Noted British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has publicly wondered why people sit all day.
He delivered a speech on the seriousness of obesity for a Swedish nonprofit, saying: “Today too many people die from complications related to overweight and obesity. We eat too much and move too little.”
The solution, Hawking added, is “not rocket science,” saying that people need to need less and move around more.
According to the World Health Organization, physical inactivity is the fourth-leading cause of death around the world.
Hawking was diagnosed with a motor neuron disease when he was 21, and has spent most of his life relegated to a wheelchair. He wonders why people who have more of a choice want to sit around.
“For what’s worth how being sedentary has become a major health problem is beyond my understanding,” Hawking said.
And in a column for The Guardian, Hawking wrote that increasing automation and artificial intelligence are going to decimate middle-class jobs and worsen inequality. “The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining,” he wrote in the opinion piece.
He added: “The internet and the platforms that it makes possible allow very small groups of individuals to make enormous profits while employing very few people. This is inevitable, it is progress, but it is also socially destructive.”
