A fat-phobic encounter

[skull_bearer]

So I was at a really great house party run by an old professor of mine, and it was a really good time, a lot of really friendly fannish people, loads of fellow geeks, so I was wandering around chatting to just about everyone and it was really enjoyable.

However, you know that horrible feeling when you start talking to someone and it slowly dawns on you that their opinions are not only utterly unlike yours, they're downright opposed?

I was talking to two people in the sitting room, and they suddenly went on a rant on how more people died last year from overeating than undereating. Being the glass-half-full person I am, I said 'oh, that's good right? It means less people are dying of hunger.' And they shot back 'no it's bad, I hate humans and want them to die'. Then they went on about how if fat people die it's a good thing because they're clearly not putting in the effort to lose weight and are all lazy and just don't want to try and stay alive. 'If you see a bus coming towards you, you get out of the way, right? So why aren't these people doing the same?'

And I was just internally going WTF and trying to point out that there are a lot of socio-economic factors involved in food availability, and that bad food it typically cheaper than good food, and that a lot of people in lower economic brackets not only find it difficult to get access to good food, but often lack the time to prepare it.

Their answer: Well, they had time to go to McDonalds, didn't they? And Oh, I was in this position when I was an undergrad, and I didn't have any problems making the change.

These people, note you, are white, vegan, and very clearly middle class.

So after a few minutes of hearing this sociopaths discussing why fat people dying was a good thing and they deserved it, I left in disgust. I have to admit, it coloured the rest of my evening a bit. I was not expecting people like that at the party.

Comments

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

One of the uglier aspects of our modern society is that it's considered absolutely acceptable to hate and despise people merely for being fat. This is especially troubling since being overweight is often primarily caused by metabolic settings (our metabolisms evolved to enable us to survive periods of famine and sickness-induced starvation, rather than for a situation in which food remained abundant our whole lives long).

People who hate humans and want them to die must, logically, also hate themselves.

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

I do wish I had asked if, as they hated all humans, they would be exiting the building via the window.

Then again, it wasn't my party to cause a scene in.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you didn't because in one case, the answer might have been "yes".

[kathie-d.livejournal.com]

I was just about to do my 'thrifty phenotype hypothesis' spiel, and then I realise that someone else has already said it. :D

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

As someday it may happen that a victim must be found,
I've got a little list. I've got a little list.
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed. Who never would be missed...

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. The moment you said "vegan" I knew who you meant. Gentle words will be had.

(both have chosen not to have children because they think there are too many people on the earth; both are vegan for the same reason. However, I may introduce them to some of my militantly vegan friends who are *not* skinny, to introduce a much needed corrective.)

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

... both have chosen not to have children because they think there are too many people on the earth ...

And yet, oddly, I suspect that if you asked them if they "believed in" the biological evolution of species through natural selection of the fittest lineages in the struggle for life (the full description of Darwin's Theory of Evolution, replacing the older term "races" which isn't what Darwin meant in the current meaning of the term), they would say "yes." Without irony. Not getting that their behavior merely means that other lineages will take their micro-niches, rather than actually reducing the total human population.

As someone who has made a deep and serious study of evolutionary biology, I am constantly amazed by people who claim to "believe in" evolution but don't have the faintest idea of what Darwinian evolution means.

[fatpie42.livejournal.com]

Surely they were making no reference to human evolution at all? They were saying that the world is currently overpopulation and they had no wish to contribute further to this.

Evolution is the process of development and adaptation of life. It does not involve value judgements about someone's lifestyle. It is not a reason to reproduce. It simply states that only those who DO reproduce will pass on their specific genetic information.

As arrogant as they sound, it would hardly make them any less so if they insisted it was of particular importance that their specific genetic information be continued.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Consider this:

In a system where all are free to choose to reproduce or not to reproduce, and all children will be supported by the social collective, but space is limited, what is the effect of Person A choosing not to reproduce? The effect is principally that Person A will have less genetic, and probably also memetic, effect upon the future than those who chose to reproduce. Thus, the logic of the game will select for those who wish to reproduce without worrying about the limited carrying capacity of the system.

This is called the "Tragedy of the Commons"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

"... the depletion of a shared resource by individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, despite their understanding that depleting the common resource is contrary to the group's long-term best interests."

In order to resolve the tragedy short of a Malthusian collapse, it is necessary to change the rules. Either the economy must grow so that the resource limitation is no longer relevant (but this by itself is not an indefinite solution, as humans could theoretically breed with sufficient rapidity to outstrip any plausible rate of economic growth), or forcible limits must be imposed on reproduction (politically very difficult to enforce), or the decision must be taken that all children will not be supported by the social collective (thus re-imposing the costs of having children upon the couples choosing to have them, which is the historic reason why human populations don't usually suffer Malthusian die-backs).

However, personally choosing not to have children doesn't help the situation, because other persons who understand how to play the game better will just have more children, and thus more influence over future generations. This is implicit in the logic of biological and cultural evolution.

[fatpie42.livejournal.com]

In a system where all are free to choose to reproduce or not to reproduce, and all children will be supported by the social collective, but space is limited, what is the effect of Person A choosing not to reproduce?

They'll put less pressure on said social collective?

Clearly we need some people to have children and plenty of people WANT to have children. Some people are DESPERATE to have children and prepared to pay enormous sums of money on fertility treatments if need be.

That a few hipsters decide that they've got some kind of moral imperative for their decision not to have children, hardly matters much in the scheme of things. Sure, if the majority of the community thought like them we might have some serious backlash - and heck, simply the decision to have LESS children is causing problems of an ageing population. But so long as they remain a minority, they are causing nobody any real bother and in a way they are right to say that they are decreasing the number of children that society must support.

Look, perhaps you'll think I'm completely missing the point, but I think my main disagreement is with this:
However, personally choosing not to have children doesn't help the situation, because other persons who understand how to play the game better will just have more children

Nobody ever decides to have more children specifically because a few hipsters decided to have none. That is nonsense. Yeah, sure so those few people won't be able to spread their own values directly to their progeny.

But in any society there will be some people who do not have children and why should it not be by choice? Are people any lesser for not having children (in a moral sense)?

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

In a system where all are free to choose to reproduce or not to reproduce, and all children will be supported by the social collective, but space is limited, what is the effect of Person A choosing not to reproduce?

They'll put less pressure on said social collective?

Indeed that individual will put less pressure on said social collective, but that individual is paying a high price (eliminating all of her genetic and much of her memetic extension into the future) for a rather small gain (the slight easing of pressure will hardly be perceptible to her), and worst of all (because of the effects on the genetic and memetic composition of future generations she is doing so in a manner which increases the future influence of those who choose to breed. Thus the long-term effect of their choice is to increase population pressure, even though its short-term effect is to reduce it. In a system running under this rules for enough generations, one will see the vast majority of the population being utterly unrestrained breeders.

And no, nobody is morally-compelled to have children. But since future generations are (almost) entirely descended genetically from those who choose to have children (*), and are largely descended memetically from those who choose to have children (**), this forbearance, even if widely practiced, will not only not lead to a future of greater reproductive restraint, but will actually lead to a future of less reproductive restraint. And this will be the more true the more widespread the practice of deliberate restraint.

This may be counter-intuitive, but it follows quite inexorably from evolutionary logic. The easier one makes it (both biologically and culturally) to avoid biologically reproducing, the more certain it is that those who do reproduce will do so because they really, really, really want to have babies. In other words, making it easy to avoid reproduction strongly selects in the long term for extreme fertility.

===

(*) Some people simply get pregnant, one way or another, and do not choose to get abortions. This will be less and less the case as our contraceptive technology further evolves.

(**) Parents in most societies are the principal memetic influence on their children.

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, I mentioned the podcast Welcome to Night Vale. This post (http://atalantapendrag.tumblr.com/post/56708432341/daffodilqueer-fandomsandfeminism) explains more about it and contains links.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Sigh.

The narrowmindedness and prejudice of the so called liberal left.

I know it all to well, up close and personal, believe me! :oS

[fatpie42.livejournal.com]

They don't sound 'liberal' at all. I'm not sure that fatphobia is a specifically right or left wing habit, though dismissing individual difficulties on the grounds that they just need to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" sounds a bit right-wing if anything.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

But you don't find many right wing vegans in the UK!

I'm a left socialist myself, but the attitudes of an awful lot of people who claim to stand in the same political area never cease to astound me by their narrowmindedness and ignorant bigotry- although I suppose being a trans woman of Jewish and Romani ancestry is likely to make me just a little cynical at times. :o)