[plsbenice34]

Your comment leads me to be a bit confused regarding what you're saying about free will. You seem to want to place blame on the individual but it is philosophically and scientifically unsound. It is absolutely undeniable that people's diets are the result of the culture they live in. Many of our behaviours are the result of the advertising industry, data science and algorithms being applied like an attack on us. These problems I am referring to have been explored by Sapolsky and Yuval Harari.

Do people need to exert a determined sense of self-control to overcome this, reeducate themselves, and take responsibility for their own health? Absolutely. But placing blame on them seems irrational, unnecessary, counterproductive. I wouldn't want to get diet tips from someone that had that antagonistic attitude toward me

[Aurornis]

> It is absolutely undeniable that people's diets are the result of the culture they live in. Many of our behaviours are the result of the advertising industry, data science and algorithms being applied like an attack on us.

Being influenced doesn’t absolve someone of accountability for their actions. You will be influenced by many things throughout your life, but your decisions as an adult are your responsibility. In the modern era of the internet and unprecedented availability of fresh foods, you don’t have to let your diet be defined by society and ads. Seeing a McDonald’s ad isn’t an “attack” that forces you to choose to eat McDonald’s.

Thinking that we can’t be blamed for our decisions, in my experience, is counterproductive to overcoming bad habits. People who think that Mark Zuckerberg is forcing them to scroll Instagram for 3 hours per day should rationally choose to uninstall the app or set time limits.

Yet I see the opposite happening more often: They believe that because “the algorithm” is addictive, they shouldn’t feel bad about using social media to excess. It’s not my fault, it’s the algorithm! Blaming something external creates the illusion that we shouldn’t be accountable for our choices, which only makes it easier to make more of those bad choices.

[bombcar]

Would I like it if everything was easy and nothing was hard?

Absolutely!

Is sitting around waiting for that to happen going to work?

Absolutely not!

There's two questions being conflated; should someone have to carefully watch their diet, or spending, or browsing? It's easy to argue that they shouldn't, and give examples of things that would make it so they don't (remove combo meals above a certain caloric amount, make credit hard to access, etc).

None of that changes that we live in the here and now, and we can inflict minor change on society, but major changes on ourselves.

[plsbenice34]

Taking responsibility isn't the same as accepting blame and guilt. Maybe i didnt cause an oil spill but ill do my best to try to clean it up.

>Thinking that we can’t be blamed for our decisions, in my experience, is counterproductive to overcoming bad habits.

I think the opposite. We are entirely 100% the result of outside influences: our parents, our culture, genetics, society. The only way you can argue otherwise is to appeal to some religious concept of a soul or something. Looking deeply into this, we can learn who we are and why we are the way that we are. Only then can we see how best to move forward and in which direction. Once you see that the some algorithm is an unhealthy influence, you can try to avoid it. The exact same lessons are present in Buddhism with its insights into self and interdependence; it's probably the largest influence that lead me to see things this way.

>They believe that because “the algorithm” is addictive, they shouldn’t feel bad about using social media to excess.

I don't think it is rational or healthy to "feel bad" and harbor guilt because you were manipulated and mistreated. It can lead to depression. We are in an unhealthy society and it is productive to see this truth so we can then try to extricate ourselves from its traps.

[amanaplanacanal]

Agreed. I think by now we know that telling people to "have more willpower" doesn't work. But some really want to make everything a moral failing, probably as a way to make themselves feel superior.