The context was whether exercise resistance was a thing that existed (and hence, whether it was something Eliezer could have). I was revisiting my old comments on the topic to grab the citations I had dug up as part of working on a section for my longevity cost-benefit analysis where I observe that given the phenomenon of exercise resistance, behavioral backlash like lowering basal activity levels, and twin studies indicating various exercise correlations are partially genetically confounded, we should be genuinely doubtful about how much exercise will help with non-athletic or cosmetic things and be demanding randomized trials.
we should be genuinely doubtful about how much exercise will help with non-athletic or cosmetic things.
First, we probably should be interested in the amount of total physical activity—“exercise” implies additional activity besides the baseline and the baseline varies a LOT. Some people work as lumberjacks and some people only move between the couch and the fridge.
Second, as long, as we are expressing wishes about studies, I’d like those studies to focus on differences between groups of people (e.g. run some clustering) and not just smush everything together into overall averages.
Third, there is one more category besides longevity and (athletic and/or cosmetic) -- quality of life. Being fit noticeably improves it and being out of shape makes it worse.
The context was whether exercise resistance was a thing that existed (and hence, whether it was something Eliezer could have). I was revisiting my old comments on the topic to grab the citations I had dug up as part of working on a section for my longevity cost-benefit analysis where I observe that given the phenomenon of exercise resistance, behavioral backlash like lowering basal activity levels, and twin studies indicating various exercise correlations are partially genetically confounded, we should be genuinely doubtful about how much exercise will help with non-athletic or cosmetic things and be demanding randomized trials.
First, we probably should be interested in the amount of total physical activity—“exercise” implies additional activity besides the baseline and the baseline varies a LOT. Some people work as lumberjacks and some people only move between the couch and the fridge.
Second, as long, as we are expressing wishes about studies, I’d like those studies to focus on differences between groups of people (e.g. run some clustering) and not just smush everything together into overall averages.
Third, there is one more category besides longevity and (athletic and/or cosmetic) -- quality of life. Being fit noticeably improves it and being out of shape makes it worse.