I was reading a story from this series (I don't know what it's called, but it's essentially about the economy / technology of the future), and I came accross this quote:
"Sure, will-power. Will-power nothing. The thing is, when three quarters of America are obese, when half are dangerously obese, like me, years off our lives from all the fat -- that tells you that this isn't a will-power problem. We didn't get less willful in the last fifty years. Might as well say that all those people who died of the plague lacked the will-power to keep their houses free of rats. Fat isn't moral, it's epidemiological. There are a small number of people, a tiny minority, whose genes are short-circuited in a way that makes them less prone to retaining nutrients. That's a maladaptive trait through most of human history -- burning unnecessary calories when you've got to chase down an antelope to get more, that's no way to live long enough to pass on your genes! So you and Perry over here with your little skinny selves, able to pack away transfats and high-fructose corn-syrup and a pound of candy for breakfast at the IHOP, you're not doing this on will-power -- you're doing it by expressing the somatype of a recessive, counter-survival gene.
Would I like to be thinner? Sure. But I'm not gonna let the fact that I'm genetically better suited to famine than feast get to me. Speaking of, let's eat."
Damn. That'll show my skinny ass what's up. I never thought of it that way. I suppose most people never do.
Anyway, the rest of the series is full of good stuff. Real utopian.
Namaste.
PS - Man, all this reading on Transcendentalism is really getting to me. I sure hope my "teaching" tomorrow is up to Ms. Shulman's level.
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2 comments:
Haha, yeah... I actually stumbled upon that thought not too long ago... at least it seems that way. I mean, first off, imagine if you were put somewhere where you weren't allowed to eat and were basically starved to death. Who do you think would win? Certainly not me... I'd wither away like... something that withers quickly. I mean, just from not eating for one day, I'll easily lose 7 lbs. Not that I've ever done it, but I know because I've skipped meals and it had a dramatic effect.
Ed would have us all pwned. But then again... you have to consider the environment you live in. Why claim that you are fit to survive in "natural conditions" instead of being fit in the conditions that you are exposed to? That's where adaptation comes from. Organisms expanding into foreign worlds where different rules are followed in order to survive. Darwinism applies whereever there are people, not just in nature.
"Ed would have us all pwned"
Hahaha. Yep. Fat FTW!
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