How can a person who promotes rationality have excess weight?
Easily :-)
This has been discussed a few times. EY has two answers, one a bit less reasonable and one a bit more. The less reasonable answer is that he's a unique snowflake and diet+exercise does not work for him. The more reasonable answer is that the process of losing weight downgrades his mental capabilities and he prefers a high level of mental functioning to losing weight.
From my (subjective, outside) point of view, the real reason is that he is unwilling to pay the various costs of losing weight. That, by the way, is not necessarily a rationality failure since rationality does not specify your value system and it's your values which determine whether a trade-off is worthwhile or not.
the real reason is that he is unwilling to pay the various costs of losing weight
That's not incompatible with the hypothesis that said costs would be higher for him than for the average person for whatever reason.
The most recent post in December's Stupid Questions article is from the 11th.
I suppose as the article's been pushed further down the list of new articles, it's had less exposure, so here's another one for the rest of December.
Plus I have a few questions, so I'll get it kicked off.
It was said in the last one, and it's good advice, I think:
This thread is for asking any questions that might seem obvious, tangential, silly or what-have-you. Don't be shy, everyone has holes in their knowledge, though the fewer and the smaller we can make them, the better.
Please be respectful of other people's admitting ignorance and don't mock them for it, as they're doing a noble thing.