ArisKatsaris comments on Causal Diagrams and Causal Models - Less Wrong

61 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 October 2012 09:49PM

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Comment author: ArisKatsaris 18 October 2012 01:24:08PM 1 point [-]

Then one of the two "I diet, I am overweight" options seems appropriate, depending on whether you exercise or not. Whether you have lost or gained weight recently doesn't seem part of the poll.

Comment author: drethelin 18 October 2012 01:31:53PM 3 points [-]

I'm saying that losing 30 pounds appears to be exactly the sort of thing we're actually trying to find out about but the poll doesn't check for it.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 18 October 2012 01:43:23PM 1 point [-]

A question not being very "well formulated" implies to me that it incorporates confusions, ambiguities, false dilemmas, etc. That a different question might be more relevant to the purpose of the post, seems a different issue.

Comment author: CCC 18 October 2012 02:34:24PM 0 points [-]

I was very careful to formulate the question to avoid confusions, particularly in the definition of 'overweight' (my thinking was, Obelix would claim he was not overweight, by defining 'overweight' I at least ensure that different definitions of 'overweight' do not blur the line). In the process, I did not consider the case of a person who had relatively recently started a diet (or an exercise regimen) and whose weight had changed as a result, but not sufficiently to move past the arbitrary 25 BMI line.

This was therefore probably not the best way to phrase the question, and for that I apologise (if I were to go back in time and rewrite the question, I would take that case into account). Nonetheless, the question stands as is; I think that it is more important at this point to be consistent, and thus one of the "I diet, I am overweight" options are appropriate.