My eyebrows nearly shot off the top of my head at this, because:
This. Do you imagine that if you swapped American babies with European ones for a few years, the American obesity problem would resolve itself? The fact that there’s a difference between Americans and other OECD countries in this regard is evidence that environmental effects are more powerful, at least in aggregate, than any individual capacity to make choices.
“Making choices” always turns out to be without any explanatory power, and the reason it has no explanatory power is that it is an incoherent idea. My behaviour is the product of the operation of my brain, which is a complex electrical circuit, basically. Where in this am “I” and what is this “making choices”? Am I some kind of ghost in the machine who can prod electrons as they whiz past and thus alter the result of the electrical activity in the brain?
I’m not really sure which thread this belongs in, so I will just stick it here.
I know people fell snake-bit over 2016 and are wary of polls, but it’s not like pollsters haven’t been updating their methodology. In retrospect, Bernie’s Michigan miracle in the primaries was a sign that something may have been off four years ago and this wasn’t repeated in 2020.
Here’s a story about how polling organizations have been working on adjusting their models to be more accurate.
Orban was ruling by decree not so long ago. That got removed by parliament pretty recently. However, all he needs now is for the health minister to rule covid worthy of state of emergency and never remove it. Then it’s rule by decree for good.
This was my research interest before my academic career was derailed (by a disease that affects metabolism no less). That’s the reason I feel like the YTF thread is gold. He was very open and honest about his thought process regarding food in a way that most people are not. From my perspective, one of the most interesting things he said was probably the most banal: the rigidity with which he believed certain foods must be paired together. I can’t remember the exact meal but it was something like “You can’t have steak without potatoes, silly!”
I was specifically interested in trying to suss this part out but never got there. I like your model of neocortex and lower brain function. Most of the eating behavior research I’m familiar with focuses on purely psychological phenomena with inadequate appreciation for what’s going on underneath. It’s really tough to beat your vagus nerve and hypothalamus, so I think identifying those triggers, as you’ve done, is the first step in actually gaining control with CBT or nudging. Are you familiar with sham feeding?
