I always find it interesting that sci-fi depictions of "evolved" humans (i.e. many years in the future) usually depict very tall, thin - even willowy - figures. That seems to fly in the face of general trend :)
Whereas for survival, you want humans that are small (so they need less food), weak because they have slow metabolisms, hairy to keep the heat in, fat because they are good at storing food in case of famine, cowardly so they avoid risk at any cost, dumb so they just repeat procedures that are known to work, and so on.
Dumbly repeating procedures that are known to work without analysis will not only cause stagnation, but also likely cause industrial and environmental collapse unless a system is so tightly controlled that it is impossible for any procedure to lose effectiveness. And unless technological improvement is impossible, this is clearly a suboptimal survival strategy, as survivability may not be improved.
If this were actually true then evolution would go ahead and make everyone absolutely cowardly. Evolution works because traits that are helpful to an individual become more common; because the individuals with those traits reproduce more. Nothing stops evolution going down paths that are bad for the species.
(Of course, if it gets so bad that the species goes extinct then we simply won't see that species any more. But nothing prevents this from happening.)
It isn't actually true though: risks have their rewards.
Individuals don't evolve at all. Evolution is changes in gene frequency over time.
What I think you're trying to talk about is macroevolution, where species that happen to have certain traits survive longer than other species. Sure, this sort of thing happens. But I was responding to the claim that "absolute cowardice [is] beneficial to an individual" and noting what would happen to the level of cowardice in a population if that were actually true.
It is absolutely not beneficial to the individual to put energy out to try to have sex, put energy into offspring, or to take risks for others. However all of those behaviors have tended to be beneficial for the genes that the individual has because the others who are helped are likely to have the genes producing that behavior. Therefore all of those behaviors have evolved notwithstanding the fact that they are inconvenient for individuals with those genes.
The existence of traits like courage is far better explained by sexual selection. Women throughout history have always strongly preferred courageous men to cowardly ones. This is only partially cancelled out by the fact that courageous men tend to die more often.
As civilization continues to advance, and fewer and fewer people die before childbearing age, I'd expect the balance between sexual selection and survival selection to tip even more strongly in favour of sexual selection, so it's quite likely that (even absent widespread genetic modification) the people of the future will indeed tend to be "sexier" than the people of the present.
(Partially cancelling this out is the idiocracy effect whereby poor dumb folks have more children; I can't estimate which is more powerful.)
That's not an explanation. Why do women prefer courageous men?
Do you mean to imply that courage is like a Peacock's tail? It doesn't help a man survive, but it signals that he must be really good at surviving in other ways.
It depends on what you mean by helpful. If you mean helpful in helping them live longer, then it is patently false. Look at peacocks feathers as one famous example.
In any species which require two to reproduce, you also have to be able to attract a mate (generally mostly on the male side), and that may require bravery, willingness to make expensive displays of power, and all kinds of other things that may go against the best way for the individual to survive.
Similarly, in a species that produces few off spring, those members also need to help ensure the off spring survive. This may involve charging into fights you could have run from so your off spring can run, searching for far more food then you need for yourself possibly at great risk, etc. In short again other traits that may go against the individuals personal survival.
(edit: spelling)
Evolution is a game of balance. On the face of it, a predator being faster and stronger so that it can catch more prey seems like an obvious benefit that would catch on. But the time, energy and resources to do that might draw from what's needed to reproduce and raise young.
So if the tall, muscular, lean, brave, intelligent guys can have more kids than the short, fat, hairy guys, those guys will have a greater influence on the future species than the survival in the face of catastrophy.
Other Pixar movies like Monsters, Inc. or Cars are either too scary or too talky. Wall-E is the perfect balance, and such a well told story that I never tire of it, either.
My kids were bored. Gimmie Princess and the frog, Hercules, Aladdin, Little Mermaid etc etc any day.
What do you mean "western"? What do you mean "man"?
Edit: Sometimes it seems that "too terse" comments are disliked or misunderstood. So let me explain: it seems that people in the USA, as others have already said in other comments, don't really realise that you're a special case in this matter. Of course there are fat people here in Europe, but not in the same proportion and magnitude. I don't think it's related just to habits. Something bad is in the food additives for sure.
The other question is just evil, so I'm guilty :-) While the more politically correct "person" is often more and more used to refer to both men and women, you (with a "mom" nick) used "men" to restrict, at the same time you were using "western" to expand.
From the WHO:
Obesity is one of the greatest public health challenges of the 21st century. Its prevalence has tripled in many countries in the WHO European Region since the 1980s, and the numbers of those affected continue to rise at an alarming rate, particularly among children. Obesity is already responsible for 2-8% of health costs and 10-13% of deaths in different parts of the Region.
It's true that now we see morbidly obese persons more often than twenty years ago. But it's not common... yet.
man is a historically recognised contraction of human. I think your analysing it too deeply ;) (I also doubt you will find many people here who abide by the idea of political correctness)
(and your comparison doesn't work too well; is Europe on a par with the East in terms of obesity problems? If not then the original statement is, surely, correct).
About for my comparison of USA and Europe, I trust some friends that have visited the states and returned really scared. I also see some videos of music (and other kind) stars that I admire that have got terribly fat, people that were thin when young. People over here also get fat when older, but not that kind of fat. Really.
The most revealing sign for me is that this question seems to get quick downvotes and troll accusations. I don't see it as an "american decadence" trend. I think it's more of a poisoning thing. Even if our lifestyle is probably very similar, the effects are not by far the same. That's why comparing us with the East is not a good measure.
Every time I see everyone in a train or line looking down at their phones, I also can't help but think of Wall-e.
A good deal of it very well-deserved. For a movie exposing the blind-alley of rampant consumerism, it was being sold via a dizzying array of Cheap Plastic Crap, much of it bundled with the very junk food the movie skewered.
Even coming from Disney in the first place the message came across as the old argument of a priest-of-past-sins being preferable to a priest-of-purity.
Are you saying that the employees that make up Pixar are, on the whole, frequent and regular customers of the fast food industry?
I would expect that living in/near the bay area would give them good odds of being in a different demographic.
Intentionally try to send a message to a demographic by placing Wall-E in their natural path would be a decision made by the corporation well above the level of Pixar's animators. That body would almost certainly be the same one that green-lit the avalanche of Cheap Plastic Crap.
So, even if they believed Pixar's message, and were intentionally trying to preach to those at-risk, they were saying "you should learn from Wall-E" (do as I say) while simultaneously saying "also, buy this plastic crap" (not as I do).
(For those that can't work out, Buy N Large is the corporation from WALL-E... this is a parody done by pixar)
See Iain M. Banks's Culture novels for a fictional depiction of this pushed to the extreme (people there can even chose to switch from one sex to the other whenever they feel like it).
One thing I've become annoyed with lately is how little planning anyone does. Who needs to make solid plans when you can can just call someone via cell phones and make the plans as you go? It makes coordinating more than a few people very hard.
We can do better, though. Check out Yudkowsky's Fun Theory sequence for more on this:
I think the fast food industry gives a false impression because they started out with fattening food. But all the current fast food places were founded a relatively short time ago (McDonalds: '55, Burger King: '53, KFC: '52, Taco Bell: '62, Pizza Hut: '58) and as they've evolved their menus have become healthier.
Beyond that technology is paving the way for a less fattening diet. Diet soft drinks, soy burgers, and other low calorie foods have gotten dramatically better tasting in just the last 20 years or so (It's actually getting to the point where those Diet Dr. Pepper ads are almost true). At the same time we've developed Appetite Suppressants (the most popular of which, Hoodia gordonii, wasn't even patented until 1996) and other prescription drugs to fight obesity.
So really the trend seems to be towards healthier, less fattening food. We're just at the beginning of the curve.
Have you looked at the nutrition facts lately? Or seen the new commercials for KFC heart attack of two pieces of fried chicken with bacon and cheese in between?
I wasn't around when the fast food places you mention were founded, but if this is the trend towards healthier then I am amazed people survived for any length of time after they emerged.
(Granted, many have added healthier options lately, but that is in addition to pushing junk food to even greater extremes.)
The junk food items have grown not declined though. And McDonald's no longer advertises supersizing, but they will ask if you medium or large and I think large is the same as supersizing was. That is a change in marketing, not in offerings in any way.
You couldn't do that in in previous decades because they only had fried chicken.
So the tools are out there, people just choose to continue ordering the triple quarter pounder.
Do people in N. America somehow not need fruits or vegetables as long as they get meat every single time they saddle up to the table?
Anyway, it only has 540 calories, which is actually pretty modest.
It's the same as how everyone in the movies is beautiful, nobody in the future will go hungry, and even aspirations to 'the good ol days', even though everyone back then was too busy dying of dysentery, cholera, starvation, or drowning in caulked wagons to realize just how great they had it.