I assign p=1 to the proposition that not eating causes significant fat loss. I can’t justify subtracting any particular epsilon, which means to me that p=1-e, where e is too small for me to conceive and apply a number to.
EDIT: I am particularly referring to indefinite periods of perfect fasting.
Then take involuntary starvation. Perhaps you meant “better” in an ethical sense, but I thought you meant in a sense of strict effectiveness.
This proposition is patently false (by indicating that there is a 40% chance that nothing causes better weight loss than placebo), as you admitted with regard to liposuction elsewhere in this thread.
I think you’re nitpicking; if what she’s saying sounds completely obviously unreasonable then it’s probably not what she meant. She means something like “There’s a 60% chance that diets, legal supplements, fasting, and/or exercise, in amounts that Western culture would count as memetically reasonable, and in amounts that can be reasonably expected to be undertaken by members of Western culture, can cause significant weight loss.” To which everyone says, “No, more like 95%”, not “Haha obviously liposuction works, and so does starvation, you imprecise person: next time write a paragraph’s worth of disclaimers and don’t count on the ability of your audience to make charitable interpretations.”
Maybe I have a different idea than you of memetically reasonable, but I’m perfectly happy saying “No, more like 1-10^-30” to your statement as well as hers. Maybe I need to make a top level post here, but I think that it’s a very small minority of humans that are unable to lose weight through diet and exercise, even if the degree of effort required is one not frequently undertaken. I don’t think that the degree of effort required is considered widely unreasonable in Western culture.
My p value is so high because this thread asks us to discount matters of opinion, so the probability that the effort required is beyond what is considered reasonable seems outside the scope. Same for “reasonably expected”. I feel like it’s enough to say that the methods don’t require super-human willpower or vast resources. I think the methods themselves are unquestionable.
It has been remarked in support of that proposition that no fat people came out of Auschwitz (or Singapore, or similar episodes). But is that because they got thin, or did they die before getting thin? Has any research been done on how people of different body types respond to starvation? The full report on this experiment might address that, but the Wiki article doesn’t. However, the volunteers for that experiment were “young, healthy men” volunteering as an alternative to military service, so it’s unlikely that any of them were obese going in.
I assign p=1 to the proposition that not eating causes significant fat loss. I can’t justify subtracting any particular epsilon, which means to me that p=1-e, where e is too small for me to conceive and apply a number to.
EDIT: I am particularly referring to indefinite periods of perfect fasting.
The reason it’s questionable: how long can one not eat? Can most people not eat for long enough?
Then take involuntary starvation. Perhaps you meant “better” in an ethical sense, but I thought you meant in a sense of strict effectiveness.
This proposition is patently false (by indicating that there is a 40% chance that nothing causes better weight loss than placebo), as you admitted with regard to liposuction elsewhere in this thread.
I think you’re nitpicking; if what she’s saying sounds completely obviously unreasonable then it’s probably not what she meant. She means something like “There’s a 60% chance that diets, legal supplements, fasting, and/or exercise, in amounts that Western culture would count as memetically reasonable, and in amounts that can be reasonably expected to be undertaken by members of Western culture, can cause significant weight loss.” To which everyone says, “No, more like 95%”, not “Haha obviously liposuction works, and so does starvation, you imprecise person: next time write a paragraph’s worth of disclaimers and don’t count on the ability of your audience to make charitable interpretations.”
Maybe I have a different idea than you of memetically reasonable, but I’m perfectly happy saying “No, more like 1-10^-30” to your statement as well as hers. Maybe I need to make a top level post here, but I think that it’s a very small minority of humans that are unable to lose weight through diet and exercise, even if the degree of effort required is one not frequently undertaken. I don’t think that the degree of effort required is considered widely unreasonable in Western culture.
My p value is so high because this thread asks us to discount matters of opinion, so the probability that the effort required is beyond what is considered reasonable seems outside the scope. Same for “reasonably expected”. I feel like it’s enough to say that the methods don’t require super-human willpower or vast resources. I think the methods themselves are unquestionable.
It has been remarked in support of that proposition that no fat people came out of Auschwitz (or Singapore, or similar episodes). But is that because they got thin, or did they die before getting thin? Has any research been done on how people of different body types respond to starvation? The full report on this experiment might address that, but the Wiki article doesn’t. However, the volunteers for that experiment were “young, healthy men” volunteering as an alternative to military service, so it’s unlikely that any of them were obese going in.