h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I should probably start preparing to introduce other topics, but I'll give it one more try. I'm not an expert on baryatric medicine, nor is it likely that such an expert is going to appear on this thread.

"Cutting down what you eat and doing more exercise is something which, if it's going to work at all, is something you keep doing for the rest of your life. In perhaps 90% of cases, people get bored of not being able to eat rubbish or spend all day lounging around, and they stop sticking to their diet or give up going to the gym. And yes, in such cases, the weight, entirely predictably, 'comes back on'."

I'm not here to say that that is untrue as it stands. What I am going to say is that the metbolism has various trigger points. Meanwhile, the mind has very likely been through the ringer, and can't maintain the stress of dieting for much longer. Unfortunate? Yes. This is where doctors and nutritionists and weight-loss groups such as Weight Watchers may come in and help. In some cases they do keep people from regaining a lot of the weight. In many cases, the person who has lost weight is adrift in a world where companies with bad diet ideas lay in wait, helpful overweight friends are eager to welcome them back for overeating sessions at the local restaurants, and [very likely] the same job that involves sitting in front of a computer for eight hours a day. It isn't any one of these that spells doom, it's the whole thing acting in concert.

Well, fine. You can get another job, one that involves more daily on-the-job activity. You can get a new set of friends, one that eats sensibility and meagerly. Even better, you can jettison the idea that being a lot thinner will make you happier. it won't there are lots of severely unhappy thin people around. There are lots of unhealthy thin people around, people who have terrible lifestyles and no inclination to exercise. I submit that focussing on the things that will make you healthier -- lots of daily exercise of the right sort, severe restrictions on high-glycemic foods and bad fats, adequate sleep, less stress, and a focus on maintaining a stable weight in a range that, while perhaps higher than ideal weight, is not actually dangerous. This approach does work. It doesn't deny the equation that you and others have agreed on -- more exercise and fewer calories equals weight loss.

I like to find the best recent scientific findings and apply them, but that's just me. Have a nice day.

I see that one of my sentences is ungrammatical. Here's a better version:

" I submit that focussing on the things that will make you healthier -- lots of daily exercise of the right sort, severe restrictions on high-glycemic foods and bad fats, adequate sleep, less stress, and a focus on maintaining a stable weight in a range that, while perhaps higher than ideal weight, is not actually dangerous -- will give you a safely lower weight and have you feeling much better.

Will people stop answering people's points before i get a chance to!?

I go with Mr X that i would be worried if voting was made mandatory, despite voter apathy

Though in 50 years a more direct version of democracy might be possible

Resilience to GM crops and medicines? Given that altered foods will be necessary to feed the 9 billion or so people around
I will severely hope that meat is not disdained - though unless the ability to grow it kicks off it will certainly be more expensive

If it became possible to vat grow any meat (and flavour, and texture etc etc) would it become distasteful to continue to eat "normal" meat given the agricultural inefficency? Maybe

Mandatory voting could only be dystopian. I can picture squads circling the streets looking for people WITHOUT purple fingers and hunting them down. Or, being held in some Room Number 1 somewhere and being read a list of all your previous votes in an accusatory way.

Actually, I'd personally like to redraw the entire democratic plans and combine representative democracy and meritocracy. Maybe have weighted voting for the more qualified candidates. Why should we always have to choose between a couple of plutocrats whose greatest qualities are a good stage presence and bright shiny teeth?

ah, but how do you then deal with people who had a worse chance of getting any decent formal education?

Other than redirect them here of course - would being on h2g2 get you extra votes?

Having a different opinion from everyone else. Because apparently thinking differently from everyone is totally against the law.

Voting is compulsory in Australia, and they seem not to be a totalitarian regime..

No, but only about thirty people live there, so they have to do something to ensure a turnout.

B

But Australia has an atheist PM and everyone knows that all the worst totalitarian regimes were led by atheists. Ya know... like Hitler?


There, I got Godwin's law out of the way.

I knew someone would use it sooner or later

I was thinking about Australia, but i disagree with it when i first heard of it as a kid and do well over a decade later


...that would be the compulsory voting, not Australia...probably

I was going to mention Australia's compulsory voting. Seems to work OK. Of course, it's compulsory to vote - it's not compulsory to vote for anyone in particular, or indeed anyone at all - it is (I think) legal to spoil your ballot. It's just not legal to never have seen it. And they don't go round rounding people up for not voting, any more than they go round rounding up people for not paying their council tax or speeding tickets. You just get legally sanctioned in the usual way, which means, IF you persist in your recalcitrance, yes, eventually you might end up the wrong side of a cell door. But to reach that point you'd need a really strong commitment to apathy...

Yes, i know about the ability to then spoil your ballot, however it still forces you to go to a specific place, despite not harming someone by your absence - in effect one right has become a requirement and is pushing other rights

I vote in the comfort of my own home (mainly because I'm usually spending polling day in the wrong polling station).

Mol

"in effect one right has become a requirement and is pushing other rights"

How about one right has become a responsibility? Society grants you many, many "rights" - life, liberty, free speech, whatever - but how much does it demand in return? A vote once every four or five years seems a small thing to demand in return for the benefits of civil society.

And as has been pointed out, you are in any case wrong about being required to be somewhere in particular.

How about being responsible for ones self? That means critical thought about all aspects of ones life, short though it may be in geological time. Being a as requested early a 60's, or 70's Human, actually 50's girl; please read, google or search and perhaps glimpse and understanding of behavioural aspects of our perception of real world; that does not include human prejudices. May be one should go back a wee bit further and include the research being done in brain imaging, and correlate that though we have evolved in socially aspects we have not....we are just animals perhaps with are larger brain mass, but please do not forget where we are from .

>> we are just animals perhaps with a larger brain mass,
but please do not forget where we are from. <<

Many of us came from single cells,
by coercing our cell-mates into
supporting roles. Survival of
the phattest.


~jwf~

Nosebagbadger - why are you so against having to vote? People have died all over the world through the centuries for that one, little, responsibility.

I'd like to couple the requirement to vote coupled with a "none of the above" option.

If you can't find anyone to vote for - you could always stand for election yourself

"You know what would be great to consider as unacceptable in 50 years? Slavery. There are more slaves today than at the height of the colonial slave trade era."

Like hell there are. I only refer to America mind, not the whole world, but if you can actually show me valid statistics that /prove/ this, I will be shocked and appalled.

However, even in that unlikely circumstance, I would be quick to point out that we have something like 120-times the population that we did then. So unless there are also 120-times the number of slaves, and you and I both know there aren't, it's an inherently misleading statement that's proportionally incorrect.



"Voting is compulsory in Australia, and they seem not to be a totalitarian regime.. "

Heh, not yet maybe...

'Sides, they have all those crocodiles to keep them occupied.



"But Australia has an atheist PM and everyone knows that all the worst totalitarian regimes were led by atheists. Ya know... like Hitler?"

Hey!

That's like saying that vegetarians and dog-lovers are evil just because Hitler was a vegetarian and a dog-lover.

'Sides, it's not even true. From what I can tell he was actually somewhere between an agnostic and a deist. So there.



"in effect one right has become a requirement and is pushing other rights"

~*~How about one right has become a responsibility? Society grants you many, many "rights" - life, liberty, free speech, whatever - but how much does it demand in return? A vote once every four or five years seems a small thing to demand in return for the benefits of civil society.~*~

Now remember, I agree that it's a civil responsibility and that people should make informed votes. I merely point out that if someone doesn't /want/ to vote they shouldn't be forced to. More importantly, if they can't be bothered to get off their fat ignorant butt and go make an informed decision once every four years, then I for one don't want them voting anyway.

I do vote( well actually that's not quite true - there hasn't been a vote since i became 18 - missed out on the STV vote a scattering of days), so i'm not even pushing for the right not to vote
And yes people fought for centuries, but i believe they fought for the right, not the responsibility