Py-o7

Given the HFCS reference I'm guessing you're in the USA. Have you tried comparing effects of 12oz of 'regular Coca-Cola' vs 'Mexican Coca-Cola' -- the latter costs more and can be found at foodie places, etc. and is made using sucrose not HFCS.

One of the confounders in your statement is that candy is a food (well kind of) and has a certain rate of digestion and delivery internally whereas soda is well a liquid with a much higher rate/spike of fructose (and glucose). This is basically a second order confounder that can be tested by drinking the other kind of Coca-Cola which isn't HFCS based.

If you like Khaneman, there's a lot more to be found at edge.org (e.g. Tetlock's Superforecasters is discussed at length with a panel including Kahneman IIRC. I liked that book but I think I liked the discussion even more.)

Max Bazerman and Rich Zeckhauser (e.g. "Investing in the Unknown...") have written some very interesting stuff and "The Best of Charlie Munger" is worth reading.

Also, spending a lot of time playing poker (or bridge) can be very helpful. The fact that Zeckhauser is a champion bridge player may be worth thinking on.

I don't understand why you are linking to something about labelled graphs when people are (presumably) trying to distinguish between graphs up to isomorphism i.e. after modd'ing out the labeling.

FWIW Kaiser Permanente does do some research on patient records -- it is integrated, has scale, and has relatively sophisticated computer systems. It also is quite big and (roughly speaking) has the division of labor that you're suggesting.

I am a big fan of the working out analogy. In all cases you need to have a decent plan then execute-- basically this means showing up and putting in the work. If you do it right it should be a bit painful at times.

And just like working out some people will progress more rapidly than you and have an easier time at it. So what? As long as your goal isn't to 'place' at the elite level, this is irrelevant. You really just need to show up and embrace the struggle. (For elite level tasks including grad school, its a bit more involved.)

There are some good points in here about NAFLD. It's worth pointing out that (i) high sucrose (and/or fructose) intake makes it hard for people to self regulate appetite (i.e. not overeat). And (ii) the above stated ill effects of high sugar consumption are basically stopped in the presence of a caloric deficit -- e.g. IIRC there are controlled chimp studies on this and inadvertent human 'experiments' like with food shortages in Cuba in the 90s. But I don't think (ii) is particularly relevant for rich countries whereas (i) is.

>This is not about self-discipline, it is about public policy.

it can be instructive to compare school lunches in the US vs other rich countries. Not everyone serves highly processed junk food for lunch.

Better is to actually read what VP wrote (one could start 3 paragraphs before the 7 bullet points) : https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/how-democracy-ends

The piece is a hypothetical about what happens when pluralism / democratic institutions decline and how opportunists/authoritarians could exploit this. The reference to Nazi Germany was not at all about current US public health restrictions or policy. If you actually read it, this becomes clear. (Given that Germany had essentially no pluralism or democratic traditions entering the 1920s I don't think the comparison is great but oh well.)

It is true that VP is an oncologist not an ID doc. But he is also a professor of epidemiology and biostats at UCSF, perhaps the top med school in the US. This means he is vastly more quantitatively savvy than most public health officials or commentators.