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Comment by ZekeSulastin | Hacker News Reader

Here’s a fun thought exercise - replace Ozempic/weight loss with any number of drug/mental health condition pairs.

I also hope there’s no long term worse side effects, but I agree with pjc50 in that most of the negative reaction is actually about feeling morally superior.

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I agree, it's moralizing. The dependence on pharma is a real concern, particularly in a country (US obv) where they've got us all by the balls, but it's no less/more a problem here than for any other ailment requiring maintenance meds. We're still learning how the American diet and other environmental factors can literally change peoples' metabolism and it makes complete sense to me to treat the symptoms if we have the means to do so.

It’s a peptide like insulin. It’s made through recombinant DNA which can be done with desktop bioreactors, it doesn’t take a whole industry to make this stuff.

> Here’s a fun thought exercise - replace Ozempic/weight loss with any number of drug/mental health condition pairs.

Most disesases are not self inflicted. Obesity is

If obesity is 100% self inflicted, the fast food, snack food, and ancillary advertising industries should pack up and go home. They obviously do nothing.

Instead we have a system where these companies are allowed, even encouraged to make food that's terrible for you taste amazing, and market the shit out of it to increase shareholder value. But when they succeed at their jobs it's because you, the individual, fucked up. Well which one is it? Both can't be true.

This is an incorrect assessment.

You're putting excess consumption in the same categorical bucket as controlled consumption.

Personal responsibility is a real thing. Its become a recent trend to blame everyone else for any problem you have.

The individuals making trade offs made the wrong choice. It sucks but it is their choice.

Passing the buck is a child behavior. Poor decisions leads to poor outcomes. More news at 11.

No one is saying personal responsibility doesn't exist. But what's the point of a system that rewards people who lure others into making poor personal choices around food? Just so those who don't make those bad choices can feel superior?

Is it a bad thing that cigarette companies can't advertise their poison anymore?

I dont know. I don't feel tempted to smoke.

If you're under 40 it might be because you were never exposed to mass cigarette advertising.

I am over 40.

You always have the option to not consume fast food, smoke cigarettes, etc.

We're setting up a battle of will between people and companies so we can feel good about our own self-control when some (most, in many countries) individuals lose that battle. What's the point?

Cigarettes are interesting because we recognized that running society like a car with accelerator and brake smashed down is sub-optimal. There are restrictions on tobacco marketing, consumption taxes, public health campaigns.

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