, leaded gas, freon, &c. and yet here we are...

shlant 1y ago
know what makes it easier to fix/change your environment? when you aren't obese and everything in life is so much harder. Guess what? you can both take ozempic AND fix the problems that caused the need to self-medicate with food (for example). In fact, I would be willing to bet that we see research coming out in the next couple years that shows people who lose weight with GLP-1's then go on to make better lifestyle choices because they confer many benefits that are much more obvious and attainable when you aren't obese and just fighting to get around in daily life. It's a two-way issue - having some problems result in you being obese, but being obese also creates problems, makes them worse, and harder to address. Mental health issues for example can both cause obesity and be caused by obesity - if you aren't obese anymore then your mental health improves and you can then go onto address other issues you might not have been able to otherwise. Lastly, you talk about "the system" as if that's not a two way relationship. People who have unhealthy habits they have trouble controlling create demand for services and products that are unhealthy - but if you have less people with unhealthy habits then that demand reduces and so do those unhealthy supplies.