The middle ages weren't in the 1800s, but still.....

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Pat Robertson explains why Young Earth Creationism is silly and embarrassing.

Apropo of a debate between a scientist and a young earth creationist.

The Biggest Gain

Ragen Chastain has a piece about the real motivation behind The Biggest Loser being money.

Much as I like Chastain's blog, it's the sort of statement I always disagree with because, as Gandalf said, you can't burn snow, and as I say, you can only make money by building on existing motivations.

Admittedly, people have a lot of different motivations, and if you're trying to make money, you have choices about which motivations you try to appeal to.

Everyone associated with The Biggest Loser is making money by appealing to cruelty. That's it. They don't want to see fat people doing something sensible to lose weight, they want to see physical and emotional pain.

So, I was noodling about that, and hating the human race, and I posted:

If there were money in watching methods that involved good sense and kindness, that’s what reality shows would be about. Sign me up for that universe, it doesn’t seem to be this one.

And Jennifer Hansen said:

I’ve said it before: I want to be enjoying the 20th season of a show called The Biggest Gain. In this week’s episode we meet Ahmina, who is trying to overcome her fear of falling through the water (yes, this is a thing, my husband and I both have it) in order to learn to swim at age 33; Bob, a veteran who is coming out of a long spell of depression after becoming a paraplegic and wants to regain as much as possible of his former physical fitness; Charlene, who is battling agoraphobia; and Darius, a minor-league baseball player who turned down a non-athletic scholarship in order to follow his dream. By the end of this run, Ahmina will be able to float calmly in the deep end of the pool although swimming without a flotation device still activates her panic reflex, Bob will triumphantly lift his entire body weight for 10 reps using the armrests of his chair as braces, Charlene will be filmed reading a book in the local park for the first time since the bullying she experienced as a child drove her indoors, and Darius will have decided to become a machinist’s apprentice due to a job loss in his family. All four will be praised for their courage and relate their new insights in in-depth interviews, and Ahmina’s tears of joy when she realizes that the water really is holding her up will go viral on Youtube. All expenses are paid for the contestants, but viewers will vote on who gets the $250,000 prize for the Biggest Gain.

You know, I think a show like that could work. It's not like upworthy is going broke, and it would be cheaper to make than The Biggest Loser. I don't think it would make The Biggest Loser go away, but at least it would exist and do some good.

If you're feeling as though The Biggest Loser isn't that bad because people know what they're getting into, well, not entirely. The show obfuscates what it's doing before contestants sign up. It's not exactly coerced, but it's something in the neighborhood of fraud.

As Twistie points out in the comments at Dances with Fat, we hear from past contestants from other reality shows, but contestants from The Biggest Loser just ..... disappear from the public eye. I hope it's no worse than them regaining the weight and being afraid of the insults they'd get for doing so, but I suspect there are some serious health problems as well. And they signed scary contracts to not disclose how they were really treated on the show.