I doubt that. I think "genetics" or "medical issues" are a useful excuse more often than they are the actual reason. The known genetics that cause serious obesity are all in the range of "one in thousands", if not ten-thousands.

I'm not saying it's all the fault of the fat people. There is a HUGE part of the blame going to the food industry that creates and promotes stuff that is outright hostile to our health. There is another big share going to fast food and cinemas and other food establishments claiming one litre is a "normal" size for a sugary drink. And there's a share going to education in letting kids who are just starting to get fat off easily instead of forcing them to do sports and endure the humiliations for the chance that they decide it's better to eat less and be more fit than being the laughing stock of the class.

Because yes, some of us have genetics working against them and will fat up more easily than others. Heck, for most of my life I couldn't gain weight even if I tried. I can totally imagine someone having the opposite problem. And if drugs help, sure, why not. Though like all drugs, it should be part of a change, not a replacement. Because the biggest wet dream of the pharma industry is that you keep eating all that shit and become a life-long addic^H^H^Huser of their expensive drug.

It seems we agree on most of this.

And that narrative wouldn't survive if there weren't a grain of truth to it.

I've gone through rather hard times, and gained weight. For my standards, a LOT of weight. But I still fit in a regular-size seat and some of my old clothes still fit. In order to become the double-width, door-blocking behemoth that too many have become takes a lot more than not eating healthy enough. And no, it's not explained away by genetics. ALL of our bodies are programmed to look for and store excess calories for bad times. Some more than others, sure. That explains why you might be 10 or 20% more heavy than me. But it doesn't explain fatso over there who is twice our combined weight.

The problem with fasting and most diets is that you are sending a clear message to your body: "Hey, did you notice that we don't always get food when we want? Better store even more when we do!"

Uh, no. Most people are unwilling to change their habits beyond token measures.

Myself included. I should use that gym membership a lot more than I do. But I don't blame it on genetics, I blame it on my (temporarily) shit life and inability to get my lazy ass up and just go.

Actually, no. (Most) Fast food is mediocre but reliable quality food that you buy when you want to eat but don't really care what. If you cared, you would easily find something better, but if you don't care then the occasional fast food at least gives you something that is somewhat tasty and unlikely to land you in the hospital.

There is a place in the market for the "I just want to eat something" segment.

All good points. And two or three years in the future, when it's time for me to look for a new car, that will probably have improved even more.

If it helps, I think the best metaphor for the consciousness we have right now is that it's essentially the CEO - has no clue about 90% of what's going on in the company but does make most of the really important decisions. Well, except for who to fall in love with, how to react under stress, whom to like or dislike and whether or not to give in to temptation. The more I think about it, it's maybe more like a majority shareholder - can try to give the company a general direction and hope for the best. :-)

Everything you wrote is true.

Even so, there are experiments where test subjects are asked to make a choice, like pressing one of two buttons depending on which picture they get shown, as fast as possible. Not a trivial "press the button with the same number" but something involving decision-making like "which one would you rather have". Measurements showed that their muscles had activated before the time we believe to be the shortest possible decision time for the conscious mind. And yet they could then explain exactly why they had chosen left and not right. It is quite obvious that the explanation is after-the-fact.

I think we experience this daily. You meet someone new and within the first two seconds you have decided that you like or dislike them. This decision is based on things you can't or wouldn't say out loud. They smell, their nose is weird, they remind you of your ex, whatever. A minute later you'll move away and tell your buddy that you don't like them because - and then you make up a reason that you yourself entirely believe, but it's not the actual reason. It's something you started searching for unconsciously after your unconscious mind had already decided to not like them.

Conscious thinking does activate and decide when things are slightly more complicated, yes. And yes, experiments have been done on very simple things like pressing one of two buttons. The point is that even in those simple experiments, test subjects BELIEVE that they made a conscious decision, but measurements show that their fingers had already started moving by the time the conscious brain had had enough time to decide. In other words: They decided and acted first, unconsciously, and THEN the brain somehow convinced the consciousness "sure buddy, it was all your decision, definitely. Should I come up with a reason why you decided the way I ... sorry, YOU did?"

I don't mean computer simulation.

I mean that a good part of the reality we believe we experience is a simulation our brain provides to our consciousness so that it doesn't feel like it's in the passenger seat - which most of the time it actually is.

Exactly. I'd love to have a hybrid because most of my travel (by numbers) I would do within a range where even with no charging at the destination I would be comfortably back home where my solar can top up the car. And the other half (by distance) of travel I'd know it just switches to petrol when the battery is out.

We are getting further away from that goal however, not closer. I used to travel a lot by train in Germany. I mean a lot - I was just a bit short of the BahnCard 100 being the commercially best option. Today though, every single time I looked at trains as the alternative it isn't the better option. I've even tried taking the night train for trips I usually do by plane and I'll never, ever, do that again, it was a terrible mistake.

Our current political parties are all clusterfucks in the pockets of either lobbyists or ideologies or both. Taking care of civilian infrastructure is a no-thanks job that they'd rather push to the next government (which then pushes it to the next, etc.)

As long as they have incentives to do so. The incentives can be three types: a) mandated by law, b) requested by customers, c) charger operator pays them a small fee or percentage which means they can monitize space that they already have anyways.

Because I am assuming real-world conditions where you can't be sure to start off at 100%. And in this particular case, I knew there wouldn't be a charger at the destination, so I had to arrive with enough battery to park the car for a week and then drive to wherever the nearest charger was.

It depends. When I'm on a leisure trip I take my time, stop more often for sights, take 2 hour breaks to see something interesting on the way, etc. But sometimes, I need to be somewhere at a given time. Or otherwise don't want any unnecessary delays. I once drove 1200 km with two cats in the car in winter. Couldn't exactly leave them there alone for 20 min., so if I'm anyway forced to sit in the car, I can just as well drive.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have an EV. I'm just saying that for the moment, for my needs, a plug-in hybrid is obviously the better choice. And I believe for many other people it's similar. And the sales figures confirm that.

No, because I don't yet own an EV and it's not like I travel that exact route all the time. It was just an example. And yes, I consider 20 min an extended break. On long drives I take 3-4 breaks of 5-10 min. max. - I'd rather add one or two short breaks then make the breaks longer. From a comfort and relaxing POV, there's no difference between 10 and 20 min. but there is a difference between 2 and 3 breaks. But YMMV.

No, the reason they work is because unlike petrol pumps you can put up a charger anywhere. Over here, most supermarkets have EV charging in their parking lot, and if demand goes up they could easily just add a couple more. Same for train station parking and park&ride. Heck, the P&R in my village added solar panel roofs last year so we now have charging and parking in the shade.

Not to mention that as prices for solar continue to fall, more and more people can charge at home for free. And people love free stuff.

That is true.

That's bullshit. An east-west crossing on the I-20 and I-30 takes, according to Google Maps, about 11 hours. That's roughly the same time it would take to cross Germany from north to south.

Of which 46 are smaller than Texas, and 45 are less than half the size of Texas.

There are. Details vary by country.

But it's not just subsidies. Increasingly, in the city centers cars are forced out by simply making driving hell, and parking even worse - but you can usually find an EV charging spot where it is legal to stand as long as you are charging. There are also various exceptions - sometimes from road tolls, but in at least one country (Austria) driving an EV means that in some places the speed limit doesn't apply to you (whenever the bureaucratic reason for that speed limit in that place is to keep the air clean).