Genuine question: If Eliezer is so rational why is he fat?
37Eliezer Yudkowsky
4Three-Monkey Mind
-1ornamental
-1ornamental
29Raemon
4Rafael Harth
2TropicalFruit
-5[anonymous]
4benjaminikuta
10Eliezer Yudkowsky
3peter_hartree
3Gordon Seidoh Worley
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373
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.
(I answered some additional questions in replies to the tweet.)
Goodness gracious, reading this and the replies in the thread, it looks like you have tried everything.
The only other thing I can think of to suggest is “move to Europe for a month” (although this would massively complicate drug acquisition, among other things). What tipped me over the edge was seeing a Twitter conversation that went something like this:
...“I went to [country in Europe] and lost weight”
“Yeah, but you were on vacation and walking everywhere. That says nothing.”
“Nah, bro. I was there for a month working on my laptop and only going downstairs
re: "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."
The problem is that you are focused on the wrong goal - 'how to lose weight' - rather than the goal of 'how do I recover from atypical anorexia without gaining fat the way I used to when I ate normal quantities'
for that second goal, the one of recovery of muscle without boundless fat gain, start testing your CGM reaction to different types of foods eaten on their own.
...
that's not enough for maintaining your lean frame - have you ever looked up the definition for atypical anorexia
299
Actual answer is that Eliezer has tried a bunch of different things to lose weight and it's just pretty hard. (He also did a quite high-effort thing in 2019 which did work. I don't know how well he kept the pounds off in the subsequent time)
You can watch a fun video where he discusses it after the 2019 Solstice here.
(I'm not really sure how I feel about this post. It seems like it's coming from an earnest place, and I kinda expect a other people to have this question, but it's in a genre that feels pretty off to be picking on individual people about and I definitely don't want a bunch more questions similar to this on the site. I settled for downvoting but answering the question)
(He also did a quite high-effort thing in 2019 which did work. I don't know how well he kept the pounds off in the subsequent time)
I'm kinda confused why this is only mentioned in one answer, and in parentheses. Shouldn't this be the main answer -- like, hello, the premise is likely false? (Even if it's not epistemically likely, I feel like one should politely not assume that he since gained weight unless one has evidence for this.)
2-1
This is a perfectly reasonable question. No one wants to be fat, so it follows that no highly competent individual will be fat.
Turns out, it's just a very difficult problem, and that degree of difficulty also varies greatly between people. It's far more difficult for certain individuals than for others.
No one really knows why, yet. If they did, we'd all be thin and healthy again.
-5-2
Because his rational mind is bolted to an evolved lower brain that betrays him with slightly incorrect preference for extra calories when calories are plentiful.
And the conservation of willpower hypothesis says if he fixes his fatness through willpower this comes at the cost of other things.
Eliezer should probably go get a semaglutide or tirzepatide script like everyone else and lose the extra weight. Literally until a few years ago no clinically validated method of weight loss, save extremely dangerous gastric bypass surgery, existed. Diet and exercise do not work for most people.
Epistemic status : I am also slightly fat, though thinner than EY, and intend to cheat with these new drugs soon.
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.
3Verbatim 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.
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