Some questions: 1. If I were a betting man, I’d put money on my right hand predicting at least a 90% chance that by the end of the century, as much as 50% of the human population of the world would be obese or handicapped.
2. I’ve been told that the human lifespan has been steadily rising, but that the average lifespan has been stagnant for several hundred years. So far the rise in average lifespan is barely perceptible compared to the huge increases in lifespan we’ve had in the past, right? But I think it’ll plateau at maybe 80 or 90 years, which would break the current record. I think the overall trend will be that the fat/handicapped rates will accelerate as the world gets less healthy.
3. I think the proper way to think about obesity is like drug addiction. Easy to measure, hard to treat. Notorious for being under-reported, because people don’t want to believe those around them are addicts.
4. The correlation between obesity and other serious problems, like heart disease isn’t really as tight as the correlation would suggest.
5. If a society can get people to start taking statins, even if not everyone does, the statins will trend upwards even as the rest of the health trend will accelerate.
6. If obesity rates spike in your civilization (say, in the next few decades), will the same pattern of societal response ever produce the same and opposite spike in the statin rates?
7. The proper way to think about weight gain is like building on a shaky foundation of sandbags. Big increases in weight, but eventually the whole thing collapses and you have to rebuild.
8. Would it be better for the world if obesity rates spiked in our civilization in the future?
9. If you could take any modern Westerner (let’s assume male), give them $1000, and have refused food and drink for a week, which group (male or female) would have the lowest body mass index?
10. I’ve been told that the average lifespan has been slowly rising over the past 50 or even 100 years. But I don’t think it offers much consolation to think that the trend will steadily continue. If the trend were really leveling out the average lifespan would be much closer to the life of our hunter-gatherer forebears. It’s more likely that we are seeing why the change will plateau, and the increase will continue to grow.
11. If obesity rates spike in your society, how likely is it there to be other sharp spikes in the same direction in the future?
12. Given Hanson down-program, what would it take to get people to start doing things which aren’t super productive for them?
13. For a poor person, it may not be the moral thing to eat all the food they see. We may be tempted to do otherwise when we’re worried about where our next meal is coming from. But if we are poor and we see someone who is really thin, it is hard not to be impressed.
14. What if you could trade calories and other nutrients to a starving people?
15. What would it take for you to start doing things which aren’t super productive for you?
16. I think most societies would be surprised if I told them that a child born to extremely obese mothers is more likely to die before age 5 than one born to an extremely thin mother. It means they are less mobile, and that they get less medical attention. I think that similar effects would apply to handicapped people, and that the same effect would be seen in the future.
17. I think when you’re worried about the food sources around you, it’s hard not to care about their future well-being. What I’m worried more about is all the people in the future who didn’t get a chance to be born.
18. We’re not sure where extra calories are going, so we don’t know how well it’s serving us or harming us–or even if it’s even serving us.
19. If you could have the equivalent of 10 extra years on average, would you trade them for calories?
20. If you had to choose between a disabled child and a child of average health, would you want the child born that you’d want?
21. If the world in 2100 is like the world in 2013, would it be better or worse off?
22. In what ways does being unhealthy impact my life? How has being unhealthy affected your life?
23. If we stopped worrying about obesity tomorrow, what would it take to get people to actually start doing something about it?
24. If you had unlimited resources, would you still do what it took to build the F-35?
25. If the world really was overpopulated today, what kind of help would it give a normal-sized family?
26. Group living: what’s your ideal form of urban living? Would you be happier in a large communal housing project or a smaller group house?
27. It’s more desirable to live like a hunter-gatherer, but do you think our descendants will also be happier living more densely?
28. How do you think the world could be different?
29. If you had unlimited resources, do you think it would be enough to help all the billions of people in the world without proper healthcare?
30. If you could make one thing different in the world today, what would it be?
31. Life expectancy has been steadily rising over the last few hundred years. Many of your questions are asking about long-term trends, or about worse, better, worst-case scenarios. How can we now expect the rate of increase in life expectancy to continue?
32. Some behaviors will continue to increase and others will decrease. How do you think these patterns will look?
33. One conclusion we can draw from available data is that, with now available resources, we can see that extreme inequality has negative health consequences.
34. Many people are afraid they won’t be around for their families to remember them. What would it take to change their fear of dying without a good funeral?
35. Do you expect your own children to remember your life?
Competing for the title of World’s Worst Pedant
(No one has challenged this title yet)
