Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Is Florida the Problem?


When someone moves to Florida and then starts to decline the tendency is to blame the move on the more sedentary lifestyle. The fact is, a move to Florida is often occasioned by climate. Plainly cause and effect have become confused. It's a good idea for a person who's increasingly sensitive to harsh winters (due to their age or health) to move to Florida. The logical fallacy is rendered with the Latin words post hoc ergo propter hoc. If something follows then it's caused by the preceding factor. He got fat because he ate too much is another form of the same misplaced causality. These kinds of misdiagnoses lead to eating disorders. He may have gotten fat because he had a problem with his metabolism. Similarly, the snowbird’s decline may have been hastened further if he or she insisted on sticking it out up North. One of the reasons why this kind of fallacious thinking is often deployed is to distance the renderer of such analysis from an upsetting condition, i.e., the fact that human beings are mortal. Cancer is another condition which fishes for causes. At first one commiserates with a victim. Then quickly there’s a shift to blame. They got cancer because they smoked or drank liquor or diet coke or ate fatty foods or failed to exercise. The fact is that in many instances people unfortunately contract diseases and it has little to do with their behavior or habits and the same is true for those who die at a young age and indeed those who stay way beyond their welcome. It may be an awful thought, but how long or short one lives is something which is often out of control of the person who's the beneficiary of such good or bad news.

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