jmde

I generally agree with your two issues 100%, but one thing I've found interesting about these discussions is that no one seriously questions the fundamental hypotheses involved, that typical diet bears any relationship to long-term health.

That is, it's assumed it does, but we just can't pin it down because of poorly done studies.

My guess is that that's true, but the other very real possibility is that our bodies are designed to process a very wide variety of foods in a very robust manner, such that as long as you're not eating something obviously poisonous, it doesn't matter as long as you're not depriving yourself of something important nutritionally (as in scurvy).

Similar arguments can me made with regard to weight and exercise, although there it seems like the effects are clearer in certain ways (e.g., I doubt anyone would argue that being in shape isn't better than being physically deconditioned).

Part of the disagreement that seems to be emerging is that not all management positions are the same. Being a CEO of a large company per se doesn't carry the same risk as starting your own business.

A CEO or manager at many large corporations often has very little risk relative to the employees, and their contributions are often small relative to that of the employees, and in the least often not greater than the employees. I'm not saying there aren't good managers, or that they do nothing, but management has become too top heavy in the US as a whole, and the salaries of management pathologically disproportionate to their relative contributions.

You don't have to look very far to find examples of CEOs driving businesses into the ground and then leaving with severance packages that dwarf average employees' salaries, sometimes even average employee lifetime salaries, or of CEOs sheltered from financial or legal consequences by corporate personhood. There's also plenty of CEOs who take over businesses that are already turning around from a downside, after reforms that were put in place, and then are credited with causing the improvements, even though they did nothing.

Starting a company is different from managing or acting as an executive of an existing one, and my guess is that this is what people are reacting to. Even founders are sheltered to some extent when you consider venture capital and the protections of incorporation relative to, say, acting as an independent contractor.