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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

Let's look at this from the standpoint of Pascal's Wager.

If eating too much sugar is bad for you and has negative consequences and you choose to cut back, you have significant gains in living a healthy lifestyle.

If sugar is not bad for you and you cut back, you've given up on a few pleasures, but in the grand scheme of things, you've lost nothing.

So, why not cut back and eat as if sugar is bad for you? I think there is enough credible evidence to take a chance and cut back.

No, I don't feel the same way about non-gmo, organic, grass fed, gluten free food, grown and cultivated by virgin nuns. I think the "natural food" cruft is just a bunch of marketing.

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Let's look at this from the standpoint of Pascal's Wager.

If reading hackernews gives you brain cancer, you could save your life by not reading it.

If reading hackernews doesn't give you brain cancer, you've given up on a minor pleasure, but in the grand scheme of things, you've lost nothing.

So, why not cut back and avoid hackernews as if it gives your brain cancer?

...

I don't think Pascal's Wager is a good reason to do anything. It can be used to justify anything: there are an infinite amount of potential bad things that can happen.

That makes it sound easy. For some, trying to cut back is not giving up on a few pleasures, it's embarking on an incredibly effortful, emotionally and often physically draining undertaking.

Pascal’s wager does not make much sense even for the original case.

Why not? In the grand scheme of things it's a simple case where the upside rewards are much greater than the downside risks.

It's the same theory behind venture capitalism. Your downside risk is only the amount of money you invest, your upside reward is that you may invest in what will become the next Facebook.

Yes I know that in reality most VC investors don't beat an index fund.

But there are thousands of gods. How do you decide? Pascal was a product of his times, and could only conceive of "Atheist vs Deist". Only savages could worship false gods; that wasn't even in his mind. Today his assertion sounds feeble.

And going back to the VC analogy I referenced above, VCs invest in a lot of companies hoping One will succeed and expecting lots of them to fail.

Surely the downside risk is that you pick the incorrect deity and anger the real one causing you to be punished.

Well Zeus might be real. If you worship him there’s no cost to do so. It’s a mild inconvenience to go to Zeus temples every Thursday for the rest of your life and pray to him. If you’re wrong, no harm. Oh and apply this thousands of other gods too.

"A few pleasures" is subjective, just like the value loss of untimely death. Also you'd be dead either way.

Having diabetes is not just about an untimely death. I'm going to die anyway, but hopefully I can enjoy a life that doesn't involve insulin shots, amputated limbs, blindness, etc. I've seen what diabetes does to a person first hand.

> If sugar is not bad for you and you cut back, you've given up on a few pleasures, but in the grand scheme of things, you've lost nothing.

I disagree that giving up sugar and sugary stuff is the same as giving up on a few pleasures. That just sweeps the issues under the carpet, so to speak. Depending on the person, giving up sugar can be a whole lot more, and for some people it may be equivalent to giving up the biggest pleasures and the biggest supporters of existence itself. Tangentially, sugar is one of those things that's not as easy to give up for most people because of how our bodies are wired (and have evolved). The dopamine effect, the reinforcement and the need to up the intake to get more pleasure can be a serious hindrance even to the most rational, thinking and open minded people.

> Let's look at this from the standpoint of Pascal's Wager.

The problem with Pascal's Wager in most applications, including this one, is the “if X does Y...” can trivially be flipped to “if not-X does Y...” or, in some cases, “if not-X does Z...” where Z has equally negative consequences to Y).

Mostly, the Pascal's Wager structure is a template for flimsy rationalizations of pre-existing preferences or beliefs.

The negative consequences of X is all of the known issues with obesity and an increased risk of diabetes. The negative consequences of Y is you have to cut back on sugar.

The consequence of Y (a healthier life and a decreased risk of diabetes) is well worth the sacrifices of doing X.

The gains of doing X is not worth the consequences of not Y (all of the health consequences of being overweight)

Is there any scientific literature that says consuming a lot of sugar is healthy for you?

If you could bet $50 and have a 90% chance of getting $500 would you take it? Would not betting $50 and having a 10% chance of not losing the $50 be equivalent?

Yes I realize the odds are exaggerated in the example above.

Pascal’s wager doesn’t apply in this case as Ray Peat believes cutting back on sugar is really bad for you.

He doesn’t just think all current experts are wrong, he seems to be one of those rebel doctors who will specifically claim the opposite of any currently accepted fact regarding health and nutrition.

Do you have another example of him fighting the accepted wisdom on anything other than the fat/sugar ratio someone should be eating?

Depends how much you cut back. I think your body/brain needs 120g of glucose a day. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22436/

There is almost zero risk not getting enough sugar these days. That's not something to worry about.

The body can produce the amount of glucose it needs through converting proteins using Gluconeogenesis. Dietary intake of carbohydrates/glucose is not necessary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis

I don't think you went over that medical summary I provided: Fatty acids do not serve as fuel for the brain, because they are bound to albumin in plasma and so do not traverse the blood-brain barrier. In starvation, ketone bodies generated by the liver partly replace glucose as fuel for the brain.

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