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As a guy who almost exclusively "eats" Soylent, I feel targeted lol. I know your post is supposed to be dystopian satire, but... Unironically though, I'm the healthiest I've ever been (375lbs -> 225lbs), and my monthly food expenses are less than a quarter of what it used to be. Been doing this almost 8 years now and while I recognize it's not for everyone, some people could use a little gruel.
The problem is it should be optional. A family of 4, a single parent, or a college grad working 60hrs a week shouldn't only be able to afford gruel.
If you watch old educational and industrial movies from the 1950s (yes, some of us here on Lemmy are, amazingly, weird), you find out that people living on a single income of a father working at a service station could afford a house and a decent dinner for their family.
That may not be 100% accurate, but the fact that they even show it as plausible would be seen as utter nonsense today.
Even going back to the 1980s- Both Roseanne and Dan in Roseanne have trouble holding down a job, but they can still afford a house for their large family and they don't go hungry. Even on Married With Children, they are poor, but they have a house for their four-person family and don't go hungry on a single shoe salesman's salary and no one thought, "how ridiculous! A shoe salesman? With a house?" at the time.
You do have to factor in race, that a lot of what you see on tv was idealised even at the time, and that we now also have unimaginable luxuries that we take for granted. Proper insulation, phones, computers, unlimited music, etc.
In 1950 you could buy a median US house for $20k. A fridge/freezer cost $400, a tv cost $300 and a washer and dryer would cost $500.
Now a median house costs $400k. If the cost of household appliances and electronics had risen as much as houses had, a freezer would cost $8000, a tv would cost $6000 and a washer + dryer would set you back $10000.
I dont know a single person who wouldn't be happy to buy a 8k freezer, a 6k tv and a 10k washer+dryer if it meant they could buy a 20k house.
The appliances were adjusted for inflation, but not the house. $20k in 1950 is $250k today. Median home price in the US is $450k today. So your point still stands, I think.
Average wage in 1950 was something like 5k. So that 20k house is four years wage.
Average wage now is over 50k. Would you be happy to buy a house for four years wage at 200k? Of course you would.
But would you be happy to buy a typical 1950s house with lead pipes, lead paint, asbestos insulation, no central heating and perhaps not even warm water? Questionable. It's the same thing as with cars. 1950s cars were far more affordable. They were also death traps and a recent diesel VW golf can easily outperform many an 80s ferrari.
Of course, it's not 1950. The world is far richer and more technologically advanced. Anyone should be able to afford a small home and the basics on a minimum wage job. If that's not possible anymore, then society (and the government) is failing.
Youre aware a living fuck ton of houses are the same 1950s ones that they bought back then, right? Likely with a few decades of miscellaneous updates, but surely not enough to make a 200k house worth the 400-450k they go for on average now.
Basically, a house now costs 8yrs wage, not 4. Many of those houses are the same ones that used to go for 4yrs wage.
You think because someone paid 10k to update the electrical and tossed in 20k for hvac over the decades its just a wash though, eh?
I used to work in the building industry. Removing asbestos, lead pipes, lead paint, replacing the electrics, replacing windows and insulation, etc. isn't going to cost you 10k. It's obviously also not going to cost you half a million. Just saying that the past wasn't all peaches and cream. You're comparing apples with oranges.
But as I said, it's not 1950. We're richer and more technologically advanced. (Safe) housing should be relatively affordable, and it's a choice that it isn't. Example off the top of my head: Vienna, Austria. Beautiful city in a rich country. Government owns over half the housing stock, so rental prices stay relatively affordable. AFAIK it doesn't cost them much, if anything it makes them money. Not that it matters. Like public transport or roads, they don't need to be profitable.
e: also, it's a huge waste that so much capital is stuck in housing for decades, rather than being used to fund other stuff.
It's also worth noting the quality of the items you were receiving. Those washers and dryers never broke, and if they did, they were easily repairable.
You can still buy commercial grade fridges and washing machines for half the price.
Obviously it was idealized, but no one looked at it and thought "this is absolutely ridiculous and unachievable." And definitely race is a factor, since all the families I mentioned were white, and in the 1950s also benefited from the whites only G.I. Bill, but the idea that it was achievable for anyone on a low income as plausible rather than so idealized as to be impossible shows that it wasn't as ridiculous as it is today.
I mean you also had poor families, both white and black, on TV- The Honeymooners and Good Times both come to mind. But even there, they did mostly okay. And Good Times took place in the projects.
Don't forget the Simpsons. Dad, 3 kids, a homemaker spouse, and two pets in a 2 story home with 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, a garage, basement, and a huge yard in a safe neighborhood. All that on a blue collar salary.
Used to seem totally normal but now that I type that all out it sounds insane
It wasn't that normal even then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axHoy0hnQy8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer's_Enemy
Wow what a plot, I've been watching the Simpsons recently so now I'm excited to get to season 8, what a great show
Optional if self-sufficient, sure. I don't believe that the taxpayer should subsidize the unhealthy eating choices of a family of four that are all each 50-150lbs overweight. A working family should be able to afford healthy foods in reasonable portions on their own. "Government cheese" should probably be gruel. We'd have a much healthier population, and the economic benefits of the taxpayer not also subsidizing the healthcare of the obese later on would be substantial. Heart disease is our #1 population killer by miles, and it feels like we're all taking crazy pills about it.
And I say this as a guy who was once simultaneously 375lbs and poor. I made bad choices, and the healthy choices were a lot cheaper than the bad choices I was making by the virtue of sheer volume. Society should not have been responsible for me should I have needed assistance to maintain that lifestyle.
Your idea of is to limit the options of an already limited class by restricting their food choices/feeding them gruel? Considering the price of healthy food costs more, the limited options in food deserts, lack of time to cook for ppl working long hours, and everything else that affect poor ppl when it comes to food options your idea is to punish the poor instead of fixing the culture and systems that perpetuate the problem? Ppl don't even get that much money now on WIC.
Except that's what the government is suppose to do. If you fit the parameters for aid regardless of circumstances, you fucking get it. If 1 fat lazy slob gets aid for every 5 who really needs it, im fine with that.
Except what you think should be doesn't really matter when the reality is the opposite. This sounds like sound ass backwards right-wing libertarian bullshit.
ONlY pPl I ThINk DeSErve AiD sHOuld GEt iT
Only people who try to help themselves deserve help from others. Why should the government support someone's bad eating habit when they don't support someone's alcohol habit, or cocaine habit? My argument is not that people don't deserve subsidized help; my argument is that as a society, we should look at a mcdouble and see cocaine, not an apple. All I'm proposing is consistency.
If you step back from your "personal responsibility" argument and personal feelings, you'd see that all data points to the fact that eliminating means testing for safety net recipients always produces overall higher rates of success, leaves less people who need help to fall through the cracks, saves money for the government, is far more effective at helping people get back up on their own, and introduces no significant rise in fraud.
You're letting your feelings about how individuals "should" behave (a very subjective and culturally-driven standard) get in the way of what data and numbers from past large-scale experiments have shown us.
It's not about feelings, or fraud. It's about believing that the models everyone loves to cite don't accurately portray the complexities of reality. The reality is that even with record poverty and unemployment, we also have both record levels and record severities of obesity transcending generations.
Do any of those models account for the healthcare cost burdens of the willfully unhealthy as they transition into their elderly years? If so I'd genuinely like to see those models. In the research I've done, most models fall short of projecting long-term impacts and related costs. Yeah of course I can get behind supporting people out of bad situations with less oversight if the math works out. I just don't think the math works out when you actually account for long-term impacts of supporting bad habits.
Except those models are the best we have and are the result of long term research. Unless there's new data that says otherwise its stupid to use anything else.
Considering how health care system is already wrecked, bloated, and filled with wasteful spending it'd be smarter to fix that instead of cutting food programs because you think poor ppl are just lazy slobs
Unless you're a professional data scientist you're research doesn't amount to shit. Especially since you don't seem to factor in outside stimuli that creates shitty eating habits like affordability, adjacency to stores that sell healthy food, and the fact most of our food is filled with sugar for no damn reason.
I know all about stimuli that creates shitty eating habits. Source(anecdotally, sure): I was once 375lbs. I choose soylent as my primary nutrition because of how hard it is to eat healthily, cheaply, otherwise. I think others could benefit from an internal shift in perspective about what food is, and what food should be. When you discipline yourself to separate food into categories of fuel and pleasure, it's a lot simpler to find a sustainable balance. I still eat other things when I go out with friends or my wife but otherwise, we both mostly fuel ourselves with flavorless goup and are the healthiest we've ever been for it. Mentally, Physically, Emotionally, everything. At first it sucks to see ads for taco bell and whatever but by the time you've lost 150lbs and you feel the difference in your body, it's just not worth it. I'm not suggesting this lifestyle to anyone with reasonable portion control and health, I'm suggesting this lifestyle to anyone who chooses to pay too much to eat too much and could benefit from a change.
I'm actuality not quite sure about the healthcare system impacts, thought that's something you've now peeked my interest in. Will do more reading.
Re: obesity and poverty: the two are often inseparable in discussions such as this. We know that poorer communities are often food deserts, not because there a lack of restaurants/groceries, but because the availability of nutritious, affordable options is nonexistent (or extremely limited). If an individual has $100 to spend on food for the family, the unhealthy options will generally be preferred because they pack more bang for the buck in terms of caloric impact and ability to stretch the quantity, not to mention the time-savings factor which we can't ignore for individuals who may be balancing multiple jobs and family responsibilities.
Unironically, and not in the right-wing meme way: Change my mind. I think socratic exchanges in good faith are the best way to expose the flaws in one's arguments. I absolutely could be wrong, and honestly I would love to be wrong about this one. Bypassing bureaucracy to offer unconditional aid, and it actually having a net benefit, is easily the ideal solution. And either way, thank you for at least hearing out the argument in good faith.
My counter to "food deserts" is modern logistics. Soylent may not be the cheapest, but even in it's most expensive form (premixed, preflavored, individually bottled, and shipped via an online purchase) it's like $3.25/400kcal. Which sounds like a lot, but for people who need to lose weight, ~1600-2000kcal per day is $400/mo/person. That is very easily eclipsed by a largely fast food and freezer dinner diet. Yes it's a fair argument that soylent isn't a fair fight on strictly calories/dollar, but it is a fair fight on dollars/meal and dollars/good_nutrition. Plenty of poor families spend that or more with assistance on fast food and freezer dinners because it's cheap, convenient, and filling, but the same dollar could be spent on a healthy alternative at even it's least efficient form. The less convent and more efficient forms come around ~$1.50/400kcal and that would put a month's of calories at less than $200 per person. I would challenge someone to feed a person, even unhealthily, for less. Feeding the poor and hungry isn't an economics or logistics problem, it's a perspective and individual willpower problem.
I'm not a doctor at all, but for certain addictions, people can die from the withdrawls that occur if they just stop. I'd imagine in those cases rehab and treatment requires supporting the habit via the drug itself or a safer analog in order to keep the individual alive so that they are able to draw down and eventually quit whatever the source of their addiction is.
For example:
I would support programs that weaned people out of unhealthy eating habits, and ones that accommodate for special dietary needs (fiber, insulin, etc). That seems totally reasonable.
Like I'm not against living with just ~the bare necessities~ regarding sustenance, but my god have you seen some of these these poor people cans? That ain't meat, bro. Soylent Green are a step up, in that it actually has nutritional value.
The only cheap food I buy is soylent. I buy so little other food comparatively that it's not difficult to afford some nice ingredients to cook a weekend dinner with, or to go out for a treat. I would not wish a life of mcdoubles and canned meat on anyone.
Very similar. I am on two bottles of Soylent a day to lose weight. It is working but I can't wait until I get to normal weight and not have to drink soy juice anymore.
There is something so wrong with everything when I am working at my desk, my 12:00 alarms beeps, I spend two minutes drinking my lunch, and now I can just go back to work. Like what the fuck. My ancestors toiled for a 100,000 years for this?
Do you have a plan for not rebounding? The thing about weight is it's simple, not easy. Simple as in calories in <= calories out. Not easy as in willpower to maintain the net equation. If you get down to a weight and immediately go back to what you were doing, you'll just gain the weight right back. Your lifestyle shift doesn't need to be bottles of goup for 2 meals a day but you do need to find a sustainable way to have <= 400kcal breakfasts and lunches forever.
My solution was to just keep drinking the goup lol
Do you use the powder? How do you typically mix things up?
I did the powder for the first ~3 years when I was starting out. I lost almost all the weight in 1.5 years, and since then have just lowered bodyfat percentage and increased muscle mass, while maintaining weight. These days I'm in a better position financially and can afford the premium of the ready-to-drink bottles so I mostly do that. Unironically I found that "mixing things up" with flavors and additives triggers that hunger within me to consume. I don't mean hunger like caloric, stomach grumble hunger, I mean hunger like an addiction hunger. Keeping it to a single flavor, and a strict schedule helps me turn that part of my brain off and I can now make the mental distinction between "fuel" and "pleasure". When I am out for date night with the wife or have people over for football it's "pleasure". When I'm getting up in the morning for work or eating lunch in-between tickets or sitting down for dinner between work and evening leisure it's "fuel". I consume accordingly, and single-flavor soylent is my "fuel".
Not them. I use the bottles. I did the powder for a while but kinda fell off of it. Thinking of going back, my coworker wants to introduce me to the world of flavor additives to Soylent so that should be fun I guess. Peanut butter and banana Soylent doesn't sound so bad.
You honestly piss me off because I have a mystery disease and have not eaten solid food for five months. I live on Ensure and Gatorade. The fact that you can choose to eat want you wanted but don't?
And sure, I've lost weight too. And I was overweight. I'm now within 10 pounds of my ideal weight according to my BMI. I don't get to go to the Mayo Clinic until the end of March. I will be underweight by then. Possibly significantly- my weight loss amount tends to fluctuate, but it can be over a pound a day sometimes. Hoo-fucking-ray. Oh yeah, also I'm not spending much on food BECAUSE I CAN'T FUCKING EAT IT.
(Please no medical advice. If I'm going to the Mayo Clinic, you don't have the answer.)
I'm far from alone even with people who don't have mystery diseases. There are plenty of people on severe dietary restrictions because of their health who would love to do nothing more than eat a large pizza or a burger, something they will never be able do to again for the rest of their lives.
Go eat some real food. Because you can.
I haven't been so annoyed in a while.
I upset you because... I found a sustainable way to eat better without breaking the bank, and I'm now healthy for it? I'm sorry that you have to deal with whatever you're dealing with; nobody deserves to live in a universe where their body rejects common foods. I'm not a doctor don't worry; I have no medical advice for you. I do have some philosophical advice though. You should look within to figure out why you're mad at me; I'm not your enemy.
You upset me because you could eat whatever you want and instead live on nutrition shakes when, not just me, but a huge number of people wish they had the choice you did. And wouldn't brag about it.
I cannot "eat whatever I want". Eating whatever I wanted lead me to be 375lbs. Since I cannot eat whatever I want, I choose to eat something convenient, easy to count, and inexpensive to obtain. I live a life closer to yours than you think, constantly wishing I could eat whatever I desired and remain healthy. I brag about it because for me it's hard to choose to do the right thing, and I make the right choice every day, multiple times a day.
An alcoholic should be proud to brag about being 8 years sober, shouldn't they?
Okay, you're right. I apologize.
We're all in this world together dude/dudette/dudelse, I truly wish you the best and hope you get whatever you've got figured out. I'm glad we found some common ground; that's what this place (is? should be?) all about!
Agreed. I wish you the best too!
tagged "rad dudeelse", cheers