https://x.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1816925777377788295
Someone else is welcome to collect relevant text into a reply. I don't really feel like it for some odd reason.
Verbatim quote of this tweet by Eliezer:
For the benefit of latecomers and CICO bros, my current equilibrium is "spend 1 month fasting / starving on 700 cal/day keto; spend 2 months eating enough to work during the day, going to bed hungry, and therefore gaining 1-2 lb/wk".
I don't need a weight-loss solution, kids. Starving 1 in 3 months already works to lose weight. I need a "have enough energy to work, without gaining 1-2lb/wk" solution.
Diets like the potato diet fail, not because they don't succeed in forcing me to eat less -- I do, indeed, end up with not enough room in my stomach to eat enough potatoes to work and not feel tired. The potato diet fails because it doesn't protect me from the consequences of starvation, the brainfog and the trembling hands. If I'm going to be too sick and exhausted to work, I might as well go full keto on 700cal/day and actually lose weight, rather than hanging around indefinitely in potato purgatory.
Semaglutide failed, tirzepatide failed, paleo diet failed, potato diet failed, honey diet failed, volume eating with huge salads failed, whipped cream diet failed, aerobic exercise failed, weight lifting with a personal trainer failed, thyroid medication failed, T3 thyroid medication failed, illegal drugs like clenbuterol have failed, phentermine failed (but can help make it easier to endure a bad day when I'm in my 600cal/day phase), mitochondrial renewal diets and medications failed, Shangri-La diet worked for me twice to effortlessly lose 25lb per session and then never worked for me again.
Next up is retatrutide + cagrilintide, and while I'm still titrating up the dose on that, it sure is not helping so far.
I am not interested in your diet advice unless you have evidence about something that works for people who have metabolic disorders that have resisted fairly extraordinary efforts. While pretty pessimistic about retatrutide at this point, I am trying it all because a poll claimed that it had worked for 75% of people on whom tirzepatide failed.
Your grandmother's dietary solution is not going to work, also I already tried it, also you have flatly failed at reading comprehension since you did not understand that my problem is not "How can I possibly eat less?" but "How can I be protected from the usual consequences to me of eating less, well enough for me to keep working?" And yes, I can eat less by an act of will, I eat 600cal/day for 1 in 3 months, even in the other 2 months I go to bed hungry instead of eating at nighttime, you are failing at reading comprehension if you think that this is about willpower. I just can't work at the same time as eating so little that I'm not gaining weight, which means that my hands are shaking and my brain is fogged.
Thank you and I will be following my usual practice of blocking reply guys who fail at reading comprehension.
There's already a good answer to the question, but I'll add a note.
Different people value different things, and so are willing to expend different amounts of effort to achieve different ends. As a result, even rational agents may not all achieve the same ends because they care about different things.
Thus we can have two rational agents, A and B. A cares a lot about finding a mate and not much else. B cares a lot about making money and not much else. A will be willing to invest more effort into things like staying in shape to the extent that helps A find a mate. B will invest a lot less in staying in shape and more in other things to the extent that's the better tradeoff to make a lot of money.
Rationality doesn't prescribe the outcome, just some of the means. Yes, some outcomes are convergent for many concerns, so many agents end up having the same instrumental concerns even if they have different ultimate concerns (e.g. power seeking is a common instrumental goal), but without understanding what an agent cares about you can't judge how well they are succeeding since success must be measures against their goals.
So I recently had a lot of fun reading HPMOR and the sequences, and I feel like I learned a bunch of cool things and new ways of looking at the world! I've also been trying to get my friends interested in the rationality community, particularly through the works of Eliezer. There, however, appeared an unexpected obstacle in my way. My friends saw a picture of Eliezer and immediately wondered, "If Eliezer is so rational (at least relative to other people) and also has living as long as possible high on his preference ordering, why is he fat?" It does seem like something that ought not take that much effort but has an overwhelmingly positive impact on one's life. health-wise, and maybe even performance-wise. I initially jokingly brushed the question off, saying his work is too important and doesn't leave him enough time to optimize his health, or that maybe he has some condition that prevents him from losing weight.
But the question stuck with me.