army1987 comments on Outside the Laboratory - Less Wrong

63 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 21 January 2007 03:46AM

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Comment author: brazil84 16 December 2013 09:00:49PM 1 point [-]

I define it as food I see and eat in my home as well as food in the restaurants.

I'm not sure what kind of food you keep in your home, but thinking on the fact that a huge percentage of American adults are overweight or obese, I would probably agree that "most food around" is super-stimulating.

You seem to think that any tasty food is super-stimulus food. That's not how most people use the term

Well you asked me why I consider pizza to be a problem. If you don't want to use the word "super-stimulus," it doesn't really affect my point. Pizza tastes good enough to most people that it's difficult to resist the urge to over-eat. That's my answer.

Depends. There's a lot of bad pizza out there.

Oh come on. Please use the Principle of Charity if you engage me. When I assert that "pizza tastes really good," you know what I mean.

I don't see why this is relevant. Small children in general also like pasta

Well small children are naive enough to come right out and express a strong preference for the foods they love. And they don't beg their parents for pasta parties.

The dose make the poison. In small amounts or consumed rarely, pretty much no food or drink is unhealth

Well let me put the question a slightly different way: Do you agree that there exist certain foods which taste really good; which a lot of people have a problem with, which in many ways are like an addiction?

Comment author: [deleted] 21 December 2013 08:19:55AM 0 points [-]

thinking on the fact that a huge percentage of American adults are overweight or obese, I would probably agree that "most food around" is super-stimulating.

I'd guess it's got to do with affordability and convenience as well as taste. If I had to cook my own food or spend a sizeable fraction of my monthly wage on it, I would be much less likely to eat it unless I'm really hungry, no matter how good it tasted.

Comment author: brazil84 21 December 2013 07:13:10PM 2 points [-]

I'd guess it's got to do with affordability and convenience as well as taste

I would agree, but the same thing could be said about pretty much any super-stimulating good or service. If a dose of heroin were available for a nickel at any convenience store, then probably a lot more people would abuse heroin.