There's a time and place for shortcuts. Health and fitness shortcuts hold more to lose than they do to gain.
Sometimes the long way is better long term. A healthy attitude towards eating and fitness can, and usually does, elevate your life experience many times over. Taking a shortcut in these erases any personal development and learning experience you could get from finding a sport you love, changing your views on food.
A diatribe about Plato doesn't make the universal argument for taking shortcuts. Do you want the people building your home and infrastructure making shortcuts? Do you want doctors in training to shortcut their studies? Why work out and train longer when you can just take anabolic steroids? Why read (or watch films) if you can just skim the summaries on Wikipedia?
> Health and fitness shortcuts hold more to lose than they do to gain.
The entire history of medicine and sports science disagrees with you about that. It's all about knowing what the direct path to the goal is and not meandering around the metaphorical scenic route to those goals.
> Taking a shortcut in these erases any personal development and learning experience you could get from finding a sport you love
Or enable sports that were otherwise unobtainable.
> changing your views on food.
More likely that these drugs would do that. UK celebrity chef Jamie Oliver tried to promote healthy eating in schools by showing school kids how chicken nuggets were made. The kids were disgusted… and yet still wanted to eat them, much to Jamie Oliver's surprise.
> Do you want the people building your home and infrastructure making shortcuts?
I get the impression you're just conflating "shortcut" with "progress", based off of the original Plato example.
You clearly know what I was implying with many of the examples there and spun them into different directions. You don't want builders who take shortcuts building critical infrastructure to save time or hassle, nor do you want to be treated by a doctor who took shortcuts in their education and training.
If you want to become a professional athlete or sports person, tried and testing training methods, nutrition etc. aren't shortcuts. You still need to do those things consistently for years and years (much like staying in shape in general).
If somebody seriously wants to lose weight, they need to discipline themselves to eat better (and maybe supplement that with exercise). Just taking a shortcut weight loss jab without taking anything from it will just lead to the weight going back on (as in crash dieting), becoming an indefinite user of these drugs, or failing completely if the drugs ever become unavailable or develop long term side effects.
Sometimes the long way is better long term. A healthy attitude towards eating and fitness can, and usually does, elevate your life experience many times over. Taking a shortcut in these erases any personal development and learning experience you could get from finding a sport you love, changing your views on food.
A diatribe about Plato doesn't make the universal argument for taking shortcuts. Do you want the people building your home and infrastructure making shortcuts? Do you want doctors in training to shortcut their studies? Why work out and train longer when you can just take anabolic steroids? Why read (or watch films) if you can just skim the summaries on Wikipedia?