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Misleading metaphors

economist.com

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Re: Misleading metaphors

#51

Post by [deleted] »

moron4hire wrote: post #28
johngalt wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calories in/out is true. As in it is an accurate statement. The problem is that common examinations of diet focus on this math rather than what motivates humans to eat. It is like saying 'the problem with traffic is too many cars.' It is an axiom that does nothing to examine the causes. Admonishing everyone to 'drive less' will do very little unless several other systems are changed.

The "calories in/out" line also ignores that the "calories out" part varies extremely . For example, my mother has two bum knees from a lifetime of sports activity that now prevent her from engaging in most strenuous activity, and an under-active thyroid. She's also post-menopausal, so her overall metabolism is super low. She literally cannot lose weight on anything more than 1500 calories per day. "It's just a matte…

[deleted]

Re: Misleading metaphors

#52

Post by jt2190 »

sparky_z wrote: post #50
jt2190 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the same wikipedia article: > English common law before the reign of Charles II permitted a man to give his wife "moderate correction", but no "rule of thumb" (whether called by this name or not) has ever been the law in England.[2][8][d] In other words, beating of wives was historically an acceptable practice under English Common law, notwithstanding my mistakenly using a debunked anecdote. Thank you for "moder…

> In other words, beating of wives was historically an acceptable practice under English Common law You're assuming "moderate correction" means wife beating. In fact, if you look at the source Wikipedia cites for that phrase, it says: >Such corrections specifically excluded beatings in favor of temporarily confining the wife to the household (like making a child sit in the corner). In fact, no British law, Common or…

I guess you're right and I'm wrong. My apologies.

(edit: Perhaps I was confused by this quote:

> "In the early 1800s most legal systems implicitly accepted wife-beating as a husband’s right, part of his entitlement"

> https://www.britannica.com/topic/domestic-violence)

I took that to include English Common law (the article I quoted doesn't make that clear.) Bully to the English for always providing legal protection to their women!

Re: Misleading metaphors

#53

Post by DenisM »

Analemma_ wrote: post #35
trendia wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide an example of a policy decision that is (1) correct using sovereign debt analysis but (2) incorrect when using household debt analysis?

Avoiding austerity.

Seriously. Your reply is bordering on curt, but austerity is the root of much disaster. Paul Krugman wrote s lot about it, e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/apr...

Re: Misleading metaphors

#54

Post by abuteau »

thewayfarer wrote: post #14

"Metaphors are like models, only with unclear responsibilities." --Nick Rowe, talking about the use of metaphors to describe economic models.

Other people that used that quote is Emanuel Derman. He's an interesting character (PHD in theoretical physics, Ex-Goldman Sachs Partner). He is the author of Models.Behaving.Badly: Why Confusing Illusion with Reality Can Lead to Disaster, on Wall Street and in Life [1] and wrote a great paper on Metaphors, Models & Theories. I did a review of his paper [2], but some highlights:

Theories: Tell us what something is. According to Derman, theories “deal with the world on its own terms, absolutely.”

Models: Tell us what something is partially like. According to Derman, models are “reductions in dimensionality that always simplify and sweep dirt under the rug.”

Metaphors: Models can be compared to Metaphors. Metaphors are relative descriptions that compare it to something similar, but better understood through theories or real life applications.

"A model is a metaphor, not the thing itself. Good metaphors compare something we don’t understand, to something we think we do. Based on this, a model is simple and of limited applicability when compared to the real thing as it focuses on some parts rather than the whole. It is a caricature which overemphasizes some features at the expense of others."

[1] http://bit.ly/dermanmodels [2] https://medium.com/pnr-paper/metaphors-models-theories-fb406...

Re: Misleading metaphors

#55

Post by Robotbeat »

ksk wrote: post #46
Robotbeat wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider hunger a survival instinct. People with obesity, especially those who have actively tried to lose weight but failed, have a stronger hunger drive than normals as their body fights back against caloric restriction attempts. If you just increased willpower to overcome this much stronger hunger drive, you'll have increased will power beyond any kind of equilibrium with the other (weaker) survival instincts, t…

Are you advocating that people are victims of their baser drives?

I'm saying "will power" is not a magic solution.

Even if you could magically increase willpower way beyond the usual to counter the body's exaggerated hunger drive (that science says you experience during AND especially /after/ losing weight when you're obese), it'd almost certainly cause other problems.

You've got to address the root cause, which is the body's ill-adjusted response to maintaining a negative caloric balance for weight loss. Obese people who try to lose weight have just as much will power as a normal person.

Re: Misleading metaphors

#56

Post by svachalek »

dahart wrote: post #27
jimmaswell wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure this was their point, that stating it as simply "calories in calories out" makes it sound a lot easier than it actually is in practice.

I could buy that, except that the clear implication was that diets don't work because of the language. The article plainly blamed the use of the phrase "calories in, calories out" as a major factor in why diets don't work. That's just not true, the caloric equation isn't why diets don't work, the caloric equation is precisely why diets do work. The phrase also is not the reason that people don't stick to diets either…

Diets "work" the same way the war on drugs is "working". You just have to wrap your hands around your eyes and stare really hard at the details, while being very careful not to see the bigger picture.

Re: Misleading metaphors

#58

Post by dahart »

dahart wrote: post #30
moron4hire wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "calories in/out" line also ignores that the "calories out" part varies extremely . For example, my mother has two bum knees from a lifetime of sports activity that now prevent her from engaging in most strenuous activity, and an under-active thyroid. She's also post-menopausal, so her overall metabolism is super low. She literally cannot lose weight on anything more than 1500 calories per day. "It's just a matte…

I agree, reducing it to "willpower" is roughly the same thing as reducing it to "calories in, calories out". Neither one actually helps you achieve it. And saying it's only "willpower" and nothing more is possibly more misleading, and more shaming than the caloric equation. I found out personally that focusing on willpower doesn't work very well, thinking that way makes it easier to fail mentally. You're trying to fo…

The above comment seems to be rubbing some people the wrong way. I'm honestly stumped as to which parts are disagreeable and I'd listen and appreciate any further feedback, especially if I was accidentally offensive. My one any only goal was to contribute positively to the discussion.

Re: Misleading metaphors

#59

Post by etiam »

Not spot on the same issue perhaps, but these sorts of effects are an important reason I cringe at the uptake of newspeak like "alternative facts" by regular media and writers. If you not only let your adversary pick the framing but actively contribute to it, you're placing yourself at a potentially severe disadvantage for no good reason.

Re: Misleading metaphors

#60

Post by moron4hire »

Robotbeat wrote: post #31
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its one thing to tell someone to "drive less" when they have to go to work and don't have the capital/opportunity to move closer or change jobs. Eating less is entirely a personal willpower issue.

Everything in life is a willpower issue. If we could just increase willpower /exactly/ when it's needed, we could solve virtually every problem not limited by fundamental physics. The problem is if we could just increase will power for everyone, we'd cause more problems than we'd solve. Too much "will power" means literally insane people. You'll have people exercising until they die of exhaustion/stroke/etc. You'll g…

There's also a lot of evidence that whatever "will-power" is, it requires a rested, well-fed mind. Dieting fundamentally decreases your ability to have "will-power". So perhaps what we call "will-power" is only a correlative trait--not a causative one--for people who lose weight. People lucky enought to have bodies that can easily switch to consuming fat instead of storing fat will probably find themselves with a lot more energy throughout the day to be able to think clearly, exercise, and make good eating decisions, but then call their good fortune "will-power" as a result.
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