Health and personal responsibility
I enjoyed your 1/23 discussion regarding obesity and Big Pharma, especially the difficult conversation around personal responsibility. It seems like the hardest point to move past is this question of to what degree a person has control over their own weight and overall health. Telling people they are choosing to be obese may motivate some people, but it certainly comes across as judgmental and doesn't account for circumstances outside our control that make it difficult or impossible to achieve a healthy weight. On the other hand, we don't want to tell people that they have no choice but to be obese. Nothing is more demotivating than to be told you can't succeed no matter how hard you try. Even if exercise and an improved diet don't help a person lose weight, that person will still be healthier. So what is it? Are people obese because they chose to be, or do they have no choice but to be obese? Neither of these sits right with me. What do you think should be the goals of public messaging around obesity, and which approaches do you think are better or worse for achieving those goals?
Why is black-on-Asian violence never talked about?
Why do you think that the nearly daily attacks by black people on people of East Asian ancestry (and South Asian as well, albeit in lesser numbers) goes unmentioned by mainstream media? According to the FBI crime stats, in 2018, for example, black-on-Asian violence was 287 times more likely than the other way around. Local media cover these stories but never mention that the perps are black and the victims Asian. And the national media ignores it altogether. Why do you think this is?
CNBC Pay Transparency
I recently saw this video by CNBC about pay transparency. It frames pay transparency as actually bad because it can limit your salary growth. If you get a raise other employees will find out it and demand one too which will result in everyone getting a smaller increase because the company will not want to dramatically increase labor costs. How much of this do you think is cope by CNBC to keep workers in line or do you believe there is legitimate criticism/issues regarding pay transparency. Thanks. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWWvCPGkvvU