Body Weight: Optimization, Denial, Acceptance

            Optimization in food production. Optimization in regulation of hunger and energy utilization. We have done the first and evolution the second. Humans haven’t always had easy access to food. It is hard to get fat off of scavenged fruit, and deer tend to run away when you try to eat them. So we store. We store food, yes, but that was not always an option. So we stored energy. We ate what we could, then stored the energy until we could manage to trap another rabbit. That is in the past. This is the future, and the future has shelves. Seemingly endless shelves stocked with food. Cases of produce that don’t even grow in this climate. We have truly optimized food production and storage. The proof? Twenty billion dollars, by some estimates, spent in the United States for the sole purpose of eating less food. That is a market that I am sure did not exist two millennia ago.

            Well here it is, the secret to dieting for all who have been dying to know. All diets work, but dieting doesn’t work, the only way to reduce fat through metabolization is to consume fewer Calories worth of food than the number of Calories of energy you exert.

Please also notice how carefully that previous sentence was constructed. Calories are not something that you consume. A Calorie is a unit of measure of energy. It is also capitalized on purpose. A Calorie, as we know it, is synonymous with a kilocalorie or 1000 calories. The true number of calories in your food is simply a property of the food, denoting the amount of energy that can be produced in the form of heat when the food is literally burned.

Why don’t diets work? because a diet is temporary. Your diet needs to change in order to effect a change in your body. Any diet that reduces caloric intake can be effective, but it must be maintained.

            What about those magic diet pills? They don’t work, plain and simple. Pills can’t increase your metabolism, not safely anyway. Your metabolism is strictly regulated in response to your activity levels, amount of stress, the external temperature, and other such factors. Any significant increase would come with significant side effects. The medications that are actually proven to help with weight loss work on the hunger signals in the body to reduce cravings. They are also prescription medications and are not available online or through phone order.

            What if I don’t want to lose weight. Our society has done well to promote inclusivism. You should not discriminate or shame people based on innate properties of their person. Here’s the thing though. Body weight is not innate. A refusal to strive for a healthy weight is, of course, one’s own choice, as is the choice to smoke cigarettes. It will also certainly lead to health complications and an overall decrease in life satisfaction just like smoking cigarettes.

            There is a dangerous tendency for persons with unhealthy habits, such as maintaining an excessive weight, to be in denial about the extent of their problem and the inevitable effects it will have in the future. Even worse, however, is the tendency I have seen, for such people to accept their problem. To say I am obese and I am okay with that. I am never going to change. These are the people who have given up on themselves. Let me be clear that I do not think people should be shamed for their problems. We don’t know their story, and the heroin addict is certainly not going to stop using because he gets called a junkie. Do not expect me to support his drug habit either. For as long as someone is engaging in an unhealthy behavior they should be encouraged to improve their lifestyle.

            -AMS

Eat Your Vegetables, They're Good for You

            The problem with genetically modified foods is… that there is yet to be determined any actual problem with genetically modified foods. A trend in the United States these days, is for people who have access to cheap produce to rebel against our privileged lives by choosing to spend excessive amounts of money on the same foods. I know what you’re saying, it’s their money, what do you care what they waste it on? I agree, except for one inadvertent problem. People don’t like to do research.

            With all of the criticism about our schools not teaching life skills, perhaps we need to put some more emphasis on learning on how to find facts from unbiased sources. There is currently no substantial data to suggest that genetically modified foods, foods treated with pesticides, or foods that contain gluten are harmful to the average person. Why, then, do so many people steer away from them in favor of much more expensive versions? They hear horror stories from enough sources to think that they are dangerous. They might not even remember the stories, they just become convinced that there is a consensus regardless of the source of the information. Similar situations exist for the issues of global warming and immunizations. There are people who seriously think that a significant portion of professionals in the field agree with their counter opinion. In reality, the reigning scientific consensus is that global warming is occurring and manmade, and medical professionals will overwhelmingly recommend immunizations to nearly everyone. So, what is wrong with labeling foods as genetically modified or having been exposed to pesticides? The problem is that it promotes the idea, to the uninformed, that these foods are somehow dangerous, despite there not actually being strong evidence to suggest that.

            Let me briefly explain what genetically modified organisms (GMO) actually are. Certain traits are seen as favorable in organisms. To maximize the yield of these traits in the offspring, one can selectively breed the organisms containing these traits. Over time, this practice can lead to significantly different organisms. Think dogs. Golden doodles are an adorable, hypoallergenic dog that were created by breeding two dogs that contained desirable traits. When talking about crops, the traits are things like resistance to pests and weather or a lack of seed production (seedless watermelons or grapes). In this day and age, however, we have the technology to bypass selective breeding, and we can do it all through gene altering in a single generation. Genetically modified crops have been around for years, we just got better at doing it. If you don’t believe me look up a picture of wild bananas or carrots from a few thousand years ago, they were all but inedible. There is nothing wrong with genetically modified produce, in fact without it, we likely wouldn’t have enough food to go around.

            Speaking of food shortages, let’s talk about organic produce. It might seem like the fruit without the poisonous spray on it is the obvious choice, but there is a reason organic fruits can cost five times as much as treated fruits. Our genetically modified fruit is delicious and insects know it. A significant portion of organic crops are lost to pests. In fact, if we had only organic crops, many of us would likely die of malnutrition from not being able to afford fruits and vegetables. Additionally, the “poison” we use, is specifically designed to target pests but not humans. Think of antibiotics. They target bacteria while ignoring human cells. Pesticides are tested for their safety. There could of course be dangers in certain products that we don’t yet know of, but the same can be said of anything and everything. We might eventually find a connection between dish soap and cancer. Plus, organic produce might contain insect born diseases or parasites that would have otherwise been prevented by pesticides. That is the job the Food and Drug Administration though, to pull products that are shown to be harmful. So for now, I feel confident saying that the benefits of readily available fruits and vegetables outweigh the potential risks of pesticides or genetic modifications.

            -AMS 

Murder Is Wrong, Unless They Started It

            If you haven’t heard the news, the wonderfully ignorant state of Ohio has recently decided to resume their use of lethal injections as a means of “correcting” certain criminal actions, such as murder. Am I the only one that sees the irony. The issue of capital punishment is one that, for some reason, is heatedly debated, despite clear and compelling evidence that it should be abolished. Now anyone that follows any of my writings could probably guess that I take exception with much of our correctional policies. For this particular issue, though, let’s just look at the blatant facts. The usual arguments for the use of capital punishment are, it helps deter crime, life sentences overuse tax money, and that the criminals deserve extreme responses to heinous crimes.

            If you noticed, throughout the introduction of this writing, I used the word correction instead of punishment. You may have also heard prisons referred to as correctional facilities. If this confuses you, I understand. Most Americans misinterpret our criminal justice system. Studies have already shown that most jurors do not even understand their roles properly. No big deal, they’re just the ones standing between you and a life sentence, or even a death sentence. In simple terms, the system is supposed to correct negative behaviors and promote criminals, upon their release, to function within the established structure of our society. Punishments are not supposed to be methods of vengeance for the affected parties. They are meant to be deterrents of future crimes.

            Deterrents come in two forms. There are general deterrents, meant to prevent crime of any kind through the looming threat of punishment, or there are individual specific deterrents, punishments set upon individuals for a particular crime with the aim of preventing reoccurrences. What do the data say about the correlation between long prison sentences and future criminal acts? They are positively correlated, meaning that persons are more likely to commit crimes after being released from a lengthy sentence. It makes sense, you spend years locked up with nothing but criminals and then get released into the outside world, likely with no opportunities or resources. What do you expect them to do? As for capital punishment, there is a pretty strong negative correlation between death sentences and reoccurrence. Criminal punishments in general, however, are not strong deterrents of crime. Evidence suggests that the severity of the punishment is less important than the certainty of punishment. Basically, punishment is not a deterrent if someone does not believe they will receive it. So, let’s just increase the certainty of punishment for anyone accused of a crime. Well, that would be great if there were not a disturbingly high percentage of false convictions within our justice symptom. Those sentenced to death are no exception. Just another reason capital punishment should be banned.

            Now let’s quickly address the issue of expenses, because it won’t take long. It is a fact, that within the current legal system, it cost more to execute a prisoner than to keep them locked up for life. And just in case you were wondering, the cost is largely associated with appeals, so reduction in cost would almost certainly lead to an increase in the, already much too high, rate of false convictions.

            One reason left. Even if it costs more, kill them anyway, they deserve it. I mean after all, they did kill someone in cold blood. You know, just like you want to do. Maybe it is just me, but I believe that murder is wrong, regardless of who is committing it or why. Self-defense is one thing, because it is done in the absence of non-lethal options. Lethal injection is a long time coming though. It is not a means of correction, and frankly, it is a concept that just seems to be slow to die despite no reasonable argument for its existence. As a final appeasement to anyone that still wants retribution for a severe crime, lethal injection is typically painless or causes only moderate pain, a life in prison, on the other hand, is a long slow death. So, while I personally believe life sentences could be avoided with more proactive responses to criminal behavior, let’s at least take one step in the right direction and abolish capital punishment.

            -AMS

The Illusion of Choice Part Five: The Superstitious Human Experiment

            Welcome back, to the fifth and final entry in my series of everything. At this point I think it is important that we take a look back at the reason I began this series in the first place. This is the illusion of choice. It is a look at whether or not free will truly exists, or are we just simply playing our parts in the script of life. For anyone that persisted through this entire series, it should seem reasonable that choice is just an illusion. Sure, you can change your mind about a decision, but ultimately you were always going to have changed your mind. Now let’s not be confused, we are not so much reading from a script, as no such script exists. Really, we are just matter, behaving in a predictable manner to an interaction, much the way an ice cube will melt when put in a warm environment.

            Remember the theory of everything, the idea that all physical interactions could be explained by a single equation. Remember, that human consciousness is purely a result of our experiences. There are, of course, predisposing factors, such as genetics, but these still are results of the events that culminated in our existence. Factor all of this together, and you will see that anything and everything we do, choose, believe, everything that exists, has existed, or ever will exist, they are all just a result of the events that preceded them. If you can account for all of the variables, and I do mean all variables, it is all predictable. In the end, everything was set in motion from the very beginning. The big bang. That single event set the stage for everything else. We can look back at events and think, if this, then this would have, but really what happened was always going to have happened. Everything in your life, and even before it, led to you quitting your job, or missing the bus, or discovering the cure for cancer.

            This is a difficult concept to grasp, and understandably so. We cannot see the variables at play, and most of them predate our existence. Take our melting ice cube analogy. Of course, we can predict that an ice cube in a warm room will melt. We know the relevant variables, the melting point of ice and the rough temperature of a warm room. But maybe the ice cube doesn’t melt. Maybe there were more variables at play that we didn’t know about. Perhaps the room was under incredibly high pressure preventing the phase change of the water. The end result was still predictable, had we all of the necessary values and equations, but without these, we can only make educated guesses based on what values we do have, or even what trends we have observed in the absence of any quantifiable information.

Let’s expand this to a person deciding whether or not to buy an ice cream cone. This is a much more complicated scenario with many variables. How much does the person like ice cream, how much does the ice cream cost and how much money does the person have, is the person on a diet, did they have a hard day, what is the temperature today, are they alone or with friends, are their friends buying ice cream or not? The list goes on and on. We could attempt to collect every conceivable variable on this person buying ice cream, and with that construct a consistent equation of whether or not this person would buy ice cream under any given situation. But such an esoteric equation would hardly prove useful. What if you owned an ice cream shop, though? You would certainly want to know which factors were strong determiners of a person’s decision to buy ice cream. Variables which do not play a significant role or which cannot be manipulated, such as genetic factors, are of no use to you, but everything else is fair game. Rest assured that any successful business is probably capitalizing on these as we speak. The perfect evidence that choice is merely an effect of influencing factors is how manipulable consumers are.

No one likes to think that they are being manipulated though. Our minds don’t typically work on cause and effect. Humans much prefer purpose based answers. For instance, an experiment done with children, posed questions such as why do have sharp rocks? Is it because the wind blowing on the rocks shaped them, or was it so that animals would have something to scratch their backs on? You can imagine the children mostly chose the purpose based answer. Adults exhibit the same behavior, if to a lesser extent. For instance, snowshoe hares live in snowy environments and have white fur. Why? Most people would say to camouflage themselves from predators. This would be a purpose based answer and would also be incorrect. Hares in snowy climates have white fur because they were able to avoid predation there, and thus flourished. As for why their fur is white, that is purely a genetic factor, likely a result of a genetic mutation.

This brings us to the last topic that we need to cover. That would of course be god. There have been numerous debates over the existence of such a being. These debates are largely fruitless, however, as a being of boundless abilities is immune to logical arguments. Any arguments against a god could be countered as simply, god is capable of anything, and his will is beyond our understanding. As such, the evidence against such a being usually boils down to a lack of evidence for such a being. This is, of course, a backwards way of thinking. Analogous to believing in ghosts because no one has proven that they are not real. As such, arguments against the existence of a god are the wrong approach. Rather one should consider the likeliness of a god being fabricated.

There is a long history of gods of various abilities. I consider this one of the most compelling arguments against such a being’s existence. The gods are not consistent across faiths. They are merely independently created ideas unique to a group, but common in the societal creation of myths. People love to come up with stories and it seems probable that your god, whoever it may be, is no different than anyone else’s. The idea of a god being real is a purpose based explanation for life and the universe, but the idea of humans creating gods is a trend that has shown time and time again. Even pigeons have been shown to be superstitious. Pigeons have been shown, when given food in response to an action, to repeat that action. In one of my all-time favorite psychological experiments, several pigeons were kept in cages that dispensed food at random. The pigeons of course did not know this and began to develop beliefs about what caused the food to come. They would think that whatever action they were doing at the time the food was delivered was the cause, and then repeat that action in the hopes of receiving more food. Humans exhibited the same behavior in response to good crops, medical breakthroughs, and anything else they couldn’t explain at the time.

In light of the question is there a god, I say no. I say, there does not need to be a god for what has happened to have happened, and that the persistence of belief in a god is simply human nature. I also believe that the spread of science will one day eliminate the widespread belief in a god. The fastest growing religious affiliation today, is the nonaffiliated. Religion gave people comfort in the absence of explanations. But we now know more than we could have ever imagined, and are learning at an increasing rate. The ability to pass down information more efficiently has allowed us to build our knowledge base ever faster, and it is only a matter of time before we start finding more and more of the variables that dictate our lives. Whatever may come to pass, though, remember that it was always going to be, because in the end, choice is just an illusion.

-AMS