Saturday, October 29, 2016

We MUST Do SOMETHING!

Sometimes, all that matters is that you say you will do something.  Found this out in 2008, running for office.  And wrote about it here, for Learn Liberty Blog.

Of course, things can get a little meta.  As here. 


I understand that "environmentalists" will donate money and contribute outrage even if the non-profits swindling them make empty promises.  But c'mon:  You have to pretend to try.

Thursday, October 27, 2016

No Causal Connection Between Sugar-Sodas, Fast Food, Candy, and Obesity

For almost everyone, there is no relationship between access to fast food and candy, and obesity.

Fast food, soft drink and candy intake is unrelated to body mass index for 95% of American adults

David Just & Brian Wansink
Obesity Science & Practice,
December 2015, Pages 126–130

Methods: Using 2007–2008 Centers for Disease Control's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the consumption incidence of targeted foods on two non-continuous days was examined across discrete ranges of BMI. Data were analysed in 2011. Results: After excluding the clinically underweight and morbidly obese, consumption incidence of fast food, soft drinks or candy was not positively correlated with measures of BMI. This was true for sweet snacks (r = 0.005, p  l.t.e. 0.001) and salty snacks (r = 0.001, p = 0.040). No significant variation was found between BMI subcategories in weekly consumption frequency of fast food meals.

Conclusions: For 95% of this study's sample, the association between the intake frequency of fast food, soft drinks and candy and BMI was negative. This result suggests that a strategy that focuses solely on these problem foods may be ineffective in reducing weight. Reducing the total calories of food eaten at home and the frequency of snacking may be more successful dieting advice for the majority of individuals.  

Friday, October 21, 2016

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Capitalism and Objectivification

Wow!  Even by the amazing low standards of Sociology, this is bad.  

Socialism and communism literally objectify the individual, who exists only as a means of advancing the interests of the state.  There is no individual, and no valid reason for people to have rights, separate from their membership in and contributions to the state.  Capitalism, according to Marx, objectifies LABOR, but in a voluntary exchange the only way to get labor is to pay the person.  The labor, and in fact the bodies, of citizens are entirely owned by the state under collectivism.

So, as usual, the goofballs of the left have it backwards:  Capitalism celebrates the individual, and collectivism destroys the individual.


The love of money results in objectification
Xijing Wang & Eva Krumhuber
British Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming

Abstract: Objectification, which refers to the treatment of others as objectlike things, has long been observed in capitalism. While the negative impact of money on interpersonal harmony has been well documented, the social cognitive processes that underlie them are relatively unknown. Across four studies, we explored whether the love of money leads to objectification, while controlling for social power and status. In Study 1, the love and importance attached to money positively predicted the tendency to construe social relationships based on instrumentality. In Study 2, the likelihood to favour a target of instrumental use was increased by momentarily activating an affective state of being rich. Temporarily heightening the motivation for money further resulted in deprivation of mental capacities of irrelevant others, including humans (Study 3) and animals (Study 4). This lack of perceived mental states partially mediated the effects of money on subsequent immoral behaviour (Study 4). The findings are the first to reveal the role of objectification as a potential social cognitive mechanism for explaining why money often harms interpersonal harmony.