From: Ramez Naam (mez@apexnano.com)
Date: Wed Mar 05 2003 - 09:16:26 MST
From: Robert J. Bradbury [mailto:bradbury@aeiveos.com]
> Thus the U.S. could eliminate the entire population of Iraq
> (~24 million people, a one time event) and still be causing
> significantly less "extropic" damage than excess caloric
> consumption is doing (*each* year).
>
> So, *why* the blazes is the ExI list debating IRAQ when
> it should be debating caloric intake?
Thanks for a thought-provoking question, Robert. As Lee Corbin
posted, thinking about Iraq and about obesity are not mutually
exclusive.
That having been said: The US invasion of Iraq is being driven by a
very small number of actors. If you could change the minds of just a
handful of people, it wouldn't happen. In contrast, obesity is driven
by decisions distributed across billions of individuals. Those
decisions are themselves driven by biologically influenced behaviors
that have evolved over 10s of millions of years, if not longer (stock
up on calories, you never know when you'll need them!).
As a result, the invasion of Iraq is easier to get one's head around.
You can point to a clear lever point that could prevent it, if only
you could somehow influence that point.
Personally I feel that the most realistic way to counter wide spread
detrimental decision making (like consuming too many calories) is to
modify ourselves and our offspring to remove or reduce some of the
biological urges that were adaptive in prehistoric times but are now
harming us.
mez
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