I’m objecting to the claim that it fits your criterion of “catastrophic.” Maybe it’s such a clear example, with such a clear goal, that we should sacrifice the criterion of catastrophic, but you keep using that word.
Ah, I see. The high death rate was what made it seem often-catastrophic to me. Is your objection that the high death rate doesn’t reflect something that might reasonably be described as “optimizing for one goal at the expense of all others”? E.g., because many of the deaths are suicides, in which case persistence may have been net negative from the perspective of the rest of their goals too? Or because deaths often result from people calibratedly taking risky but non-insane actions, who just happened to get unlucky with heart muscle integrity or whatever?
I asked you if you were talking about starving to death and you didn’t answer. Does your abstract claim correspond to a concrete claim, or do you just observe that anorexics seem to have a goal and assume that everything must flow from that and the details don’t matter? That’s a perfectly reasonable claim, but it’s a weak claim so I’d like to know if that’s what you mean.
Abrupt suicides by anorexics are just as mysterious as suicides by schizophrenics and don’t seem to flow from the apparent goal of thinness. Suicide is a good example of something, but I don’t think it’s useful to attach it to anorexia rather than schizophrenia or bipolar.
Long-term health damage would be a reasonable claim, which I tried to concede in my original comment. I’m not sure I agree with it. I could pose a lot of complaints about it, but I wouldn’t. If it’s clear that it is the claim, then I think it’s clearly a weak claim and that’s OK. (As for the objection you propose, I would rather say: lots of people take badly calibrated risks without being labeled insane.)
I’m objecting to the claim that it fits your criterion of “catastrophic.” Maybe it’s such a clear example, with such a clear goal, that we should sacrifice the criterion of catastrophic, but you keep using that word.
Ah, I see. The high death rate was what made it seem often-catastrophic to me. Is your objection that the high death rate doesn’t reflect something that might reasonably be described as “optimizing for one goal at the expense of all others”? E.g., because many of the deaths are suicides, in which case persistence may have been net negative from the perspective of the rest of their goals too? Or because deaths often result from people calibratedly taking risky but non-insane actions, who just happened to get unlucky with heart muscle integrity or whatever?
I asked you if you were talking about starving to death and you didn’t answer. Does your abstract claim correspond to a concrete claim, or do you just observe that anorexics seem to have a goal and assume that everything must flow from that and the details don’t matter? That’s a perfectly reasonable claim, but it’s a weak claim so I’d like to know if that’s what you mean.
Abrupt suicides by anorexics are just as mysterious as suicides by schizophrenics and don’t seem to flow from the apparent goal of thinness. Suicide is a good example of something, but I don’t think it’s useful to attach it to anorexia rather than schizophrenia or bipolar.
Long-term health damage would be a reasonable claim, which I tried to concede in my original comment. I’m not sure I agree with it. I could pose a lot of complaints about it, but I wouldn’t. If it’s clear that it is the claim, then I think it’s clearly a weak claim and that’s OK. (As for the objection you propose, I would rather say: lots of people take badly calibrated risks without being labeled insane.)
The scenario I had in mind was one where death occurs as a result of damage caused by low food consumption, rather than by suicide.