xazo

It's already a competitive landscape. If you feel Apple is unfairly charging you extra for something, then you have a myriad number of Android and other phones to choose from.

On the other hand, if Apple's model allows them to better compete with others and create a superior product that people want ... well then, it's ridiculous to mandate they should do business a different way.

I never understand people who make this argument. Everyone has choice, go buy an Android phone and install/customize whatever you want. Apple has chosen what parts of their OS and user experience they control versus what part they let the user control. Personally I'm very happy with it because it gives me higher quality apps and some reasonable protection versus the alternative. If your issue is that you don't like where that line is split, fine, then choose a different platform like Android. Now if Android didn't exist, then your argument would hold more water for me.

That's a trivial amount to enable Apple to provide documentation and tooling support for developers. I doubt it comes anywhere close to paying for all the libraries and frameworks they develop and maintain.

The other stores wouldn't be paying for the ongoing development and maintenance of the iOS, UIKit, OpenGL/Metal, etc. That stuff is NOT cheap to develop and maintain. The final app that you see is trivial compared to the mountain of libraries and frameworks that Apple provides.

I agree with all of your points. But there is more going on here.

Take a look at the top 5 strongest men in the world. They spend their days working out and probably burn more calories in a day than I do in a week. They have big, strong muscles that are covered over by a layer of fat. Same is true of many manual laborers today - landscapers, roofers, builders.

http://theworldsstrongestman.com/athletes/

Compare that to body builders (work out, eat lower carb/sugar) or concentration camp prisoners who are underfed (whether they do labor or are almost entirely sedentary).

https://www.google.com/search?as_st=y&tbm=isch&as_q=concentr...

https://www.google.com/search?as_st=y&tbm=isch&as_q=body+bui...

Comparing the groups (and my own experience) convinced me that eating (rather than exercise) is >80% of how much fat you will carry.

I'd say one of the biggest differences today is that sugar and carbs have become well accepted highly addictive drugs in our society. Feeling down? Go treat yourself to some ice cream! Is it any different with nicotine or heroin addicts?

I look at obese people in the same way that I look at nicotine or heroin addicts. It's not their fault, they're just normal people who are unfortunately caught in the tractor beam of addictive substances and they may not even know it. I didn't know it when I was a carbaholic. I thought I was fine -- didn't really connect my hangry episodes with withdrawal symptoms.

> requires the much harder task of fundamentally changing your brain's relationship to food. The only way that happens is through practice and painful failure.

I've been on this journey for over ten years now -- basically on the practice and pain path you describe. But it wasn't until I read Allen Carr's "Good Sugar Bad Sugar" book that I began to mentally relate to sugar and carbs like any other significant addictive drug like nicotine or heroin. The sugar and carbs are not just passive calories that you ingest -- they actively affect how your brain and body relate to food.

Once you make that mental switch, then it's much easier to drop and stay off them. I mean who would say it's okay to have heroin cheat days?

> I hear this and other fad internet diet stuff all the time

I've been eating a lower carb diet with portion control for more than 10 years now with little to no exercise. I recently changed into a low carb diet. Over this 10 year period I lost 30% of my body weight.

The only fad I've seen so far is the notion that practicing willpower and portion control while still eating sugar and carbs is a maintainable position.

Best of luck to you. But as others have noted, the rampant obesity in today's society is a recent problem - not something that happened in previous generations. What's different?

I don't know about morbidly but have definitely seen many manual laborers that would be considered obese.

If you want to be thin, spend >80% of your effort in the kitchen. If you want to be strong, join a gym.

> ... your brain thinks you're starving and has all sorts of ways to wear down your will ...

I thought losing weight was about willpower and starving as well. But you can only keep that up for so long until your willpower breaks. Then I read this book, Allen Carr's "Good Sugar, Bad Sugar: Eat yourself free of sugar & carb addiction". It changed how I view things and now I no longer worry about how much I eat.

The key is in understanding that your hunger is driven by an addiction to sugar and carbs -- they're not what your body considers food so it always feels hungry. Change your diet and you no longer constantly feel hungry while still losing weight.

I recently finished reading Allen Carr's book "Good Sugar Bad Sugar: Eat yourself free from sugar and carb addiction". He's written a number of books to overcome many types of addiction and has clinics to help people with drug addiction. In the book he makes a compelling case that sugar is addictive and has similarities to other addictive things such as smoking, drugs, caffeine, etc.

It's really changed my perspective of sugar.

A more informative title would be "Is Neuroscience a Bigger Threat to Human Distinctiveness than AI?"