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Comment by colordrops | Hacker News Reader

3) There other benefits to exercise, including stretching and loosening joints and ligaments, building coordination and body awareness, mental benefits, etc. Sweating has benefits as well. I'd find it really hard to imagine that some pill that mucks with metabolism or muscle growth or some other single dimension would cover even a small portion of the benefits of exercise.

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There are lots of benefits, and it's very unlikely a pill, or even a cocktail of pills, could emulate all those benefits.

That said, if you found a safe pill that would merely give the cardiovascular benefits of exercise, or help elderly patients maintain muscle mass, or move obese people to just being overweight, it would be worth tens or hundreds of billions of dollars.

When discussing a thought experiment, it’s helpful to assume that you are in The Least Convenient Possible World[1]. In this case, the GP is considering a pill that actually provides any actual effect of exercising that you deem useful or important. In a world where we had such a pill, is having such simple solutions to problems, having to avoid things like learning self-discipline or commitment, too big a downside?

In this case your point that such a pill wouldn’t help with your joints being limber or sweating is a cop-out. It’s not actually addressing the point of the discussion, instead focusing on details irrelevant to the point of the thought experiment.

[1]: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2k/the_least_convenient_possible_wor...

I don't see any reason you couldn't take the pill and exercise. In many cases people who aren't doing any sort of exercise are held back by being so out of shape that they can't really get into the habit, in which case having a pharmaceutical head start might be reasonable.

I would love it if I had some help with something other than a straight up pain pill. My body hurts all the time with arthritis and from using a cane for the past several years. To be able to simply move around again without constant pain would be a Godsend.

Have you looked into LDN (low dose naltrexone)? Ask your doctor about it if you haven't tried it yet. http://tinyurl.com/y7sgmr7s

edit: link

The article has a certain bias and tone. A lot of points are just kind of swept under with this quote "the biological processes unleashed by physical activity are still relatively mysterious. For all the known benefits of a short loop around the park, scientists are, for the most part, incapable of explaining how exercise does what it does."

The biological process in the human body that depend on upright motion include far more than just simple muscle stimulation and growth. The circular system is meant to work against gravity in concert with muscle contraction. It should be relatively obvious that there's indeed far more to exercise and basic bodily functions than this pill covers.

A lot of the exercise we get is sort of implicit: it's "non-exercise activity thermogenesis" — a.k.a., fidgeting.

I'd expect a drug that "mimicked exercise" would really do so in part by making you exercise more, without realizing you're doing so: i.e., by making you fidgety (and sweaty, and achier in your joints so you'd want to stretch more, etc.)

Meth?

Aside from the neurotoxicity and the fact it destroys appetite, it certainly does work well for burning fat I believe. If one could gain the effects minus the amphetamine downsides, I wonder what it would be like.

Look at all the people kinda sorta microdosing on Adderall. It's ubiquitous in some domains.

Do people really bother "microdosing on Adderall"? The drug companies have already handled that bit for you. That's what Adderall XR is (and in a funkier way, Vyvanse, also): Adderall that is manufactured in such a way that it will enters your system a little at a time.

I dunno, I know a lot of people that are prescribed stonking doses of the high-test original formula, and break their tabs into quarters or eighths. Then again, the going rate in the cubicle streets is, I've been told, $30-$50 a pill, so that might have something to do with it.

Yes and no.

Look around. When, as the article mentions, the option is no pill vs some pill that helps in some way; for most people the pill makes sense.

As it is today, many people could alter their diets and improve their health. Yet they do not.

In an ideal world this pill makes little sense. But our First World world of today is far from ideal. Put another way, they say that worldwide more people die from eating too much than not eating enough.

Sure. I was just saying there are other arguments against these pills. I'm not a luddite or a perfectionist and can see their use case though.

I hear ya. I do, in theory, agree with you. But the reality is most people don't care to take care of themselves. And they wonder why healthcare costs are so high.

But there is a third option: make that First World world more ideal.

Sugar water and other high calorie stuff could see the same treatment tobacco got; cars could be banned from city centers to make room for bicycle lanes and lush pedestrian zones, parking lots could be required to be at least half a mile from offices and shopping malls, with nice walking paths between the two, etc.

Or maybe we could just play loud patriotic music over loudspeakers every morning, and use armed guards to force people to fall out for PT.

"cars could be banned from city centers to make room for bicycle lanes and lush pedestrian zones, parking lots could be required to be at least half a mile from offices and shopping malls,"

Screw old people and the handicapped, eh?

Here's a better idea: live your life the way you want. Don't force others to live the way you want.

Because, you know, granting government that level of power that doesn't end up where you imagine that it ends up.

So you are saying that if we grant our governments the awesome power of city planning (which the government already has, do you think cities are just a random collection of buildings brought up by the first person who could buy a spot of land?) what slippery slope would we go down? Yes cars are harmful, to everyone, and they don't make a city more accessible (old people also can't drive when they start losing their sight for instance). Public transport makes cities accessible. You can live your life however you want, until you start hurting everyone else's.

Old people and the handicapped would IMO be fine. Car free streets make street crossings a lot less scary and allow for streets that are less wide.

Those that still need it could safely use strollers and wheelchairs.

There also would likely be fewer handicapped. Allowing healthy people to drive huge four-wheel drive “wheelchairs” from the time they are 18 doesn’t make the population healthier.

I also doubt people currently live the way they want. If you ask a 40 year old with diabetes and a BMI of >30 whether they do, do they say so?

“Government of the people, by the people, FOR the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”.

Governments should shape society to make people happier. Just as with other tasks (product design, educating kids) that doesn’t mean giving them what they say they want.

Judging by things such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index, some governments are better at providing what their people want then others. Call me an optimist, but I think the top ones have been granted “that level of power”.

I think you make a great point. Too often the size of government is confused with its role.

For example, there is a difference between enabling (positive behaviors X, Y or Z) and enslavement (e.g., addiction, obesity, etc.)

>There other benefits to exercise, including stretching and loosening joints and ligaments.

There's some debate that stretching is actually a problem.

https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/reasons-not-to-str...

Yes, but there are also negatives associated with exercise: injuries, joint wear and tear. Many, many people who where athletes in their prime end up with permanent damage to their body by the time they are middle aged.

Athletes may exercise, but I suspect most of their injuries come from competing, not exercising. They are different activities.

Exercise done with proper form doesn't cause joint wear and tear. That's really a myth. Frequent exercise actually keeps your joints healthy.

My plantar fasciitis, tendonitis, and damaged menisci beg to differ.

Anything can be overdone.

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