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Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

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Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#61

Post by sfifs »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #27
knowtheory wrote: post #13

Except your food expenditures are a sunk cost, and you can't replace them with fuel expenditures. This is literally comparing apples and gasoline.

Your food expenditures vary with the amount of work you do, no different than your car's fuel expenditures. They are most certainly not a sunk cost for this purpose.

Actually not so much surprisingly - the key exceptions being if you are working in very cold climates where the body has to generate more heat to keep you alive or you're training competitively for very physically sports.

It turns out that about 70-80℅ of what most people consume goes into simply keeping them alive (research basal metabolic rate & daily calorific requirement) and the impact of "work you do" is only a small variation - with the above exceptions.

Also interestingly (unable to search the paper reference on phone) there is research that shows that dramatically different lifestyles like Namib desert nomadic hunter-gatherer vs. typical urban don't actually differ on metabolic rates (accounting for non-fat weight)

Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#62

Post by sfifs »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #27
knowtheory wrote: post #13

Except your food expenditures are a sunk cost, and you can't replace them with fuel expenditures. This is literally comparing apples and gasoline.

Your food expenditures vary with the amount of work you do, no different than your car's fuel expenditures. They are most certainly not a sunk cost for this purpose.

Actually not so much surprisingly - the key exceptions being if you are working in very cold climates where the body has to generate more heat to keep you alive or you're training competitively for very physically sports.

It turns out that about 70-80℅ of what most people consume goes into simply keeping them alive (research basal metabolic rate & daily calorific requirement) and the impact of "work you do" is only a small variation - with the above exceptions.

Also interestingly (unable to search the paper reference on phone) there is research that shows that dramatically different lifestyles like Namib desert nomadic hunter-gatherer vs. typical urban don't actually differ on metabolic rates (accounting for non-fat weight)

Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#63

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

Nullabillity wrote: post #51
jogjayr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then you also have to account for the reduced earning potential due to dying younger :P

Not really. If you die at 70 rather than 90 then your total earnings were probably pretty much the same.

In Australia those additional 20 years on the current full rate pension for a single person represent an additional AU$454,428.00 of income[1].

1. The full rate includes the supplements for a total of $873.90 per fortnight for a single person as per https://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelin...

Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#64

Post by allendoerfer »

sfifs wrote: post #61
thaumasiotes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your food expenditures vary with the amount of work you do, no different than your car's fuel expenditures. They are most certainly not a sunk cost for this purpose.

Actually not so much surprisingly - the key exceptions being if you are working in very cold climates where the body has to generate more heat to keep you alive or you're training competitively for very physically sports. It turns out that about 70-80℅ of what most people consume goes into simply keeping them alive (research basal metabolic rate & daily calorific requirement) and the impact of "work you do" is only a…

You should have posted that at the top level, so this could be the top comment. While the statistics are nice to look at, I have read the article you mentioned, too (was on HN a while ago) and instantly thought that metabolism unfortunately renders the whole calculation useless and wrong.

Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#65

Post by thaumasiotes »

sfifs wrote: post #61
thaumasiotes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your food expenditures vary with the amount of work you do, no different than your car's fuel expenditures. They are most certainly not a sunk cost for this purpose.

Actually not so much surprisingly - the key exceptions being if you are working in very cold climates where the body has to generate more heat to keep you alive or you're training competitively for very physically sports. It turns out that about 70-80℅ of what most people consume goes into simply keeping them alive (research basal metabolic rate & daily calorific requirement) and the impact of "work you do" is only a…

What is the claim you're making? Assume 80% of Example Man's diet is his rest energy requirement. The other 20% goes toward discretionary things like moving. This means that if Example Man doubles his discretionary activity, his food consumption will increase by 20% rather than 100%.

It does not mean that if walking three miles takes one apple worth of energy, Example Man actually only needs to consume 0.2 apples in order to walk an extra three miles. He needs to eat the full one apple. This article doesn't consider food as a percentage of your diet at all; it considers food as the cost of moving. Your point isn't relevant.

Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#66

Post by thaumasiotes »

allendoerfer wrote: post #64
sfifs wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually not so much surprisingly - the key exceptions being if you are working in very cold climates where the body has to generate more heat to keep you alive or you're training competitively for very physically sports. It turns out that about 70-80℅ of what most people consume goes into simply keeping them alive (research basal metabolic rate & daily calorific requirement) and the impact of "work you do" is only a…

You should have posted that at the top level, so this could be the top comment. While the statistics are nice to look at, I have read the article you mentioned, too (was on HN a while ago) and instantly thought that metabolism unfortunately renders the whole calculation useless and wrong.

> While the statistics are nice to look at, I have read the article you mentioned, too (was on HN a while ago) and instantly thought that metabolism unfortunately renders the whole calculation useless and wrong.

Why did you think this? Can you articulate a change that metabolism would make to the calculation?

Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#67

Post by prodigal_erik »

honkhonkpants wrote: post #60
prodigal_erik wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many Ethiopian restaurants, improv theaters, and dueling piano bars did you pass? A lot of niche interests can't sustain themselves at all with only a small fraction of a small population.

Well you got me on the piano bars but as far as Ethiopian food goes there are dozens in my relatively walkable city and I just spot-checked the first car-choked blasted expanse that came to mind (Phoenix) and there are only five in a much larger metro area. If I was an Ethiopian restaurant owner would I prefer a restaurant in a dense neighborhood with five families living in apartments right on top of me, or would I…

Odd, are you in a destination for Ethiopian immigrants? I would have expected something more like the single restaurant serving the entire Napa valley. Most people don't even know Ethiopia has a cuisine, much less seek it out.

Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#68

Post by schoen »

dietrichepp wrote: post #18
schoen wrote: post #6

I've seen a number of people wearing versions of this shirt: https://www.missionbicycle.com/store/home/gift/53-miles-burr... Although if Wikipedia's energy figure is right, that's a 2279 kcal burrito (which you could probably find somewhere in San Francisco, but...).

Oh, burritos can easily get into the 2000+ kcal range. Burritos from Chipotle get well into the 1000–2000 kcal range without even trying.

I tried the calculator at

https://chipotle.com/nutrition-calculator

and added the highest-calorie individual meat (steak), rice (white rice), beans (black beans), salsa (chili-corn), sour cream, cheese, and guacamole, and still got only 1365 kcal.

While adding every single topping does reach 2425 kcal, one would have to order 4 kinds of meat, tofu, 2 kinds of rice, 2 kinds of beans, fajitas, 4 kinds of salsa, sour cream, cheese, guacamole, and lettuce. I would think that should count as "trying"! :-)

Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#69

Post by honkhonkpants »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #67
honkhonkpants wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you got me on the piano bars but as far as Ethiopian food goes there are dozens in my relatively walkable city and I just spot-checked the first car-choked blasted expanse that came to mind (Phoenix) and there are only five in a much larger metro area. If I was an Ethiopian restaurant owner would I prefer a restaurant in a dense neighborhood with five families living in apartments right on top of me, or would I…

Odd, are you in a destination for Ethiopian immigrants? I would have expected something more like the single restaurant serving the entire Napa valley. Most people don't even know Ethiopia has a cuisine, much less seek it out.

Yes we have many Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants in Oakland and Berkeley.

Re: Walking a mile is 3x more expensive than driving, from a fuel perspective

#70

Post by mc32 »

honkhonkpants wrote: post #41

This analysis makes the same mistake that innumerable other analysts have made before: that going a mile is something worth doing. If you stipulate that everything is a mile apart, then you're guaranteed to get this outcome. The point of walking is that if you throw out the cars then everything is much closer together, and then you don't have to walk a mile. If I start from the Ferry Building in San Francisco and wal…

On the other hand people walk, jog and run and bike and stationarily bike many miles for nothing but to keep in shape. So people waste a lot of energy after overconsuming energy.

And then there is the flaneur.

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