786 karma · joined January 30, 2015
Yeah it does come across as too simple. I've heard a variation of it, also attributed to Lalane, that says, "If it comes in a wrapper, don't eat it." The idea is that if it's in a wrapper, it has preservatives added, and also sugar added to make it taste good.
In any case, it seems people love attributing quotes to Lalane!
The first step to winning the battle is gaining some awareness. Barring any pre-existing condition (especially diabetes), someone who wants to lose weight should simply start eating less, and slowly so they can gradually get used to it. Food is so abundant, it's usually not lack of food that makes people feel hungry, but lack of feeding the food addiction, especially addiction to added sugars. People should try fasting every once in a while just to see they can do it and they won't suffer ill effects from feeling hungry for ~16 hours.
The biggest obstacle is convincing yourself you can do it.
Oh wow, it's really that Douglas Crockford. Embarrassed to say I only knew of his Javascript work.
Let's see how this unnecessary policy, which is not visionary or far-sighted, was implemented:
"All fertile married women in their region were obliged to pee into a cup for a pregnancy test every three months; a positive result could lead to a mandatory abortion. Any couple that somehow evaded the controls risked a fine, the demolition of the family home, and forced sterilization."
In the US we like to talk about the so called "war on women" and infringing on reproductive rights and the right of a woman to do what she wants with her body. What they were doing to women in China pales in comparison to anything women in the West go through. This is a precipitously high price to pay to mitigate the toll on the environment of having more people there.
The article mentions that China even had a better method of family planning before implementing the one-child policy. It dramatically reduced the average children per family, and more importantly it was completely voluntary:
"by the early 1970s China had adopted a highly successful voluntary family planning program called “Later, Longer, Fewer.” Its slogan was “One child isn’t too few, two are just fine, three are too many.” And within about a decade it managed without coercion to reduce the average number of births per woman from six to three, a remarkable achievement. It’s rarely acknowledged that the biggest drop in Chinese fertility came not from the one-child policy, but earlier during this voluntary birth control campaign. If it had continued, China’s birth rates would have continued to drop"
Far from visionary or far-sighted, the one-child policy was disastrous for families and threatens the Chinese economy, and was completely unnecessary. The Party wanted dramatic cuts, instead of the gradual decrease that was occurring with "Later, Longer, Fewer". In spite of several high ranking Party officials warning it would be disaster, the Party pushed forward with the policy, and it took them over 35 years to walk it back.
Part of the reason they're walking back may be that, as China's economy continues developing, it is starting to cost families more to raise children, so economic forces may be forcing them to one or two children anyway:
"One survey found that of Chinese families who today have one child, 60 percent say the reasons have nothing to do with the one-child policy. The cost of educating a child is often the foremost obstacle."
Disastrous family planning didn't save Beijing from disastrous city planning. Shanghai is larger still than Beijing in terms of population, yet Beijing still has the worse solution problem. (To be fair, Shanghai still has a pollution problem, but there is little precedent in city planning at the scale of Shanghai and Beijing.)
The article paints a vastly different picture to the idea that the one-child policy was one of the most visionary and far-sighted policies of any government at any time. In fact, the evidence presented by the article says the one-child policy is almost the complete opposite of a visionary and far-sighted policy.
No doubt medicine has its uses in treating anxiety and depression, a momentary reprieve can grant you the clarity to see what you do need to change to feel better. However, I see many people online who cling so strongly to the idea that anxiety and depression are chemical imbalances that you are unlucky enough to be predisposed to developing and that balance can only be restored through medication, that when you suggest that anxiety and depression are not diseases and so can be treated to the point that they are not a problem anymore, people will react violently, as if you just assaulted their identity.
This line of thinking makes it extremely difficult for them to get relief. It is also beneficial to pharmaceutical companies who can make a customer for life by convincing customers that if they don't have a certain medication they will always feel miserable.
According to the author, if the patient rejects the doctor's authority, the patient can react even more violently when put on psychiatric medication. Even more interestingly, the author goes on to suggest that patients who do take the medication take it to placate authority, rather than for perceived effect. The author uses the example of someone in a highly stressful job taking Xanax instead of marijuana because while they might believe marijuana helps more, they don't take it due to employer drug tests.
It leads me to this question: when doctors think a medication is working, do they think so because of actual beneficial effects seen in the patient, or simply because the patient is complying with the treatment?
Exactly. I'd like to know if andy_ppp reviews every update to packages that andy_ppp wants to include too.
The reason why Azer Koçulu removing his modules from npm was such a big deal is because a lot of high profile modules depended on at least one of Azer's modules. When you find out that the reason all these modules started breaking is because they needed to load a module to pad a string, the only appropriate reaction is a face palm.
The iPad first came out in 2010. How many of those iPads are still being used? The original iPad can't even run the latest iOS anymore, while you can still load Windows 10 on five-year-old PCs, or many modern versions of Linux.
To add to your grim picture, those PCs that came out five years ago were starting to get Windows 7 installed by default. Maybe in the time since, people owning those PCs didn't upgrade to Windows 8 because of the cost, but Windows 10 was released as a free upgrade to Windows 7 users. Either way, Windows 7, 8 and 10 are still receiving security updates, and Windows 7 still looks and feels like a modern operating system.
Also, buying a replacement drive and copy of windows will still come out a lot cheaper than buying an iPad, and with an iPad there's no way in hell you're going to "install everything exactly as it was before you got there".
It sure as hell won't be iPhones we get into the hands of the poor. There are regional mvno's/prepaid carriers here who pretty much give away cheap android phones to get on their cheap plans.
The media helps this along by sensationalizing any erratic behavior done under the influence of new chemicals. Just look at the coverage bath salts got a few years ago.
It's not just new chemicals either. Stories pop up all the time speculating whether we're over-prescribing ritalin, benzos, antidepressants, pain killers and other mind altering legal drugs. The arguments against are overwhelmingly addiction, but there's also concerns over dementia, suicidal thoughts, and other mental disturbances.
We're already afraid of what happens with chemicals already in the mix, so it is reasonable to be afraid of what might happen with new chemicals.
I have that game, always loved playing that game, and am surprised to know it's now worth at least $80!