{"id":98979,"date":"2016-12-01T11:08:04","date_gmt":"2016-12-01T16:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/?p=98979"},"modified":"2016-12-01T07:08:41","modified_gmt":"2016-12-01T12:08:41","slug":"want-to-save-the-world-get-off-your-ass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/2016\/12\/want-to-save-the-world-get-off-your-ass\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to Save the World? Get Off Your Ass!"},"content":{"rendered":"
December 1, 2016<\/div>
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By WallStreetDaily.com<\/u><\/a> \"Want<\/p>\n

Stephen Hawking warns against yet another major threat to human existence. If we don\u2019t stop eating and get to exercising, we simply won\u2019t be around long enough to build a rocket ship and colonize Proxima b.<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n

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\u201cToday, too many people die from complications related to overweight and obesity. We eat too much and move too little.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lot more prosaic than what we heard from Stephen Hawking in yesterday\u2019s Wall Street Daily<\/em>: \u201cComputers will overtake humans with AI at some within the next 100 years. When that happens, we need to make sure the computers have goals aligned with ours.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s less exciting than his take on climate change: \u201cA rise in ocean temperature would melt the ice caps and cause a release of large amounts of carbon dioxide from the ocean floor. Both effects could make our climate like that of Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, we have more basic paths to self-destruction: \u201cThe human failing I would most like to correct is aggression. It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or a partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all\u2026 A major nuclear war would be the end of civilization, and maybe the end of the human race.\u201d<\/p>

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The legendary physicist \u2014 author of the 1988 record-breaking best-seller A Brief History of Time<\/em>, subject of the 2014 Oscar-winning biopic The Theory of Everything<\/em> \u2014 is famously pessimistic about our future.<\/p>\n

Indeed, just a couple weeks ago, during a talk at the Oxford University Union, he gave us maybe one more millennium to live on Earth:<\/p>\n

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The fact that we humans, who are ourselves mere fundamental particles of nature, have been able to come this close to understanding the laws that govern us and the universe is certainly a triumph. We will map the position of millions of galaxies with the help of [super]computers like Cosmos. We will better understand our place in the universe. Perhaps one day we will be able to use gravitational waves to look right back into the heart of the Big Bang. But we must also continue to go into space for the future of humanity. I don\u2019t think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

First things first, however, and before we can find a way off this mortal coil through interstellar exploration, we have to literally take care of ourselves in the most rudimentary fashion.<\/p>\n

As he notes in a one-minute video recording on behalf of a campaign organized by Sweden-based nonprofit GEN-PEP: Obesity is \u201cone of the most serious public health problems of the 21st century.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hawking \u2014 whose contributions to cosmology, general relativity, and quantum theory have earned him praise as the greatest mind in physics since Albert Einstein \u2014 can\u2019t get his mind around \u201chow being sedentary has become a major health problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s \u201cbeyond my understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hawking is terminally sedentary \u2014 not by choice, but because of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig\u2019s disease and\/or for the \u201cice-bucket challenge\u201d that spawned a social media craze a couple years ago.<\/p>\n

Hawking \u2014 the most accomplished physicist of our times \u2014 can\u2019t get his mind around \u201chow being sedentary has become a major health problem.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

He was given a two-year life expectancy when first diagnosed in 1963. But he\u2019s been blowing minds from his wheelchair for nearly half a century, powered by what Hawking\u2019s wife described as a combination of determination and obstinacy.<\/p>\n

At the same time, he places obesity on the same plane as artificial intelligence, climate change, nuclear war, and additional threats both external (alien colonization) and internal (genetically engineered viruses) as potential humanity-killers. Hawking, however, offers a startlingly straightforward theory to solve the particular problem at hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cFortunately, the solution is simple: more physical activity and change in diet. It\u2019s not rocket science.\u201d<\/p>\n

As GEN-PEP notes via the closing cards at the end of Hawking\u2019s presentation, physical inactivity is now the world\u2019s fourth leading cause of death.<\/p>\n

Physical inactivity\u2019s logical outcome, obesity, has been identified as a risk factor for chronic conditions including diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, stroke, heart disease, certain cancers, and arthritis.<\/p>\n

The World Health Organization has more data:<\/p>\n