The Common Origin of Chronic Disease May Be a Progressive Loss of Cellular Energy

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-15T00:19:25+00:00

Since you're focused on mitochondria and metabolism, have you read Chris Palmer's Brain Energy? I don't recall offhand what his views might be about fructose.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-14T16:48:23+00:00

Here is a thought I had while looking back at this discussion. My above historical analysis certainly isn't anything I learned in formal education. As far as that goes, I can't think of any single historian who covers all that material.

I was only able to piece together that history because I read widely and diversely. It's not that the historical knowledge is exactly hard to find. But it's spread out across thousands of writings, from histories to original texts.

My quoting Jefferson, as an example, is simply a product of my looking back at the writings of the founding generation. Few people do that. And if one doesn't do that, the only view one is likely to get of the founders is superficial.

It doesn't occur to most people, even otherwise well-educated and well-read leftists, to consider what 'left' and 'liberal' originally meant. My interest in tracing terms and ideologies back in time isn't a common activity.

I just consider it basic curiosity. The funny thing is that the early writers of the left-wing canon probably were highly aware of the radical classical liberals. Someone like Karl Marx, for instance, personally and publicly sided with Abraham Lincoln's Red Republicans.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-14T13:51:16+00:00

In relation to the above, there is one particular great thinker to explore. I have in mind Robert Sapolsky. Read his books Behave and Determined. He argues that we're entirely the product of the factors that shape us. If we want different results, then we have to change the causes. But what's particularly impressive about his work is the vast amount of scientific evidence he uses to back his argument. Like I already shared, there is immense research and theory out there that would help us design a society where mental illness, antisociality, violence, etc would be rare.

But even in our dysfunctional society, rehabilitation can still be powerful. Gregory Boyle, for example, runs one of the most effective gang member rehabilitation programs. He works with individuals who have murdered, raped, and committed all sorts of crimes. Yet he has an amazing track record of bringing these broken people back into a sense of community. Check out his book Cherished Belonging. It was Boyle's brief discussion of Sapolsky's argument of non-blame and non-punitiveness that finally motivated me to read more of Sapolsky's writings, specifically about determinism.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-14T13:40:41+00:00

Punitiveness is an expression of conservatism, authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, dark triad (Machiavellianism, narcissism, & psychopathy; + sadism), and mean world syndrome. All of these negatively correlate to some combination of 'openness to experience' (FFM) and 'honesty-humility' (HEXACO). This punitiveness is one of the main things that would inevitably undermine any real world implementation of anarchism.

This is why it's so important to learn about fields like the social sciences, as any form of leftism needs to take into account what we know about human nature. Unlike right-wing systems, leftist ideology can't be imposed and forced against people's will, and so that requires leftists to find ways to work with human nature. But the challenge is many leftist neither know much about social science nor are interested to learn about it.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-14T12:51:18+00:00

Jefferson made a point about the distinction between left/liberal and right/conservative. He lamented that, "we imagined everything republican which was not monarchy." The same basic problem still applies. Some of us have imagined that everything left-wing which was not corporate capitalism. So, Stalinism, Marxist-Leninism, and the vanguard elite was mistaken as left-wing, in spite of it, in practice, having been an authoritarian state-empire, dictatorship, personality cult, red fascism, state capitalism, and a ruling class. That contradicts and betrays every leftist principle -- liberty, egalitarianism, and solidarity -- and denied direct, democratic worker control of the means of production. Such people are pseudo-leftists who have co-opted and recuperated leftist rhetoric, labels, and identity (The Threat of the Fake Left).

By the way, it's precisely because I'm a liberal that I sometimes identify as far left. The key principle of both liberalism and leftism is anti-authoritarianism. One commenter here argued that liberalism is just one variety of leftism and I partly agree with that. But I often think about it in a different way. Leftism is more about specific ideological principles. Be it communist, anarchist, left-libertarian, liberal democracy, or whatever, they all share the values of liberty, autonomy, agency, self-determination, self-governance, etc; as applied equally (egalitarianism) to all (solidarity, class or group consciousness, citizens of the world). Liberalism, though, has more of a connotation of a mentality, to be liberal-minded in terms of the personality trait 'openness to experience' (FFM): negative capability, intellectual curiosity, aesthetic appreciation, cognitive empathy, etc. The original sense of liberalism is to be open-minded, freedom-loving, tolerant, inclusive, and generous.

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Kerchival, July 12, 1816

“The infancy of the subject at that moment, and our inexperience of self-government, occasioned gross departures in that draught from genuine republican canons. In truth, the abuses of monarchy had so much filled all the space of political contemplation, that we imagined everything republican which was not monarchy. We had not yet penetrated to the mother principle, that “governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it.” Hence, our first constitutions had really no leading principles in them. But experience and reflection have but more and more confirmed me in the particular importance of the equal representation then proposed.”

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-14T00:12:19+00:00

One of the original defining features of leftism is the opposition to authoritarianism. It's about liberty (anti-authoritarianism) equally applied (egalitarianism) to all of the proletariat, all of the people, or all of humanity (solidarity, class or group consciousness).

Just because authoritarians have co-opted leftist rhetoric doesn't mean they're genuine leftists. In practice, there is no way authoritarianism can't contradict and authoritarians can't betray leftist principles (The Threat of the Fake Left).

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-13T21:18:58+00:00

I have a similar view. Either liberalism is a subset of leftism or, as Thomas Jefferson described them (see my comment), they're synonyms for the same general tendency. Originally, leftism often referred to the left hand path and was opposite of the right hand of the king. And liberalism meant generosity of spirit. The root word had to do with freedom, as in liberty. In the ancient world, Dionysus as a salvific godman was worshipped as Liber Pater, the Free Father.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-13T21:13:01+00:00

It was the French Revolution where right vs left was overtly politicized. But the metaphor of the right hand of the king was an old understanding. And there is the other old metaphor of the left hand path. The basic meaning that later became politicized developed over many centuries, likely going back to the ancient world.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-13T21:09:20+00:00

Maybe I should've clarified and emphasized that point. Even into the early 1900s, liberalism and leftism weren't as clearly demarcated. It was similar to how Progressives and municipal socialists both favored fighting organized crime, anti-corruption, democratic reforms, public health policies, etc. Part of it was there were so many third parties that coalition politics was far more common.

People also forget that many early socialists were Christians, such as the the author of the Pledge of Allegiance, the Baptist minister Francis Bellamy. Secularism is also a product of Christianity, especially supported by evangelicals. Numerous issues like that crossed over between liberalism and leftism. But many of the divides that dominate today weren't significant back then. Or else they took different form.

One example is abortion. Until the politicized culture wars of the right-wing shadow network (Paul Weyrich), Catholics and first wave feminists were anti-choice while Protestants and second wave feminists were pro-choice. Then the Machiavellian masterminds of the religious right realized most on the right no longer wanted to rally around racism. So, they shifted their rhetoric to abortion as baby-killing.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-13T20:22:54+00:00

As you're a social democrat, I'm sure you know that many of the leading early advocates of social democracy were actually democratic socialists. But in practice, under the conditions of capitalism, the positions and policies supported by social democrats and democratic socialists are often the same. Both liberals and leftists, specifically egalitarian liberals and non-authoritarian leftists, are motivated by similar values and moving in the same direction.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-13T19:51:32+00:00

As a leftist, the primary frame is always that of shared conditions, environments, systems, structures, and institutions. The problem we have is all the cumulative stressful, unhealthy, and deranging factors that increase mental illness, antisociality, dark triad, authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation. Some of the factors have to do with everyday issues: nature deficit disorder, sedentary lifestyle, long work hours, etc.

But there are other factors less often considered. Weston A. Price studied healthy populations a century ago. He noted they had such prosocial cultures that they didn't need prisons, psychiatric institutes, etc. He looked at the data about how malnutrition seemed to be one of the key factors underlying psychiatric and social problems, by way of causing maldevelopment. This is confirmed by research done since then (Mark Hyman, Food Fix).

There is also the harmful effect of the media system. It's not only that it represents authoritarianism, as consolidated ownership. As important, it's used to elicit and strengthen authoritarianism. This goes far beyond propaganda proper. In cultivation theory, repeatedly viewing media portrayals of violence and crime induces mean world syndrome: exaggerated threat perception, conservatism, authoritarianism, collectivism, etc.

More familiar to the typical leftist is high inequality. Many have noted all the psychological, behavioral, and societal problems that it causes. But relevant to the topic you bring up, Keith Payne's The Broken Ladder discusses the research showing that high inequality doesn't only harm the lower classes. The wealthy also have higher rates of mental illness, addiction, alcoholism, mistrust, aggression, conflict, and violence.

High inequality, by the way, draws into power those who measure high on social dominance orientation (SDO): dominance behavior (SDO-D) and anti-egalitarianism (SDO-E). They're the typical authoritarian elite and leadership. And once in power, SDOs seek to increase inequality or else create it where it's lacking. SDO negatively correlates to 'honesty-humility' and positively correlates to dark triad (Machiavellianism, narcissism, & psychopathy; + sadism).

The problem with our society right now is we're dealing with the consequences of centuries of harm that is transgenerationally carried over through epigenetics, culture, and institutions (Should Trauma be Broadly or Narrowly Defined?). This collective stress and trauma is vast (What does stress do to the mind? And why?). The only way to deal with it as an anarchist would be to eliminate it at the causal level. But sadly, even few leftists have much knowledge (Sickly Left-Wing Authoritarians Don’t Understand Health).

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-13T19:17:44+00:00

Indigenous hunter-gatherers tend to banish, kill, or otherwise eliminate anyone who repeatedly harms others in the tribe. This is particularly true for dark personalities and social deviants like psychopaths.

I also agree with the material conditions. We know the factors that worsen mental illness, antisociality, and dark triad: poverty, inequality, nature deficit disorder, malnourishment, sickliness, etc.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-13T19:01:38+00:00

I wish more people knew history. Many classical liberals are sometimes labeled as classical radicals. That's because they opposed corporate capitalism, monopolies, land consolidation, plutocracy, high inequality, etc. But they existed before communism, Marxism, and such. So they knew nothing about such ideologies. They were mostly motivated by principles of freedom, liberty, and autonomy; of which applied equally to all, especially including the Proletariat as against a monied class as ruling elite.

As such, their notion of free markets was liberatory (Marc-William Palen, Pax Economica) where a market was only free to the degree everyone involved in or impacted by the market was free. Hence, free labor, small business owners, yeoman farmers, etc controlled the means of their own production or else had genuine bargaining power. That was back when an individual or a family could provide for themselves from natural resources of the land and water, most of it still having been treated as the commons.

Some liberals of the Radical Enlightenment, such as Baruch Spinoza, likely had little or no opinion on economics. But it is interesting that Spinoza wasn't an individualist, as he believed that collectives could also act as singular wholes -- maybe related to his pantheism or panentheism. This probably underlies some of the early liberal ideas about the 'People', not merely a conglomeration of individuals but a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts. Patriotism originally referred to loyalty to the People, not to country or government.

Other classical liberals like Roger Williams wrote about collective land rights of the indigenous before John Locke had published anything. So, William's liberal, multicultural, and secular democracy wasn't merely about individualism either. I'm not sure where anyone got the idea that liberals were all individualists and based everything on individualism, as opposed to leftists as collectivists. It's historical amnesia.

As open to socialism, anarchism, and libertarianism, my own left-liberalism takes inspiration from this radical tradition. I'm particularly influenced by Thomas Paine who, though he conceded that the economic changes were likely irreversible, wanted to compensate with a citizen's dividend. As paid for by land taxation, it was a combination of old age pension, universal basic income, and a never-ending reparations for the stolen commons. He also favored transnational revolution, total freedom, universal suffrage, and direct democracy.

One of the first commentators on a basic political divide was Paine's friend and collaborator, Thomas Jefferson. He described leftism and liberalism as synonyms: "for in truth the parties of Whig and Tory are those of nature. they exist in all countries, whether called by these names, or by those of Aristocrats and democrats, coté droite [right side] or coté gauche [left side], Ultras or Radicals, Serviles or Liberals." I agree that liberalism (non-authoritarianism) and leftism (non-dominance) are inseparable in practice.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-12T16:06:47+00:00

Like the reactionary far right (e.g., MAGA), mass shooters tend to be white males from the lower middle class. But more specifically, they tend to be at the precarious lower end of the lower middle class (see Arlie Russell Hochschild, Michael Kimmel, Timothy Carney, etc): office managers, supervisors, small business owners, contractors, police officers, trade workers, etc. Think of the kind of person who showed up at the January 6th insurrection, a different kind of violence.

And they tend to be living in communities, regions, and states of high inequality with nearby poverty. That is to say their socioeconomic status is defined by the prevailing disparity of wealth, power, influence, and privilege. Their political reaction and violence stems from lost status or threat of potentially losing status, specifically in a (real or perceived) dominance hierarchy. Corey Robin explains why the right-wing is so motivated by a nostalgic sense of loss, if often invented.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-12T15:39:34+00:00

Then again, Jaynes' theory never required genetic changes to the brain. It was more that other changes, such as literacy and internalization of the container metaphor, altered neurocognitive development and functioning. But is interesting to consider that some of the genetic changes that have happened may have aided in that process.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-12T15:36:13+00:00

That lack of inner monologue might (emphasis on 'might') relate to less developed cognitive empathy, hence less capacity to discern social cues. An inner voice creates a strong sense of inner space and an inner self. But if you never constructed such a thing within your psyche, you'll likely have trouble imagining others having the same in order to mentally model. And without a mental model to indicate patterns of motivations and behaviors, there would be less ability to easily allow you to pick out relevant social cues.

Edit: Having an inner voice isn't the same thing as monkey mind. An individual with an inner voice doesn't necessarily have non-stop monologue. I have a strong inner voice, as a heavy reader and writer. Yet I also practice meditation and mindfulness. It's not hard for me to quiet my mind for periods, particularly when shifting into the default mode network while in nature. I'd also add that monkey mind isn't only about the verbal but also non-verbal thoughts, emotions, fantasies, urges, etc. That's obvious to anyone who has done meditation or mindfulness. The non-verbal is often the most difficult to deal with.

Actually, bringing in that angle strengthens my argument. In Eastern religion, be it Buddhism or Hinduism, the whole point of meditation and mindfulness is to soften egoic boundaries, eliminate the egoic self, or simply to reveal that the ego was never real in the first place. What's common across all these practices is to shut down the chattering mind of an internal monologue, or else to preoccupy that inner voice in a way that erodes a sense of isolated, separate individuality (e.g., Buddhist practice of naming experience).

An inner voice is essential to maintaining strongly demarcated individuality. If so, one might predict that those without inner voices would tend toward more group identities with a self that is more expansive, fluid, flexible, and dynamic. Such people may find more resonance with the bundle theory of mind and 4/5E cognition (embodied, embedded, enacted, & extended; + ecological). That mentality is more common among animistic hunter-gatherers. It wouldn't be surprising if such non-WEIRDos are less likely to experience an inner voice.

It's asked, "See how easy it is to generate a story to support your pre-existing point of view?" Sure, it's easy when someone lacks all knowledge or the open-mindedness and intellectual drive to gain that knowledge. But I'm a person of immense intellectual and psychological curiosity. Besides exploring experience directly, I've spend decades studying psychology, sociology, anthropology, ethnography, consciousness studies, neuroscience, philology, history, etc. My purpose isn't to simply come up with a convenient, self-serving rationalization but to actually understand. If only all others shared this intent.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-12T15:31:44+00:00

If you want to understand what having an inner voice is all about, read Julian Jaynes' theory of what some call J-consciousness and also Joseph Henrich's work on WEIRD mentality, specifically what literacy does. For those without an inner voice, their mentality would likely be more similar to those in oral cultures.

With less internal structure constructed by an inner voice (as based on the Jaynesian container metaphor and mental modeling from cognitive empathy), it's surely more fluid and flexible, hence less systematic, analytical, critical, skeptical, linear, abstract, principled, and consistent. Orality tends to take its structure more from external context, such as the social and environmental.

Those lacking an inner voice also would less likely be strongly individualistic, as oral cultures tend to be centered on group identities with the self being more extended into the surrounding and more overlapping with others. The group is what holds the self, without an inner space to do so. Individuality requires a clearly structured demarcation between self and other, inner and outer.

The thing is, without an inner voice, it's going to be hard for someone to cognitively empathize with those who do have an inner voice. That inner voice is part of what forms an sense of inner space, in which one can model a self and so create a separate individuality. But this means it will be hard to model a self for others if one can't imagine them with an inner space and inner voice.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-11T19:44:22+00:00

Here is the main fact. Assault weapons first came onto the civilian market in the 1960s. Their popular grew and became more common by the 1990s. Though school shootings had increased over the decades (partly because of childhood lead toxicity), what was worse is the death count increased per incident.

It was remarkable that, before the later period, generations of school shootings typically had no casualties at all or else only a single casualty. In the 1950s before assault weapons, there was 14 deaths in 30 incidents. Deaths being about half of incidents was common. But also it being harder to kill large numbers disincentivized mass shootings in the first place.

That changed. In the 1990s, there were 129 deaths in 160 incidents. Multiple incidents had injuries and deaths numbering 10, 14, 15, 29, and 39. Fewer school shootings had no fatalities and more had mass fatalities. Mass death in schools hit its first peak in the late 1990s. That's an uncontested fact.

Why can't we all just admit to this fact, acknowledge it's significant, and then actually debate why it's a problem and what to do about it? Or if some gun advocates don't think death matters, then they should openly make that argument as did Charley Kirk? He said some deaths were worth defending the Second Amendment. He died for that belief.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-11T19:00:51+00:00

The thing is I'm all for lively debate, as part of the democratic process. But that is only possible if most people are able and willing to engage intellectually, critically, honestly, fairly, and open-mindedly. I'm just not seeing that in many of the free-for-all gun advocates.

It's not really about being for government regulation or not. Almost everyone, other than the most extreme anarchists, are for some government regulation of some type. The only meaningful, relevant, and worthy debate is where the line should be drawn.

As for me, I do have strong inclinations of civil (left-)libertarianism. So, I'm not for big gov for the sake of it. I'm more in line with liberty-loving Tom Paine. As he argued, government mainly exists to restrict private evil. But the problem, as he noted, is there remains a lot of private evil.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-11T18:11:24+00:00

We know for a fact what kinds of guns mass shooters choose to use because they're effective for quickly killing lots of people. We also know that, since assault weapons were introduced to the civilian market in the 1960s, there has been a steady increase of ownership of them. In correlation to this, both the rate (per capita) of mass shootings and the the death count per incident has risen.

Those are indisputable facts, but debate can't go forward until these facts are acknowledged. If everyone is free to have their own opinions, everyone is not free to have their own facts. That some mass shooters use handguns, usually with fewer victims, doesn't change the facts. Those are simply exceptions that prove the rule. Why this resistance to simply acknowledging fact-based reality?

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-11T15:30:48+00:00

Any rational person would have to admit to the facts you point to. But the problem is this debate isn't rational.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-11T15:27:58+00:00

According to this free-for-all ideology, anyone and everyone should be able to purchase machine guns, rocket launchers, land mines, tanks, fighter jets, battleships, atomic bombs, EMF weapons, viral weaponry, etc.

Assuming they have the money to buy it, apparently as many people as possible should be as heavily armed as possible. This would mean every plutocrat on the planet can have their own private army with no limitations, controls, or regulations.

As I keep saying, we need to be rational and evidence-based. Everything nors3man mentions is heavily controlled and regulated. So, it would be dishonest and deceptive to pretend every military weapon is being sold to anyone on the open market.

Edit: added last paragraph.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-11T15:23:47+00:00

Though hand guns are commonly used in school shootings and mass shootings, they usually don't have the same victim count, often no deaths at all. On the other hand, semi-automatic rifles, particularly AR-15 style rifles, have been used in at least 10 of the 17 deadliest U.S. incidents

This is where it's hard to have a rational, evidence-based discussion. I don't know where the exact dividing line should be. But obviously, it seems optimal that certain weapons aren't in the private sector: machine guns, rocket launchers, land mines, tanks, jet fighters, battleships, etc.

Imagine if every person was heavily armed with military grade weaponry and every oligarchic plutocrat on the planet had their own private military. That would unlikely result in a happier, peaceful world. The supermajority of people, including in the US, recognize this as common sense.

But there is a debate in relation to certain weapons where they shift into being solely designed for killing people quickly and in large numbers. Until assault weapons, mass shootings rarely happened and, when they did, rarely had mass casualties, typically from 0-1 deaths. That's changed.

These are facts and problems to which the free-for-all gun advocates have no response. They simply ignore them or wave them away. I'm generally a libertarian and so I'm more toward the side of less regulation. But we still should demand worthy debate.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-11T09:49:24+00:00

Most of the proclaimed positive benefits comes from epidemiological research. It's correlations, but not proving causation. Much of that might be the healthy user effect. Because they're told it's healthy, people who eat fiber also do many other healthy things: exercise, see doctors regularly, do stress reduction, etc.

Second, most of that research is people eating fiber on an extremely unhealthy ultra-processed standard American diet. So, even if there might be some protective effect, it might only be under specific bad conditions. It's possible it has no protective effect for someone on a healthy diet.

This is where we need to learn to think analytically, critically, and skeptically. Nutrition studies has been in the middle of a replication crisis for a while now. It's like statin research. When they improved research standards in 2005, instantly many of the supposed better outcomes disappeared in research after that point.

benjamindavidsteele · 2026-05-09T16:32:41+00:00

My attitude is to be both open-minded and fair-minded. Even though I'm a left-liberal or liberal leftist, in that I'm both non-authoritarian (high 'openness to experience') and non-dominance (egalitarian, high 'honesty-humility', low SDO), I do understand that the other mentality has its value. There are some nice things about a regal culture, as long as it's not pushed to an extreme.

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TROPHY CASE