RichardKennaway comments on Solved Problems Repository - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Qiaochu_Yuan 27 March 2013 04:51AM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 01 April 2013 04:00:21PM 1 point [-]

It seems to me that there must be some lower bound on food intake beyond which one can't help but lose weight

It has been observed that no fat people emerged from Auschwitz. But if some people do not lose weight below that level of privation, they don't stand much chance of doing so voluntarily.

Comment author: MugaSofer 06 April 2013 08:04:45PM 1 point [-]

Perhaps they all died because they couldn't access their metabolic reserves? [/devilsadvocate]

Comment author: RichardKennaway 06 April 2013 08:31:47PM *  0 points [-]

Perhaps they all died because they couldn't access their metabolic reserves? [/devilsadvocate]

All the worse for those with great difficulty losing weight. Apply enough determination and it might kill you!

People would probably object to using Nazi data, but it would be interesting if they ever kept logs of inmates' body weight and non-deliberately-caused deaths.