(April 20, 2016 at 6:30 am)AJW333 Wrote:(April 19, 2016 at 10:29 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: One example is that it was an evolutionary survival factor for us to prefer fat, sugar, salt, and carbohydrates because food was hard to acquire in the H-G tribal days;Call me a cynic but are you sure this was evolutionary? Seems to me we eat crap because of slick marketing and the food companies know how to get us addicted.
Good question! We call it being skeptical. It's okay!
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We're encouraged to choose crap over healthier foods through marketing, etc., but that's not the only reason we crave it. Even the highest-quality gourmet meal will contain measures of salt, fat, and carbs (barring a couple of particular, deliberate diets that exclude same), because those are what our bodies crave. It's why "Diet" soda and "fat free" Ranch taste awful. Our brains have a dopamine-reward center that is triggered when we eat foods that would have provided calories at a time when food wasn't guaranteed to be available. (Salt, of course, is necessary for other reasons, and sugar seems to activate the opioid systems.)
What the food people have done is to lock in on the substances which our brains find addictive (for literally the same reason, and in the same brain-locales, as cocaine), and figure out the right proportions to make their product hit all those buttons, so to speak. They then put out advertising which reminds our brains how much we enjoyed those potato chips (salty, fatty, carb-filled snack) or candy bars (salty, fatty, sugar-filled snack, often with carbs).
You can Google it yourself, if you like... but the short version is that eating foods which would have helped our ancestors will trigger endorphin releases in your brain, which can be observed in brain scans.
(April 20, 2016 at 6:30 am)AJW333 Wrote:(April 19, 2016 at 10:29 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: What!?!
While I agree that our population is expanding too quickly for the health of ourselves or our planet, I find it sick that you could even entertain the thought (even if you're just fantasizing that that's how we think!) that our hatred/fear of one another has a good purpose.
I was extrapolating the cold hard logic of natural selection. You might be shocked to find just how many of the "elite" are depopulationists, eg Bill Gates, Hillary Clinton, Prince Phillip etc. Here's a list of interesting quotes to consider. Yes it is ugly but it's how a bunch of world leaders are thinking.
As for me, my wife and I sponsor 4 kids in Africa and have done for over 20 years. So no, I'm not a genocidal maniac
Um, there's not much question that we're a plague on the earth, and that it would be better to reduce the global population. However, that's nothing like being in favor of genocide or starvation. Through his Gates Foundation, in particular, Bill Gates has done amazing work in staving off both disease and starvation in third-world countries.
By the way, it's awesome that you and your wife do that. See? You have a little bit of Humanism in your heart.
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A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.