Now, what would happen if I were to eat less? My experience is pretty much the same as what Eliezer has described: I get light-headed with hunger, and great mental and physical efforts become beyond me. I am fortunate enough to have no reason to do so. But I recognise that it is nothing but good fortune, and I am not going to smugly tell anyone else that they just have to pay the price, when the price may be beyond their means, and the price to me is zero. Eliezer's job and vocation is thinking, and if he cannot do that while dropping 100 pounds, then he cannot drop 100 pounds.
The mental and physical effort of many pursuits may be beyond many people...this does not change the reality of what must be done. There is nothing smug about that.
The difficulty of disciplining your diet, like anything else, decreases over time. It's near torture, at first, to deprive yourself of calories you're used to. But it gets easier. I've experienced this and heard the same from many people.
BMR won't affect this.
I'm not sure I follow your line of thinking on this.
Individual resting metabolism varies quite a bit between individuals. While age plays a factor, my understanding is ~65% has to do with lean muscle mass. (Ergo, it's a great idea to accumulate lean muscle in order that you can burn calories without exerting extra effort. Strength training and protein consumption help.)
IIRC, ~25% of BMR is a big giant mystery, and my assumption is it's genetic differences. This is a significant difference between any 2 people (sometimes 100's of calories per day). So, I'm not saying it will be as easy for any two people to maintain a given weight. In fact, it will X% harder for some people—leading them to need to devote that much more time, effort and resource just to keep up with other people who are more fortunate in this way.
And so again, how is this different than anything in life? If I want to excel at math, I would need to devote X% more time, effort, resource than other people who are fortunate in this area. It would require great mental and physical effort for me. Same if I want to excel at long distance running. Or chess. Or ventriloquism. I'd be predisposed to success in some pursuits and at a deficit in others.
BMR won't affect this.
I'm not sure I follow your line of thinking on this.
I am arguing that the presence of biological control systems radically affects how things behave, in ways that may seem impossible to someone who is unaware of these concepts.
...And so again, how is this different than anything in life? If I want to excel at math, I would need to devote X% more time, effort, resource than other people who are fortunate in this area. It would require great mental and physical effort for me. Same if I want to excel at long distance running. Or che
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.