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Comment by csydas | Hacker News Reader

Please expand on what you find disagreeable here, else the post is just white noise and not really appropriate for HN.

I do think the author's reasoning in that part is flawed and a bit vengeful simply because it seems to me like a misguided sense of justice and right/wrong, and that they want what they perceive as justice simply because of the circumstances of one's birth sometimes being a boon, sometimes being a burden.

But this is also a post from a blog, not an article from The Economist - I think the opinion is shallow and poorly thought out, but it's just an opinion.

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Its disagreeable because "on average, <type> people earn more than <!type> people, therefore all <type> people should pay more for the same service" is not an obvious conclusion to make. In fact, it is tainting some folk with the faults that others with a similar attribute have and is in the end discriminatory and unfair because their height was not a choice they made.

If the author had written that tall people should pay more because they are bigger and need a bigger space then that might have been more palatable, but in the end I'm not sure that the extra space is the significant factor, since I can sit upright easily in the vertical space allocated for everybody to walk through the plane. Do we also need to charge more for people with big hairstyles, or those who choose to wear high heels? Also, why is there a minimum cost for the average space needed, my partner (155cm) takes up less space than average!

I like your <type> statement because it draws to the bigger problems with generalizations. It's also the weird logic flow I see more and more in western culture.

"Privilege" is a word I hear thrown around a lot today. Often times when people use that word, they do not realize they are making broad assumptions about other peoples' circumstances (typically) based on an ascribed attribute.

To go even further in relation to this and air travel, is obesity ascribed or achieved? If you get charged extra for being tall, that's not something really in your control. Discriminating against an ascribed trait isn't really fair and is the reason for civil rights legislation.

There are cases where it's difficult to determine if something is ascribed vs achieved. This is why laws for marriage equality have taken as long as they have in much of the world.

In terms of obesity, we see the trends and we see it's increasing. This is something we can measure. Homosexuality was something that could be hidden, and therefore the measurements could easily be off as people may have lied in previous decades to fit in with social norms.

Ultimately, fighting obesity has a lot to do with education, and changing some of the very wrong ideas we have about what is and isn't healthy food. But that's another matter.

In the article, they're mostly describing airlines that weigh people to distribute loads on planes. That seems logical. Now in regards to airlines charging them a different price due to weight and fuel consumption, that gets into a very grey area of how we deal with the reasoning behind obesity, choice, human rights and market costs.

> Now in regards to airlines charging them a different price due to weight and fuel consumption, that gets into a very grey area of how we deal with the reasoning behind obesity, choice, human rights and market costs.

Right, and it's also a problem when you consider height and weight to be intertwined. Even among people of a healthy weight, a 5' tall person is going to weigh less than a 6' tall person, on average. If you really wanted to allow for pricing based on the idea that extra weight requires extra fuel consumption, but not for ascribed traits, one would have to normalize weight based on height, or instead by BMI or something that really defines the weight as "extra" and not normal for a person of a particular stature. (Unless you really do want to charge based on ascribed traits.)

Also, thank you for the "ascribed vs. achieved" nomenclature. I'd never heard that before, and I like how it avoids sounding negative and boils down the distinction very clearly.

This has nothing to do with BMI. The problem is exactly the same regardless of the BMI of any of the passengers.

It ONLY is about properly distributing weight. It's not a fat tax. It's not "oh, this person is heavy compared to their height, let's charge them more because they're inferior!".

It's only "we need more weight in the front".

> It ONLY is about properly distributing weight. It's not a fat tax.

Bogus. At best, "... yet."

Entire sports teams of children board planes filled with adults, without redistribution. They need to weigh every passenger now, just in case they might need to move that 1 larger person? If you buy that then I've got some oil you'd be interested in.

As far as I can tell, 1 commercial plane in history has had an accident due to balance and only because of tragically bad maintenance at the same time.

This looks like one of the more obvious cases of groundwork being laid for future fees veiled in safety concerns.

The bottom line for me personally is that it's just one more bullshit thing to endure when traveling via plane, and I'm biased against them at this point. Airlines are the skeeziest companies in their attempts to capture market surplus.

On smaller aircraft, this is standard operating procedure.

The Norwegian regional carrier Widerøe (Whose slogan might well have been "We proudly fly where everyone else is scared s--tless to!", operating a fleet of small to mid-size aircraft always play a game of musical chairs in their smaller (<40pax or so) planes prior to takeoff.

Edit: Ninja'd by gragas.

If you live in a smaller city, you'd know that this happens all the time. Nearly half the time when I fly on a tiny CRJ to and from my local airport, after everyone boards, the pilot will ask if three or four people could shift around (for weight reasons) before takeoff.

I'm talking about a hypothetical where an airline might weigh people so they can charge differently based on passenger weight (to account for differences in fuel consumption), not just in order to reassign seats to balance weight distribution. Which is what this particular subthread happens to be talking about.

Not a hypothetical at all; the article mentions Samoa Air does charge based on weight.

It's not a grey area at all. Airlines should have the right to charge customers per pound of items they take with them --- be it flesh or carry-on.

As should Uber et al.! Cars, like airplanes, use more gas if they have to transport more weight.

Marginally though. About 0.5l/100km more for every 100kg of weight.

That's more than 10% increase on most new cars.

...or cane, or wheelchair, or guide dog. Glad you have this all figured out in your libertarian utopia; in the real world there is still a debate.

This is what happens when you take "everyone is equal" to a delusional extent. Everyone should have the same rights, but not everyone is born the same. It is sad, but true.

I think the only reason one could come to your conclusion is that one does not understand the difference between being a lesser human being and simply being very misfortunate. Many are misfortunate; no one is lesser. I had cancer when I was little. Should everything in the world be modified to accommodate my specific needs? Should everything in the world be modified to accommodate the "average" person's needs? Perhaps that is how things should be in government, where the sole purpose of the entity is to serve its people. But it should not be the duty of any private entity to do such a thing.

> This is what happens when you take "everyone is equal" to a delusional extent.

I'm not really arguing one way or the other, just pointing out a number of cases that would likely lead to public outcry and therefore attention from regulators who do have the authority to impose their will on the airlines.

> I think the only reason one could come to your conclusion is that one does not understand the difference between being a lesser human being and simply being very misfortunate.

Or one could recognize that airlines are chartered as common carriers, and are therefore subject to regulatory oversight.

> But it should not be the duty of any private entity to do such a thing.

The private entity in question necessarily consumes public resources as part of its business model (ATC, takeoff/landing slots, ...). Hence the corresponding regulatory authority.

> fighting obesity has a lot to do with education

Based on the documentaries I have seen about US obesity, it also depends on your income. Its cheaper to buy junk food so lower income people prefer junk food to healthy food.

"Please expand on what you find disagreeable here, else the post is just white noise and not really appropriate for HN."

That comment piqued my curiosity enough for me to read the article, something which probably isn't true for over 99% of the comments I read on HN. So I strongly disagree with you that it isn't appropriate for HN. There is nothing defamatory in what he says, and whether or not it is substantive can be decided with votes like all other comments.

Actually I skipped the last few paras after getting the initial tone of the article and this comment made me go back.

It's a completely ridiculous comment. This policy isn't about "fairness" but rather weight distribution and cost of fuel. Punishing tall people for being born tall and making more "on average" is absurd.

>Please expand on what you find disagreeable here, else the post is just white noise and not really appropriate for HN.

Maybe don't assume what's "appropriate for HN" (unless something is obviously offensive or spam, etc)? Far from white noise, the parent pointed a specifically interesting (and inane) excerpt from the post. Whether you agree or disagree, it doesn't take much imagination to see what one can find appalling in that part.

First, not sure if the author is half-joking, but the notion that tall people are fair game because they "earn substantially more money on average" is especially idiotic. Something true "on average" (and from statistics the poster read for specific cultures/countries) doesn't obviously apply to all members. Besides, rich people, whether short or tall, don't pay more for anything else they buy unless they they want too -- so again this would be just an arbitrary tax on tallness.

Second, the post goes on to say that "the overweight and obese? They receive no such life benefits, and it feels rather cruel, if not illegal, to ask them to pay extra for the same service".

Only it's obviously not about having benefits in other fields of life (!), it's about their weight's cost to the airline (more personal weight amounts to less cargo, more fuel etc).

>But this is also a post from a blog, not an article from The Economist - I think the opinion is shallow and poorly thought out, but it's just an opinion.

So?

> Maybe don't assume what's "appropriate for HN"

As members of the HN community, that is literally our job to do. Communities are maintained by agreeing on and enforcing norms. You may not agree with someone's assumptions about whether or not something is appropriate, but they are absolutely within their rights to make a value judgment based on that.

> Far from white noise, the parent pointed a specifically interesting (and inane) excerpt from the post.

Yes, but this is a discussion forum. Quoting a section of text and then "annotating" it with "Jesus..." is not discussion, and doesn't foster discussion, at least, no aside from the "yeah, no kidding" variety. Fortunately, in this case, someone has called the poster out on it, and has in the process started discussion about it, but that's in spite of the original, not because of it.

>You may not agree with someone's assumptions about whether or not something is appropriate, but they are absolutely within their rights to make a value judgment based on that.

As a member of the HN community, consider where this leads: endless flamewars and meta-discussions on comments, instead of TFA.

Note also that I'm not against people speaking on what's "appropriate for HN" in general, just against particular uncalled for instances. If a comment is defamatory or off-topic etc, it's a fair game.

>Quoting a section of text and then "annotating" it with "Jesus..." is not discussion, and doesn't foster discussion, at least, no aside from the "yeah, no kidding" variety.

Quoting and exclamations are very much part of discussion. In fact, for quoting this should go without saying. From books to scientific papers and on to legendary literary or scholarly exchanges, you'll find extended use of quotations. It is an act of curation and highlighting. Same for the annotation "Jesus", that serves to give us a clear indication of what the commenter thought of the quotation (he doesn't approve of it).

You claim that "it didn't foster discussion", but you are disproven in reality. Besides the distracting meta-discussion, the comment did foster discussion of that particular quote, which you can see in the thread below, with people arguing pro and against the very ideas expressed in the quote.

> As a member of the HN community, consider where this leads: endless flamewars and meta-discussions on comments, instead of TFA.

Which is why it's generally more appropriate to use the downvote & flag buttons rather than engaging in meta discussion. Which we're clearly not doing here ;)

> You claim that "it didn't foster discussion", but you are disproven in reality. Besides the distracting meta-discussion, the comment did foster discussion of that particular quote, which you can see in the thread below, with people arguing pro and against the very ideas expressed in the quote.

Hmm. Yes, that's true, but 1) we do have this distracting meta discussion here that wouldn't be here if the original post wasn't so content-free, and 2) I see something as a quote + simple explanation as the laziest, weakest way to attempt to foster discussion. Yes, that's just my opinion! And you're right in this case that some (good!) discussion did result from the original (IMO weak) post. But that doesn't mean that's anywhere near the best way to foster discussion, and I'd like to see the bar raised; this is a great community that I don't want to see degrade.

First, I agree with you. But to answer:

One chooses to be obese more than one chooses to be tall, so arguing that tall people should have to pay more for their size while the obese shouldn't seems illogical.

> One chooses to be obese more than one chooses to be tall

I wonder - have you ever tried weed? With a few foreign molecules in your system you can go from barely liking cookies to consuming 5 boxes without being able to stop. The satiation part of the brain is very sensitive. Imagine having to constantly fight similar urges because of slight mutations in that zone. I think physical make up could be indirectly the most important factor in determining weight, especially when it comes to extremes like obesity.

edit: reworked phrasing

Yes, they choose because of poor diet choices, nobody is hooking up a tube of big macs to their faces. A quarter of the entire US population didn't suddenly catch a disease and become obese.

Being sedentary and taking in 2500 calories a day is definitely a choice. A very small percentage of obese people have hunger as extreme as your 5 cookie box example. All it takes is not paying attention to caloric intake over a long period like 5 years.

> A quarter of the entire US population didn't suddenly catch a disease and become obese.

Please explain how your statement of fact is true considering that this cited paper is stating that there is such a disease and possibly some portion of that population obesity is a product of this disease.

"Adv36 causes obesity in animals. In humans, Adv36 associates with obesity both in adults and children and the prevalence of Adv36 increases in relation to the body mass index."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4517116/

> possibly some portion of that population obesity is a product of this disease

Please state how "possibly some portion" is supposed to have any meaning whatsoever.

I'm not expressing an opinion about the causes of the current obesity problem, but your comment had the opposite effect on me than the effect you wanted.

"A quarter of the entire US population didn't suddenly catch a disease and become obese."

Why not? When you put it that way, it strikes me as pretty implausible that 'a quarter of the entire US population suddenly became lazy and started stuffing their faces for no good reason'. Epidemics have happened frequently before; bouts of mass overeating are historically rare.

It happens a fraction of a percent at a time. Let a population increase their caloric intake by 0.2% a year, while their lives get more and more sedentary, and you will get an obesity epidemic in less than 30 years.

"Unrestricted junk food marketing + 100% sedentary lifestyle between sitting in the office, driving, and watching TV" explains mass obesity trends better than anything else, no pandemic needed.

>Why not?

Because it's obviously not contagious (diseases don't honor human defined borders). It's the culture of junk food and giant meals.

> Imagine what it would be like fighting similar feelings every second of every day because your satiation part of the brain is a bit off.

Yeah, that's how I stay not-obese.

> Imagine having to constantly fight similar urges all the time

I don't have to imagine, I have a child who survived a TBI that included damage to the hypothalamus. He's never satiated, always wants food. Even with strict diet controls and a locked pantry and a refrigerator with a lock and chain around it... he still manages to get food.

It's a living nightmare.

The degree of difficulty in controlling obesity has little to do with whether it's more controllable than height. Height is basically fixed, and trying to control it would involve starving yourself even harder, for longer, and doing so while you're a child.

You could argue that a tall person should not be charged more than a short person for the same service, even if it costs more to provide it to them, on the basis that their height is a circumstance of their birth. You cannot make the same argument for someone who is obese, since their obesity is almost certainly a choice (or a result of lifestyle choices, depending how you look at it).

...their obesity is almost certainly a choice...

How do you know this? Have you done things like looked at research indicating the causal links between gut bacteria and obesity? There has been a surprising amount of it, for a random example https://www.sciencenews.org/article/obesity%E2%80%99s-weight....

I see no reason to believe that having a struggle to control weight is any more under our control than a desire to have sex with members of our own gender. Our conscious has influence on whether we actually do so. But some people have no problem, some people can struggle and avoid a problem, and some are pretty much doomed.

If we're going to grant that humans have free will at all (which is debatable, but still, everything works better if we do choose - heh - to make this assumption), then we have to grant that humans are able to choose whether or not to put any given item of food into their mouths and swallow it.

Note that I'm not arguing about whether we "struggle with" weight control or not. Some people absolutely do feel hungrier than others while maintaining the same daily energy balance. But the choice of how to handle that hunger, to keep overeating when you know you are already overweight, or to stop eating even though you still feel hungry, absolutely is something that an individual can control.

   indicating the causal links between

From the article you cite: "If the results hold up in humans ..."

What reason do we have to believe that questions of free will are transferable from the mouse model to humans?

>since their obesity is almost certainly a choice

Citation needed.

In fact there's a HUGE industry of obese people making the choice to lose weight (diet, gyms, etc) and failing.

There's a huge industry designed to sell the idea that losing weight is quick and easy if you just spend money. That's not the same thing.

There are effective weight loss coaches but since you already know their advice (which is that you need to permanently commit to regular exercise and you need to take permanent control your energy balance in order to sustain a target weight), and since their advice requires discipline to follow, they're somehow not as popular.

I think being obese is as much a choice as being poor is a choice: you're born into it and have obese friends who feedback into an inactive lifestyle. Escaping obesity is possible with hard work, as is escaping poverty, but its also not easy. That said, counting calories isn't that hard, but it does take discipline, and that's not easy.

>That said, counting calories isn't that hard, but it does take discipline, and that's not easy.

Several studies have shown that we're not good in discipline at all, unless for people that it's innate. So discipline might be a factor out of our control too (genetic), and it's just the presence of people with more innate discipline (against genetic) that makes it achievable.

Yea that doesn't surprise me, though studies also say that we're strongly influenced by our peers and are largely creatures of habit, so there are definitely tricks around this like hanging out with others into fitness or even lurking on a fitness subreddit.

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