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> That made me pretty depressed, not just for me but for every overweight person who is being shamed about not exercising.

FWIW most weight change is due to diet. If you're overweight, exercise is probably a much lower priority than finding a way to sustainably eat less.

I'm not just sounding off here; I lost 20+ kg by tracking what I ate and eating less.

Weight change happens depending on whether calories consumed - calories burned is positive or negative.

Diet tends to be more effective for weight loss because it's a lot easier to cut excess empty calories than it is to burn them off with exercise.

Jogging a mile might burn 150 calories. Eating a Big Mac adds 600.

Summarized memorably as “you can’t outrun the fork” or “the most effective exercise for weight loss is an early tricep extension at the table”

> He's right: there is so little time to work out because it takes 1hr to work out and 1hr to travel/clean up:

Then do shorter workouts (a 30 minute workout is still good), kill travel (workout at, or if its by running/biking starting/ending at) home. Merge cleanup: do it before your morning shower.

> $15/month for one TV channel (Disney+)

Disney+ (or other major atreaming service) isn't really comparable to one TV channel; each is more comparable to the whole stable of channels available from a single media megacorp (and often bigger megacorps than a decade ago, because mergers.)

> You have to exercise a lot to alter your physique,

If you are a competitive body builder. For most people that want to transform physique and improve fitness, you need to exercise a bit to maintain muscle mass and tone, and improve (both by reducing excess calories and improving nutrition focus) your diet.

> shelling out $30 to rent

My family of four can pay $30 + grocery store food costs to have dinner and a movie or we can pay around $100 to go see a movie and have dinner at Alamo. $30 is a bargain.

You're proving my point: that same film is $100 in the cinema. $100!! But the Overton window pushed you into thinking $30 is a bargain. You think that wasn't intentional?

How isn't it a bargain?

Because you've been tricked into thinking $30 isn't so bad compared to $100, when you should be demanding $20 for the cinema for all four of your family, instead of rolling over and saying, "Jeez, I sure got a deal." That's what the Overton Window is all about: making one option artificially bad so that you don't negotiate and take whatever other option they give you. But if everyone just shuffles along and opens their wallets to whatever the studios ask for, they will absolutely charge more.

When I mentioned $100, that was for food and the movie.

Second, we can all go to the movies for $20 and even less if we are willing to wait. There are "dollar" theaters where tickets are less than $5.

But, if we want to see a new movie and want to go to the modern theater with a full menu, comfy seats, and a great sound system, then it costs more. $12 / ticket for 90+ minutes of entertainment doesn't seem out of line.

The same goes for watching movies at home. We can get plenty for free if we are willing to sit through commercials or watch one of thousands we have available through services we subscribe to. But if we want to watch the new thing tonight, it's $30.

> if we want to watch the new thing tonight

Which is what 1/2 of the article we are discussing is about: The way we are herded into spending our hard-earned money on the need for "the new thing" by marketing and manipulation.

Your position is "I need to entertain myself and my kids and they want the new shiny thing", my position is, "You're being conned out of your money for shit you don't need."

I'm being wildly judgemental because I look at people who need "the new thing" as suckers, aaaand I also think it brings us all down, because now all the money goes into paying Scarlet Johansen $50M to make the same movie five times and we miss out interesting/engaging cinematography.

> Your position is "I need to entertain myself and my kids and they want the new shiny thing"

No it isn't. It has nothing to do with need.

> we miss out interesting/engaging cinematography

When was a better time for movies and television?

2021 was a bad year, but before that there were more than two movies released every day in the US. You couldn't find anything interesting in those 800 titles?

Huh? Well, since you replied: I'm not the one spending $30 on top of my monthly fee to rent some cheesy remake of the same bland film and calling it a bargain. I prefer my fun a little less canned and a little more engaging. But I don't have kids so I don't know how to entertain them, and perhaps I'd feel the same way if for some reason I found myself with four kids. Although I'd probably be like my friends who make board games with their kids and have banned TV (good luck to them when the kids hit 13).

The marginal cost for the provider of you seeing the movie when streamed into your house is ~$0.

Marginal costs determine profitability, but don't have a lot to do with the price of anything other than commodities.