The Illusion of Freedom

One of the fascinating tricks in modern times is providing the illusion of freedom through the gratification and development of preferences. Someone somewhere is taking this idea seriously right now, and is trying to precisely suss out which sort of furry he or she is.

Of course, human nature being what it is, the right is a little more clear on the nature of this entrapment, yet I submit we often feel the illusion of freedom when we feed our vices.

many of us prefer sweet things, yet a steady diet of cake undoubtedly leads to unpleasantness. We shall not therefore ignore those downsides, and waddle throughout the town proclaiming cake pride. Because we are not stupid. Cake does not make us free. Our preferences do not make us free.

But what, other than our apparent ability to do what we want, might clue us in to our state of freedom?

How A $40 Million Nutrition Science Crusade Fell Apart

You should, in a free country, be able to get a study done correctly. Of course, you should also be able to convince retarded nutrition researchers not to pretend the metabolic advantage of certain substrates over others doesn't exist. There is a science called chemistry, and there are people out there who have done the math. So the fact that the chief miscreant in this story was jumping around saying it didn't exist shows we are again thwarted by midwits who can't possibly imagine people smarter than them exist.

It shows up even in this moron's own life's work. If you want to spend a bit of time learning about this Eades wrote something pretty good a while back about Hall's own model:

So, the model shows an almost 12 pound weight loss on a 2,450 calorie low-carb diet and an 8 pound weight loss with a 2,450 calorie high-carb diet. Which is pretty much what I would have expected from reality, but I doubt it’s what Dr. Hall wants his model to show, because it flies in the face of everything he believes. It shows a greater weight loss on a low-carb diet with the same number of calories as the high-carb diet.

Most people never develop a basic heuristic necessary for wieghtloss: don't eat if you are not hungry. The second step would be to do things that help make you not hungry. The Shangri-la diet, paleo, low carb- taking two weeks off from any sort of sweeteners to reset your sensitivity, --- all good parts of the strategy. But you have to remember that if you are eating high fat it doesn't take much overeating to overcome the advantages. So it is vital to not eat when you are not hungry- regardless of how many people tell you you just need breakfast or whatever. Sometimes calorie counting is just necessary because the individual keeps overshooting out of habit.

But I digress, because this post is about our lack of freedom.

What we are not free of is politics. Preferences feed into politics. Research funding has long been politicized, and Taubes great misstep here was to trust a research in a field that had already been politicized. Real research into this area is a threat to a bunch of rent-seekers the established order has been keeping fed via allowing them to do 'research' that either fits the established narrative or at least doesn't directly knock it. And it is relatively simple today to find that this sort of crap is happening in many fields. In the end, the truth will set you free, but we are not permitted to seek the truth- especially not with 40 million dollars.