Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

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@NEStalgia Well, I'm not really advertising for the scientifically proven diet, but more for the actual common sense that each and everyone should have, to realize that monotony of any kind is bad for you, whether it's in food, habits, work or whatever. And of course, in the case of food items, not all of them have the same nutritional value, or the same consistency, meaning either low or high fiber and/or low or high carb.

Being a former martial artist and iron pumper, I definitely know for a fact that what you ingest before and even after training absolutely, one hundred percent makes a difference. No man/woman can survive, in any kind of healthy, non-detrimental way, on one single kind of food item. You can survive on water and bread, but that's something entirely different from actually living a healthy life and having a good energy level and built-up resistance to any outside agents.

And yes, smoking IS bad. All that tar has to go somewhere, and those pictures of lungs so black that they could probably donate them to Roadbuilders 'R' Us isn't any kind of weird, government-directed CGI...

As for those long-living people you mentioned: those don't come from the areas you mentioned. They all live either in green or in blue zones. The latter is what they call them in one specific kind of research, and there is also a blue zone in the States. And it actually IS a rather healthy area. Asian people in crowded, smog-filled cities really don't live to become that old, in general. It's all the more rural, mountain areas, where these ancient tea drinkers live...

And what's that about "Spain of all places"? It sounds like you think it's a bad place to live, or that might be bad for your health? If so, then you couldn't be more wrong.

I would agree to a point that certain things are encoded in our DNA, and of course, our cells also have finite timers in them, but that doesn't mean that I have to expedite the process by walking head first into a freight train...

As the wise men from the East say: the body is a temple, so do your best to keep it in shape, inside and out. If you eat rubbish, you'll get rubbish, and all kinds of detrimental effects. But hey, if you want to live out your life on a strict diet of heavily salted Potato Chips, Peeps and Mountain Dew, then by all means, go ahead. Don't expect me to cry on your way too early funeral, though...

And then there's the (far as I know) US-exclusive use of corn syrup based products, which we don't have, or hardly have in Europe. Over here, it's sugar beet or cane sugar. That also makes somewhat of a difference. Although that's mostly of influence to the taste, according to some, while others say that because in corn syrup (which is high in fructose) the glucose and fructose are not chemically bound to each other, it's effects are worse on the body than when they are bound together, as in cane sugar, because it gets absorbed into the body in a more efficient way, and as such also broken down better, in regards to long term effects/fat build-up.

But glad we wholeheartedly agree on half of our respective text walls...
Better not dive too deep into the whole migration/immigration/refugee topic, though. That's a really touchy subject for one thing, and on the other hand, it also ventures rather close to political issues, which for obvious reasons, are not allowed to be discussed on here.

I will say this, though: I agree with your sentiment, but personally, I'm actually always torn between (in general) wanting to help people who are less fortunate than us, and not having them becoming a national (or regional) burden.

And putting them all on one and the same heap also isn't the way to go. There's significant differences between them all, much like there are between you, me and everybody on here. Having said that, I think the best solution to all of the above is moderation: eat your snacks, but not too much, eat meat, but don't over-saturate your diet with it, it's just common sense, basically.

And by all means: if you are willing and able, help people, but don't accept your government to just keep inviting and/or allowing all of them to come to your country, where most of them will maybe be safer than in their own country, but regardless of that will still live in a sometimes prolonged state of uncertainty, regarding the government's ultimate decision to allow them to stay or not.

P.S.

I was gonna say "don't dedicate half of your text wall to BougieBeetle, because he probably isn't going to react anyway", but then he actually did...

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@ThanosReXXX Oh I thrive on monotony....I tend to like to find a formula that works for something and repeat it consistently indefinitely. I may rotate to a few "phases" through the year as a cycle...for variety.... and I'll experiment to find the right groove, and then stick with it.

Well the centenarians are in the mountains and such (ooh but some seem to think dense overcrowding is a good thing ) but the average lifespan in Japan was the longest for a long time. That says something about their dense cities versus other cities in the world. As for Spain, I just generally wouldn't look to Western Europe or the US for longest lifespans in general both due to historical lifespans, way of life, etc. Though it's not entirely surprising since Italy was usually #2 behind Japan for a long time...Italy's always a bit of a special case, particularly environmentally due to location and local diet (which, often, bears a lot of similarity to Japanese cuisine in makeup, if not taste profile.) The prominence of mollusk and fish being part of that.

In the US, yeah, cane sugar is certainly heavily used. Two things have happened. People, particularly in the south got used to overwsweetened everything due to the abundance of cane sugar there cheaply for a long time. Then, sugar became expensive compared to corn syrup so manufactured food started using it exclusively. THEN everyone got used to the taste of corn syrup and it's extreme sweetness, to the point they like it more than cane sugar now..... and yeah, that stuff is nasty ....generally I can't stand it (except in some cases where it's necessary - pecan pie for example, can't be made without it.) I tend to only drink sodas that have real sugar when I do have sodas, though I mostly do water. The other thing in the US diet is "diet" everything. AKA chemical sugar....EVERYBODY eats that nasty diet stuff. To me it tastes like rat poison. Or at least like I imagine rat poison tasting. Then again, rat poison is flouride...which they put in our water.....

RE the migration/immigration/refugee topic and as well as "wanting to help people less fortunate vs them becoming a burden" issue - it really all comes back to the overpopulation issue rather than regional politics. Always has. No overpopulation, no migration issues with the exception of actual warfare/coups/natural disasters creating localized, short term, mayhem requiring external (usually temporary) help. Which was the historical problem in that particular region as well. Population pressure has always been the most acute problem in oldest inhabited part of the world. And the history of tremendous empires that rose and fell in that area tell the same story of the situation for a lot longer than Europe has even been populated. The modern civilization there is "young" (and is still ancient!) compared to the former civilizations there that collapsed under the weight of overpopulation. If it weren't an insufferable crowding of humans, people wouldn't want to leave their way of life and environment behind in substantial numbers. Migrating for "opportunity", the most common stated reason, is a round-about way of saying "leaving due to lack of opportunity and undesirable living conditions as a result of overpopulation." The problem is, without an accompanying reduction in populations or birth rate, it ultimately simply expands the problem rather than resolving it. Viewing the modern current events political aspects of it is a waste of time, because it intentionally looks past the real situation and the long, long, many times repeating history over thousands of years, or more, of the same cycle. A crowded population that is continuing to grow needs expansion to relieve population pressure. No way around it. (Which all comes back to my origional point - the regional situations are just acute points, the whole human race is affected by the same condition in different locations at different times, like pressure on tectonic plates. But of course, unless an event cuts down numbers....the numbers keep growing, and the problem keeps worsening. And expansion only draws other populations into the problem as well and/or results in conflict until a natural or artificial event reduces the pressure. Going back to my initial point of inevitable population reduction, by some means, natural or artificial. And highlighting it's not the first, or even the second time through that cycle.

And to be sure, I understand the sentimentality of being torn between helping etc. My view isn't necessarily a sociopathic one...I'm just looking, from a safe distance, at the cold calculus of it all. If it weren't people it would be an easy solution. Discard the excess, in the most accumulated deposits, and restore a balanced system. Not viewing it as humans makes resolution simple and efficient. But since it's actually humans, it takes a socipath to put the cold calculus of it into action via artificial means. Then there's the debate: Do we actually need such sociopaths to do what's necessary but empathy prevents us from actually accepting and doing? If the mid 20th century didn't have its Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot.... what would population look like now, what condition would life be in, and would it have ended in worse cataclysm by now? I.E. could they have actually made things better, for a time, just as they intended, even if it's unpleasant to admit it? And even if so what would we do with that understanding going forward? All ugly questions.