I think both that the vaccines are safe and effective based on the evidence, and also that if the evidence did not strongly say they were safe and effective, we wouldn’t be contemplating such policies.
Does “we” refer to the same institutions that got nutrition entirely wrong for decades at a time, both at the micro level (individual foods) and macro level (food groups), whose entirely-wrong takes were taught in schools nationwide? I’m feeling way too much Gel-Mann skepticism here to say “yeah thankfully the powers-that-be will always be correct on vaccines”.
The level of pushback we have now is when, scientifically, the case is overwhelming, and if the vaccines were instead not safe but still much safer than not getting vaccinated, we’d not only not make them mandatory, they’d be forbidden.
Pushback is not correlated with scientific viability, but with political messaging. We’ve passed ineffective/dangerous policies with very little pushback (Patriot Act/NSA), and we’ve received plenty of pushback on effective policies (blocking travel from China). We cannot rely on pushback to bail us out of stupid object-level decisions. I hate to sound like such a libertarian ideologue, but I’m really not seeing a safer long-term policy than “stop giving govt’s (potentially stupid) decisions so much power”.
Also, if one is forced to get a medical procedure that one doesn’t want, purely because they didn’t have the amount of money that’s required for bodily autonomy in their society, then yeah, I would call that “degrading” and a bunch of other stuff. A company is right to mandate what it wants for its employees, but it is not “hyperbolic language” to call some of that treatment degrading.
Am I the only one here who can easily relate to that twitter guy’s sentiment? Do rationalists not value the whole “dignity of autonomy” thing as an end in itself?
I had not noticed my own Gel-Mann amnesia when reading that bit, and therefore find your response quite convincing. I had thought that Ziv’s answer to (D) made sense due to the FDA being over-cautious about approving things, but both the scope of the precedent and the kinds/directions of errors had not registered with me.
Absolutely, the whole blame-avoidance game would tend to make them over-cautious, but other hazards like regulatory capture (which I’m pretty sure is what happened with nutrition) threaten to make them recklessly wrong (as long as they can still find a way to avoid blame).
Does “we” refer to the same institutions that got nutrition entirely wrong for decades at a time, both at the micro level (individual foods) and macro level (food groups), whose entirely-wrong takes were taught in schools nationwide?
Have you ever met anyone that ACTUALLY TO THE LETTER follows the food pyramid? Or is it more like “I ate less fat but more sugar and I’m not healthy?”
Vietnam is the thinnest nation in the world, have a look at the link if you want to see their dietary guidelines and tell me if they look familiar.
Your argument is that food guidelines don’t drive outcomes (in America), and also that a particular set of guidelines is correct, because obviously they’re driving outcomes (in Vietnam).? This argument is missing a bunch of pieces.
In any case, if you believe the food pyramid is great for Americans, I’m not interested in convincing you otherwise, so feel free to ignore my point.
My argument is that guidelines are treated as a scapegoat and that they’re largely unrelated to outcomes, in both America and Vietnam.
The real difference here, between America and Vietnam, is the prevalence and consumption of highly palatable foods.
In any case, if you believe the food pyramid is great for Americans.
Actually, yeah… I would say just about every American alive would be healthier if they strictly followed the macros and calorie intakes recommended by the USDA (there would be some exceptions for people with specific food allergies and the like), and I’ve never seen any evidence to the contrary.
Even if Americans understand them, most Americans don’t follow them because self-control is hard and it’s harder in an environment with abundances of cheap and highly palatable food, so virtually no Americans follow the USDA guidelines with any significant level of compliance. I would say Stephan Guyenet hypotheses about obesity are basically correct, and his critiques of fad diets are almost as good.
I would not underestimate the importance of US dietary guidelines.
For example, dietary guidelines are followed by schools, hospitals and military. They are also taught in medical schools and used by doctors to advise their patients. Additionally, lots of countries semi-blindly follow whatever guidelines US comes up with (see the parallel with covid treatments & measures?)
My gut feeling is that those guidelines directly contributed to a vast number of deaths / lost QALYs.
The effect could be different in Vietnam because of cultural differences, strictness of regulation or somethings else. Same as vaccine program compliance.
The central point is about adequacy of governmental decisions, not about compliance to them.
There are plenty of regulations about hospital food or child nutrition in the US that follow the dietary guidance. I have not looked into it but it would not surprise me if they regulate macro calorie intake for military (not that it matters for the central point of discussion).
There are plenty of regulations about hospital food or child nutrition in the US that follow the dietary guidance.
I don’t believe this. I could get Taco Bell and cookies and other junk food in my high school cafeteria out of proportion to the pyramid. No one was regulating calories or macros.
The effect could be different in Vietnam because of cultural differences, strictness of regulation or somethings else. Same as vaccine program compliance.
Maybe. But the point that USDA dietary guidelines causing are obesity is obviously wrong because the guidelines are the same in other parts of the world and they’re thin. At best you could say “contributing” in some vague way, but even that’s wrong.
Try strictly following the USDA diet guidelines, literally to the letter and calorie and macro and I will guarantee you that you will lose weight. I can also guarantee you that you will be in a group of maybe, 4 Americans that actually do this outside of metabolic wards.
The strictness of the regulations of pyramid in the US is basically zero, and the Vietnamese government doesn’t go around punishing people eating fat or sugar either.
I think you’re closer to the mark when you talk about cultural differences, but sill not quiet on it.
So what does cause this fattening effect? I think the book’s answer is “no single factor, but that doesn’t matter, because capitalism is an optimization process that designs foods to be as rewarding as possible, so however many different factors there are, every single one of them will be present in your bag of Doritos”.
I’m generally for free markets, but they are guaranteed to make populations fatter overtime.
Here’s what Zvi is missing on (D):
Does “we” refer to the same institutions that got nutrition entirely wrong for decades at a time, both at the micro level (individual foods) and macro level (food groups), whose entirely-wrong takes were taught in schools nationwide? I’m feeling way too much Gel-Mann skepticism here to say “yeah thankfully the powers-that-be will always be correct on vaccines”.
Pushback is not correlated with scientific viability, but with political messaging. We’ve passed ineffective/dangerous policies with very little pushback (Patriot Act/NSA), and we’ve received plenty of pushback on effective policies (blocking travel from China). We cannot rely on pushback to bail us out of stupid object-level decisions. I hate to sound like such a libertarian ideologue, but I’m really not seeing a safer long-term policy than “stop giving govt’s (potentially stupid) decisions so much power”.
Also, if one is forced to get a medical procedure that one doesn’t want, purely because they didn’t have the amount of money that’s required for bodily autonomy in their society, then yeah, I would call that “degrading” and a bunch of other stuff. A company is right to mandate what it wants for its employees, but it is not “hyperbolic language” to call some of that treatment degrading.
Am I the only one here who can easily relate to that twitter guy’s sentiment? Do rationalists not value the whole “dignity of autonomy” thing as an end in itself?
In Lithuania, a bill has been passed that denies the unvaccinated rights to:
non-essential stores
stores, whose area is over 1500 sqm
beauty salons
library
small repair services > 15 mins of time
any indoors cultural / sports / celebration events
outdoors events > 500 people
And their main slogan is “Turn your shoulder—become free!”
While these actions are supposed to be coercive, I feel they’re doing much the opposite. And it makes non-swayed judgement really hard.
I had not noticed my own Gel-Mann amnesia when reading that bit, and therefore find your response quite convincing. I had thought that Ziv’s answer to (D) made sense due to the FDA being over-cautious about approving things, but both the scope of the precedent and the kinds/directions of errors had not registered with me.
Absolutely, the whole blame-avoidance game would tend to make them over-cautious, but other hazards like regulatory capture (which I’m pretty sure is what happened with nutrition) threaten to make them recklessly wrong (as long as they can still find a way to avoid blame).
Have you ever met anyone that ACTUALLY TO THE LETTER follows the food pyramid? Or is it more like “I ate less fat but more sugar and I’m not healthy?”
Vietnam is the thinnest nation in the world, have a look at the link if you want to see their dietary guidelines and tell me if they look familiar.
http://www.fao.org/nutrition/education/food-dietary-guidelines/regions/countries/vietnam/en/
Your argument is that food guidelines don’t drive outcomes (in America), and also that a particular set of guidelines is correct, because obviously they’re driving outcomes (in Vietnam).? This argument is missing a bunch of pieces.
In any case, if you believe the food pyramid is great for Americans, I’m not interested in convincing you otherwise, so feel free to ignore my point.
My argument is that guidelines are treated as a scapegoat and that they’re largely unrelated to outcomes, in both America and Vietnam.
The real difference here, between America and Vietnam, is the prevalence and consumption of highly palatable foods.
Actually, yeah… I would say just about every American alive would be healthier if they strictly followed the macros and calorie intakes recommended by the USDA (there would be some exceptions for people with specific food allergies and the like), and I’ve never seen any evidence to the contrary.
Even if Americans understand them, most Americans don’t follow them because self-control is hard and it’s harder in an environment with abundances of cheap and highly palatable food, so virtually no Americans follow the USDA guidelines with any significant level of compliance. I would say Stephan Guyenet hypotheses about obesity are basically correct, and his critiques of fad diets are almost as good.
I would not underestimate the importance of US dietary guidelines.
For example, dietary guidelines are followed by schools, hospitals and military. They are also taught in medical schools and used by doctors to advise their patients. Additionally, lots of countries semi-blindly follow whatever guidelines US comes up with (see the parallel with covid treatments & measures?)
My gut feeling is that those guidelines directly contributed to a vast number of deaths / lost QALYs.
Okay. Why would those guidelines be awful for Americans but great for the Vietnamese?
Are they? Like to the exact calorie and proportion?
The effect could be different in Vietnam because of cultural differences, strictness of regulation or somethings else. Same as vaccine program compliance.
The central point is about adequacy of governmental decisions, not about compliance to them.
There are plenty of regulations about hospital food or child nutrition in the US that follow the dietary guidance. I have not looked into it but it would not surprise me if they regulate macro calorie intake for military (not that it matters for the central point of discussion).
I don’t believe this. I could get Taco Bell and cookies and other junk food in my high school cafeteria out of proportion to the pyramid. No one was regulating calories or macros.
Maybe. But the point that USDA dietary guidelines causing are obesity is obviously wrong because the guidelines are the same in other parts of the world and they’re thin. At best you could say “contributing” in some vague way, but even that’s wrong.
Try strictly following the USDA diet guidelines, literally to the letter and calorie and macro and I will guarantee you that you will lose weight. I can also guarantee you that you will be in a group of maybe, 4 Americans that actually do this outside of metabolic wards.
The strictness of the regulations of pyramid in the US is basically zero, and the Vietnamese government doesn’t go around punishing people eating fat or sugar either.
I think you’re closer to the mark when you talk about cultural differences, but sill not quiet on it.
Scott (or Scott channeling Stephan) was on the mark here:
I’m generally for free markets, but they are guaranteed to make populations fatter overtime.