Gwern Branwen

So no offense to parents.

Or it could just be that it's hitting the body in a way that's really, really hard to replicate in any kind of genetic way.

Or I don't know.

It's too soon.

When I think back, I see that the obesity crisis only became obvious around the 1990s.

You know, it's quite recent.

And I look back at photos and today is completely unrecognizable from 1990.

You look at photos and people are still thin, right?

You look at photos now and everyone is like a blimp.

So you just you can't possibly have any kind of Algernon argument over like 20 to 30 years.

Yeah, I think the odds of there being something as bad as lead is almost 100%.

We have so many things out there, right?

Chemists are always cooking up new stuff.

There are all sorts of things with microbiomes.

Plastics are trendy, but maybe it's not plastics.

Maybe it's something else entirely.

But there's almost no way that everything that we have put out there is totally benign and safe and has no harmful effects at any concentration.

It just seems like a really strong claim to be making.

I don't believe in any particular one, but I do believe in like 1% here, 1% here, 1% here.

There's something out there.