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Comment by rjkennedy98 | Hacker News Reader

Anyone else weirded out by the tone of Warren's email. His casual references to Coca Cola possibly causing cancer (when Coca Cola is probably the single biggest cause of disease in this country via obesity). Also, the way he framed Microsoft as being a toll on a water stream reminded me of Bill Burr's talking about Nestle trying to own the water supply https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_pb6r8VNWk.

Idk the most I hear of these oligarch's the more I'm terrified of them.

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Coca-cola had been around for about 100 years at the point he made that comment. My read is that he was illustrating how solid Coca-cola revenue prospects were for the long term. He was certainly not saying there was a question about cancer as a possibility. No possibility in his mind, and therefore, his certainty that Coca-cola revenue was a sure bet.

That's not quite what Warren Buffett is saying. He's saying that Coca-Cola's revenue stream will continue unless something pretty much impossible happens; like finding out it causes cancer.

To quote:

"I feel 100% sure (perhaps mistakenly) that I know the odds of this continuing - again 100% as long as cola doesn't cause cancer."

If you think long and hard about the core reason a PET scan works then it's inescapable that Coca Cola causes cancer, depending on your definition of "cause".

In fact, we've know about this, the Warburg hypothesis, for a long time.

> If you think long and hard about the core reason a PET scan works then it's inescapable that Coca Cola causes cancer

Could you expand on this point? My background is in physics, and I think I've got a fair understanding of how PET scans work, but I think I'm missing the connection.

Sure.

Once you get a positive cancer diagnosis, or sometimes before, you give someone a PET scan to see if it's gone metastatic.

A PET scan will "detect cancer" down to a few mm in resolution. It will only miss cancers smaller than that. It detects all cancers, though there is noise.

What is it detecting? Positrons. From memory you dope glucose with decaying fluoride. You inject this or drink it after fasting.

Fasting clears out (some or most) your blood glucose and some glycogen in your muscles and other places. So you get a rush of this glucose and it goes straight to the tumors. There, it emits higher amounts of positrons due to concentration (and maybe metabolization, I forget).

So why does glucose go straight to tumors? Because tumors exclusively process glucose. The other pathway to ATP, fat (triglycerides to ketones etc) is broken.

That's why a PET scan works. Sugar. The stuff in coca cola. Although today there's a lot of fructose too (fun fact, fructose is a poison just like alcohol).

To go further, human beings didn't used to eat nearly the quantity of sugar or at the frequency we do today. You can become much healthier by fasting and avoiding carbs (which are in some ways one and the same thing).

A similar analysis of dentistry will lead to the same conclusions.

Tumors eat more food, because that's what tumors are. Fetuses eat more food too, but eating food doesn't cause pregnancy.

That's sort of true depending on the stage and type but not the causal mechanism behind why PET scans work.

Fetuses can upcycle ketones to ATP, tumors can't.

It is exactly the causal mechanism behind PET scans.

With respect, that's the dogma. We don't even teach the respiration and ketone metabolism pieces that Warburg found so interesting. We long ago declared the whole thing genetic when it looks much more likely to be metabolic and mitochondrial.

See

https://www.amazon.com/Cancer-Metabolic-Disease-Management-P...

For an introductory text.

So, it feels like you have cause and effect mixed up.

Cancer cells are essentially just cells that outcompete other cells, which becomes a problem. They do this in a few different ways, accelerating their cell growth, and preventing the normal apoptosis process that would stop these cells from growing.

Accelerated cell growth means a higher concentration of glucose is required. This means there is a very strong concentration of glucose in cancer cells, because cancer cells gather glucose to fuel their growth. This doesn't mean that if you get some healthy cells and expose them to higher than normal concentrations of glucose they will be more likely to become cancerous.

In fact, that sounds like a well defined experiment. I'd be surprised if it hasn't been carried out.

You're sidestepping the broken ketone metabolism that we know about in tumors.

But anyway, your point about causation, that's why I said originally that it depends on your definition of causal here.

We absolutely know that low carb and fasting leads to better outcomes. I'm not saying glucose magically turns cells cancerous, but it is the fuel - the only fuel - they can use. So in a sense our massive use of sugar is causal.

There's even historical accounts of introducing sugar to cancer-free populations and they all get diabetes, cancer and bad teeth. See

https://www.amazon.com/Cancer-disease-civilization-anthropol...

For a great example.

Ok, that's a fair point.

If we change my hypothesised experiment to be add high glucose concentration to cells and look for a cancerous tumor that is greater than $size after $time, I think you'd find an effect (you can read about the effects of hyperglycaemia on cancer, and given that a cancer is present, it will grow more quickly in the presence of more glucose).

I guess I wanted to clarify that glucose doesn't cause cancer, but I think I understand your point now, and I think we're in agreement.

How often is the body able to shut down small cancerous growths when they are just starting? And by giving them a feed of glucose, do they grow to fast for the body to naturally handle them?

Or alternatively, without glucose, world they mostly stop spreading?

I find the down votes fascinating. I'm literally listing facts of the process which anyone can check. Maybe cancer makes people uneasy or something, or they really like drinking coca cola?

It strikes me as ironic too given the recent of essays on thought police and cancel culture.

We need a new kind of social media perhaps where different subs (like subreddits) can have some rules like only able to vote if you're over 14 years old and this is verified. Or can only downvote if you haven't downvoted lately. Let people experiment with rules like that. Maybe we will find better communication methods by letting people play with those kinds of rules...?

Tbh I've been wondering about what removing downvotes altogether would do. I imagine without a low effort way to attack the post, many people would simply ignore and move on. Some would probably engage in discussion, which could lead to either good (or neutral) discussion or bad discussion full of irrelevant attacks and trolling, but that's easy to take care of.

> I'm literally listing facts

The second post you made in reply to someone asking you to clarify is thought provoking and fact intensive. the first post you made is very unclear and its meaning is not obvious. I think you got downvoted because it was more easily (mis)interpreted as sarcasm or as a troll.

HN does have a little bit of thought policing, but I dont think this was it.

EDIT: specifically, the phrase "If you think long and hard" is rhetorically redundant and shifts the tone from helpful/discussional to condescending and patronizing. IMO, anyway, but also probably in the opinion of others as you got downvoted by others.

Yeah I could phrase things better.

I imagine that when you are playing at the top of your game, everything seems like a game and that's the way you talk about it. Buffet is solely focussed on winning bets, that's how he got to where he is. People like Buffet fill a slot that is at the very foundation of capitalism. If you are terrified of rich, powerful business people you are in the wrong economic model. So far we are yet to find a better model, IMO.

I'd you think the purpose of economics is to make the most money and not the most utility for human society, you say you are in the wrong economic model.

Tumors are the best growing parts of a body; that doesn't mean cancer is the ideal form of life

Who said it was the best economical model?

Human society is made up of individuals. Capitalism, as opposed to socialism puts the power of utility in the hands of the individual. Thus individuals strive to make the most of the economic landscape and this often means making as much money as they can.

Again, I am not saying it's perfect but it's worked pretty well for western values.

Is Warren upset that he went ouside his sweet spot when he bought major shares in American, Delta, Southwest and United airlines? His analysis showed that investing in airlines last century would have netted him precisely zero dollars. However, this century's tourism boom seems to have persuaded him that now was the time to set aside that analysis. So in he went. THEN the coronavirus pandemic hit. And out he scampered for a $7 billion dollar loss! I wonder what an experience like that does to one's psyche.

Unstable leaders lead to unstable markets. I doubt it did much to his psyche other than act as a reminder to be careful what you invest in during periods of political instability.

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