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People are mostly sympathetic when it's physical issues. Psychological issues are treated as diseases of the soul that you only need God or willpower or whateve

People are mostly sympathetic when it's physical issues. Psychological issues are treated as diseases of the soul that you only need God or willpower or whatever to fix. And most fat people are fat because of the incentives in our society, but admitting that also goes against certain political ideologies...

jfim 1y ago
What are the incentives for people to be fat, out of curiosity? Do you mean farm subsidies for corn, for example?
- const_cast 1y ago
  At a low level, yes, corn, but at a high level: more consumption = more money. Everyone benefits from you being fat. Your doctors, your car manufacturer, food manufacturers, everyone. Except maybe health insurance. But they're not hurt too too much.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - XorNot 1y ago
    There is no doctor on Earth who goes to work and thinks "thank god for fat people or I wouldn't have a business". There's plenty of doctors and surgeons who wish there were less fat people, because they enormously complicate doing surgery on and managing in hospitals.
    - const_cast 1y ago
      > There is no doctor on Earth who goes to work and thinks "thank god for fat people or I wouldn't have a business". I agree, but this isn't how incentives work. Ultimately, there are billions of dollars at play here that rely directly on obesity. The mechanisms of the market and human behavior transcend moral judgement.
    - koolba 1y ago
      > There is no doctor on Earth who goes to work and thinks "thank god for fat people or I wouldn't have a business". What about everybody that works in liposuction?
      - KPGv2 1y ago
        You mean the job that makes an irreversible removal of fat from your body? Repeat liposuction is considered unsafe, so you will find very, very few people who want to predate on someone via lipo. They want to "fix you," too.
- SchemaLoad 1y ago
  It's not that there are incentives for you to be fat, but there are incentives for things which happen to cause you to be fat. The car industry is a huge one. Making people drive everywhere means more car sales, more fuel sales, more infrastructure built for more cars. And it also makes you fat as a side effect.

jfim 1y ago

What are the incentives for people to be fat, out of curiosity? Do you mean farm subsidies for corn, for example?

const_cast 1y ago
At a low level, yes, corn, but at a high level: more consumption = more money. Everyone benefits from you being fat. Your doctors, your car manufacturer, food manufacturers, everyone. Except maybe health insurance. But they're not hurt too too much.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- XorNot 1y ago
  There is no doctor on Earth who goes to work and thinks "thank god for fat people or I wouldn't have a business". There's plenty of doctors and surgeons who wish there were less fat people, because they enormously complicate doing surgery on and managing in hospitals.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    > There is no doctor on Earth who goes to work and thinks "thank god for fat people or I wouldn't have a business". I agree, but this isn't how incentives work. Ultimately, there are billions of dollars at play here that rely directly on obesity. The mechanisms of the market and human behavior transcend moral judgement.
  - koolba 1y ago
    > There is no doctor on Earth who goes to work and thinks "thank god for fat people or I wouldn't have a business". What about everybody that works in liposuction?
    - KPGv2 1y ago
      You mean the job that makes an irreversible removal of fat from your body? Repeat liposuction is considered unsafe, so you will find very, very few people who want to predate on someone via lipo. They want to "fix you," too.
SchemaLoad 1y ago
It's not that there are incentives for you to be fat, but there are incentives for things which happen to cause you to be fat. The car industry is a huge one. Making people drive everywhere means more car sales, more fuel sales, more infrastructure built for more cars. And it also makes you fat as a side effect.