It’s not just Elizier. This is a weirdly common idea in the rationalist community. There was the entire SlimeTimeMoldTime series on the theory that trace lithium in water supplies was the true cause of uncontrollable obesity. It opened with an acknowledgement that caloric intake was increasing in recent times, but decided to ignore that as irrelevant because the author thought there must be a different cause.
The comments on that series were wild. Multiple people in /r/SSC were adamant that they were only eating 500-1000 calories per day yet still gaining weight.
> This is a weirdly common idea in the rationalist community.
They are just following the leader. Ayn Rand splinter cults to this day still argue about whether smoking is healthy or at least the rationally.. err, objectively best choice, simply because she smoked.
I mean, this isn’t really a bad take? I don’t think there’s a person
on this earth who hasn’t been told a dozen times to diet and exercise to
lose weight and/or improve their overall health. Just parroting that at
people isn’t useful or meaningful unless you’re offering to take the
time to help work out a diet/exercise plan that works for them.
It’s got real big “if it were me I would simply not have that
problem” energy.
It's not a bad take, but Yudkowsky's resistance to diet and exercise is none the less notable in the way that it contradicts his projected image as someone who is hyper-rational and therefore capable of consistently making good decisions.
It's true that healthy eating and regular exercise does not lead to sustainable weight loss for all people. That doesn't imply the converse though: people for whom weight loss is challenging should none the less be eating well and exercising regularly, because those things have substantial mental and physical health benefits that go far beyond superficial weight loss.
Yudkowsky often complains about having low energy and mental sluggishness. He also doesn't exercise. I wouldn't be surprised if those facts were related.
It’s a lukewarm take, while it can sometimes have the energy of telling a depressed person “just dont be sad 5head”, it’s also true that there really isn’t a better way to lose weight than adopting a healthier lifestyle, and given the proliferation of lose weight quick schemes and scams it’s clearly not a message that is reaching people properly
You're clearly talking about two different related things and hoping people don't notice the switch. The first and original point is about the proper way to support someone, and the other is about public education.
Besides, the ignorance and callousness that people show when they very clearly imply laziness and weakness of character rather than to consider economic, psychological, social, metabolic or medical *causes* for someone's inability to lose weight is *not going to discourage them* from turning to unscientific, dangerous scams about miracle weight loss solutions; rather, these things walk hand-in-hand. It's all fatphobia, baby.
I don’t think they’re talking about two different related things, nor do I think they’re maliciously hoping people don’t notice. You seem to have injected a reading into this and hoping people don’t notice your “support someone” take has nothing to do with what exist as proposed solutions for weight loss.
It’s not ignorant or callous to say that if someone isn’t trying diet and exercise to lose weight, they should try diet and exercise to lose weight. A more helpful answer would be to say what diet or what exercise is a good start for someone trying to lose weight, but not all responses must be Complete Solutions or whatever to avoid being castigated as callous or ignorant.
This is what they were answering to:
>I don't think there's a person on this earth who hasn't been told a dozen times to diet and exercise to lose weight and/or improve their overall health. Just parroting that at people isn't useful or meaningful
Also the important part of my comment was:
>imply laziness and weakness of character rather than to consider economic, psychological, social, metabolic or medical causes for someone's inability to lose weight
Which obviously applies to "innocent" technically correct comments as well as to obtaining an understanding of the subject that isn't harmfully asinine. See how your contribution might not have advanced the conversation very much ?
In any case this is over. We're not in an SSC comment section, and I *can* tell when someone is trying to rationalize and dance around their hateful, shitty prejudices. Go fuck/educate yourself.
Dude, I gave a /talk/ about how terrible SSC is in Vancouver, I am not one of them, but your need to find fault with the people you’re interacting with and literally inventing motivations for them is part of the issue I had with your original comment.
I’m not sure why you’re even quoting parts of the original exchange back to me since it sheds no light on where you think the fault lies. Calling people lazy for being overweight is bad, saying that in general, the best thing a person can do to not be overweight (if that’s even their preference) is diet and exercise is not identical to that.
Not saying you're from SSC just that in this you seem to be saying things that are all technically true but that taken by themselves would lead someone to harmful conclusions, assuring people you're not really saying *the bad things*, and then completely misunderstanding or outright ignoring any criticism that sounds like social science, which is very much their MO.
Everybody knows about diet and exercise ! Except for things like being cold and thinking which are arguably exercise and liposuctions or discovering a medical thing, you can't lose weight without either exercising or changing your diet.
But when people say and repeat this obvious fact far past its relevance while ignoring *why* people trying to lose weight exercise or eat what or not and *what kind of support they would need*, and would rather conjure up imaginary clueless people to whom saying "have you tried diet and exercise" would be helpful advice rather than thinly veiled fat shaming - you'll excuse me for questioning their motives.
"Go fuck/educate yourself" is powerful. I like the idea that they can stop fucking themselves when they're ready to let go of their hateful shit lol, it's a nice reminder that they're welcome in civilized places when they're ready to act like it.
Hi buddy, no it's not not a bait a switch, I would hope that people understand that I'm making a completely different point because that's basic literacy 101. I dont really feel like engaging further since you've jumped in super debate bro and hostile out of the bat, and I don't really like engaging with people I would give wedgies to IRL
I don’t know about that. Modulating weight through basic dietary changes is about as basic as it gets. You don’t need to construct a complicated diet and exercise plan for someone to begin reducing calories.
In fact, the idea that diet is an extraordinarily complicated dark art is what keeps a lot of people from even attempting to diet. It’s really trivial to read the nutrition labels on things purchased from the store or even to look up the calorie count of meals bought at fast food chains. It doesn’t take much to start learning which foods have a lot of calories and which foods have fewer calories per unit volume.
The real puzzling thing is that so many members of the rationalist community present themselves as extraordinary thinkers who can construct elaborate understandings from first principals, yet somehow basic dietary management is beyond their abilities.
Huge changes will take time, but modulating body weight through dietary changes is successful practiced by many people. It’s not hard to understand or to implement if you make it a priority.
Yeah, the problem isn't losing weight: Losing weight is *easy*. The problem is losing weight in a sustainable way where you also don't feel like crap. The difficult of which varies *a lot* between people.
Even that is greatly exaggerated. A mild 100 calorie average deficit doesn’t make people feel like crap. Most people who start paying attention to their diet actually feel better, not worse, because they start eating healthier foods.
That’s exaggerated, too. We already pay attention to our diets by choosing what to eat, acquiring food, paying for it, storing it, preparing it, etc.
Dieting can actually reduce this burden by giving you a more planned out set of options. It’s actually nice to remove the decision overhead and just have a known something to eat.
This idea that paying the slightest attention to your diet is impossibly mentally difficult and therefore we have no choice but to eat excessively is strange.
If it was exaggerated *people would not be as overweight as they are*. People are overweight because losing weight sustainably is hard. Otherwise they'd lose weight. You can argue about exactly *what* makes it hard, and what the easiest ways to deal with it are, but it's obviously not easy, or people would just do it. (More often than they already do)
The degree of “it’s hard” is massively exaggerated, which creates a self-fulfilling prophecy in which people don’t even attempt any measures at all because they’ve been told it’s equivalent to heroin addiction (like the Tweet above).
When people like Yudkowski are Tweeting about weight loss being equivalent to quitting a heroin addiction, it’s getting ridiculous. It’s not *trivially easy*, but no, it’s not that hard either.
And there are many examples of things that are easy but people don’t do for themselves, either. So claiming that because some people aren’t doing it therefore it must be impossibly hard is bad logic.
The classic pattern isn't people not trying: It's people trying, losing some weight, then falling off and gaining weight again. Which implies the hard bit is actually carrying through a change of nutrition (where exactly the difficulty lies is up for some genuine debate) not people never trying in the first place.
(it's possible that people are just *doing it wrong* in various ways, but that itself kinda indicates it's harder than you seem to think because again, *if it was easy people would do it*, considering the massive benefits)
Like most things in life, it’s harder for some people than others. Some people eat emotionally, or stress eat, or self medicate mental health conditions with food. Some people have medical or hormonal conditions that affect their hunger and fullness cues. Some people have too much access to calorie dense food and not enough will power.
Heroin is a (probably deliberately) exaggerated example but you could also apply it to smoking. Everyone knows that if you smoke, the best thing you can do for your health is stop. And stopping is even simpler than losing weight - just stop buying and smoking cigarettes! But there are people who try to quit over and over and over again because even though it’s simple to quit, it’s hard. Same goes for overeating. My mom quit smoking cold turkey and never went back, but has struggled with weight her entire adult life, despite consistently exercising, and trying many times to cut calories.
Since the beginning of our existence we have lived in an environment where calories were limited, and losing weight was a sign of eventual starvation rather than becoming more healthy. It is hard because it's so wired into the human brain to associate calories with pleasure and weight loss to death, our environment has only changed in about the last 100 years which cannot possibly counteract the evolution of our brain in the last 10 million or whatever.
If my friend asked me for diet and exercise tips I would respond differently than if someone on the internet is claiming diet and exercise won’t help with weight loss. In that sense it is a bad take. The most universally applicable solution to being overweight is to eat healthier and be more physically active, does that mean it’ll work 100% of the time every time? No, but expecting everyone you interact with to be capable of producing a solution to every edge case is silly.
You’re missing the point of the analogy. Not taking heroin anymore will work 100% of the time for the problem of heroin use, but doing so is very hard. Even for people who have kicked the physical addiction, it’s psychologically hard not to return to heroin.
Same idea with food. (In kind, not in degree). Maintaining a calorie deficit will work for most people for the problem of being overweight, but for many people doing so is hard. And not going back to old habits is even harder.
[deleted]
We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas
cmon the man needs brainfood
I mean, this isn’t really a bad take? I don’t think there’s a person on this earth who hasn’t been told a dozen times to diet and exercise to lose weight and/or improve their overall health. Just parroting that at people isn’t useful or meaningful unless you’re offering to take the time to help work out a diet/exercise plan that works for them.
It’s got real big “if it were me I would simply not have that problem” energy.