4 ms·

CICO is the mother of all motte-and-bailey fallacies. The motte is a restatement of thermodynamics and therefore completely unassailable, at least in this unive

CICO is the mother of all motte-and-bailey fallacies. The motte is a restatement of thermodynamics and therefore completely unassailable, at least in this universe. From this the proponents sally forth to make claims like "counting calories is a good way to lose weight". Whenever someone refutes this or anything else CICOs pulled from the bailey they, the CICOs, retreat to the motte and say stuff like "see, you did have a calorie deficit from IF". Yes, thermodynamics is always correct but usually not the appropriate level of analysis at which to address human problems. A simple restatement of CICO arguments in terms of car fuel is enough to see how utterly trivial they are: "My uncle got stranded on the highway" "How so?" "Ran out of gas" "Well, he must have had less energy in the tank then he needed to get to his destination. Simple CICO" Notice how the response is completely correct yet utterly useless. We haven't learned anything about why the uncle ran out of fuel. Was it a leak? CICO is true. Did he forget to fill up? CICO is true. Was he out of money and desperately hoping for the best? CICO is true. Thermodynamics is always true! Notice how all of the different real reasons need a completely different solution. If you responded with "you just need to have enough fuel available to the engine to make it to the destination" as your "solution" people would think you are autistic. If, when presented with the real solution, you said "well, see because he gave his uncle money for gas, now the fuel balance is postive" people would ask if you had a stroke. Why is it that this level of "argumentation" is somehow okay for intelligent people when it comes to weight loss but would get you laughed out of the room on literally any other topic? Try it: poverty? money-in-money-out! Housing? Houses-built-Houses-used! Job problems? Literally just get fired once less then you get hired!

simmerup 4y ago
I think it's because people just want to find a simple reason that lets them look down on fat people. 'It's CICO! Just lose the weight.' Done. No thought needed, and they get to feel superior. General knowledge around proper nutrition in western countries is abysmal. In the UK for example I was pretty much convinced by government guidelines that potatoes are unhealthy. That couldn't be further from the truth!
- bumby 4y ago
  I think this is a bad-faith argument. I didn't see any say "Just lose the weight." There's a difference between acknowledging a fundamental principle and treating it as if that fundamental principle is easy to implement.
  - hnfong 4y ago
    Re: > I didn't see any say "Just lose the weight." There's a difference between acknowledging a fundamental principle and treating it as if that fundamental principle is easy to implement. It's right at the top: > elil17 1 day ago > I hate all these click-bait articles. Losing weight is simple, it's just CICO. Calories In, Crust of the earth Out
    - bumby 4y ago
      Did you read the rest? It’s obviously a shitpost. Reading it as generously as possible, they’re tongue-in-cheek admitting CICO isn’t easy just like obtaining orbital velocity isn’t easy.
bumby 4y ago
The reason people always go back to CICO is because it’s almost always the root cause, barring some extreme edge cases. Yet people won’t acknowledge it has anything to do with it. People get distracted by other claims. “It’s seed oils!” No, it’s because seed oils are used in ultra-processed food that have a ton of calories. “Its the hormonal effect of carbohydrates!” No, it’s because carb-rich foods are extremely easy to overeat. “It’s because we evolved to only eat plants!” No, it’s because animal products are calorie dense by comparison. If you eat less calories than you metabolize you will lose weight, yet people get fixated on all kinds of heuristics of that point. Eating kosher is a rough heuristic for avoiding food poisoning. It doesnt make germ theory useless, it distracts from a more rooted understanding. I do agree that making the behavioral changes to lose weight is much more complicated. But we have to first agree on the cause. The reason why people constantly hammer on it is because so many people don’t accept that idea. To extend one of your examples, it would be like trying to convince someone how to get out of debt, but they refuse to believe their debt problem has anything to do with their spending habits and instead constantly point to things like the predatory nature of credit cards. Those can all be proximate causes, but at the end of the day they are in debt because they spend more than they earn and they’ll never fix the issue if they refuse to acknowledge that simple fact. The govt can pay off their loans and they’ll still be in debt if they don’t shore up their ledger.
- weightloser81 4y ago
  CICO is literally not the root cause. In the strict sense it can't be since it's simply a thermodynamic equation applied to body weight. Equations are not causes. If you mean "overeating" then that's also not the reason. It's like saying that being sad is the root cause of depression. If your analysis of obesity doesn't factor in hormons then it's not going to get you any working solutions. Which is exactly what we observe in the public health sphere since the 1970ies. > Debt Nobody is contesting that. What you say is true but it's also just a very obvious and unhelpful restatement of the problem. I play soccer, badly. When better players give me feedback there is two kinds. One boils down to simply a restatement of the goals of the game: pass better, don't miss the goal, get the ball. I hope you agree that if you really think about it such exhortation are silly. What I actually need is advice that tells me HOW to achieve this. It's the same for debt, weight loss etc. Not to forget that Ketoers and Low Carbers starting with Attkins where and are viciously attacked by the CICO mainstream. When people here say stuff like "well get your deficit anyway you want" than this shows the influence that losing to LC for the last two decades had on the CICO faction. It wasn't like this when I started my keto journey. Back then they said it can't work because fat has the highest energy density and will make your heart explode.

simmerup 4y ago

I think it's because people just want to find a simple reason that lets them look down on fat people. 'It's CICO! Just lose the weight.' Done. No thought needed, and they get to feel superior. General knowledge around proper nutrition in western countries is abysmal. In the UK for example I was pretty much convinced by government guidelines that potatoes are unhealthy. That couldn't be further from the truth!

bumby 4y ago
I think this is a bad-faith argument. I didn't see any say "Just lose the weight." There's a difference between acknowledging a fundamental principle and treating it as if that fundamental principle is easy to implement.
- hnfong 4y ago
  Re: > I didn't see any say "Just lose the weight." There's a difference between acknowledging a fundamental principle and treating it as if that fundamental principle is easy to implement. It's right at the top: > elil17 1 day ago > I hate all these click-bait articles. Losing weight is simple, it's just CICO. Calories In, Crust of the earth Out
  - bumby 4y ago
    Did you read the rest? It’s obviously a shitpost. Reading it as generously as possible, they’re tongue-in-cheek admitting CICO isn’t easy just like obtaining orbital velocity isn’t easy.

bumby 4y ago

The reason people always go back to CICO is because it’s almost always the root cause, barring some extreme edge cases. Yet people won’t acknowledge it has anything to do with it. People get distracted by other claims. “It’s seed oils!” No, it’s because seed oils are used in ultra-processed food that have a ton of calories. “Its the hormonal effect of carbohydrates!” No, it’s because carb-rich foods are extremely easy to overeat. “It’s because we evolved to only eat plants!” No, it’s because animal products are calorie dense by comparison. If you eat less calories than you metabolize you will lose weight, yet people get fixated on all kinds of heuristics of that point. Eating kosher is a rough heuristic for avoiding food poisoning. It doesnt make germ theory useless, it distracts from a more rooted understanding. I do agree that making the behavioral changes to lose weight is much more complicated. But we have to first agree on the cause. The reason why people constantly hammer on it is because so many people don’t accept that idea. To extend one of your examples, it would be like trying to convince someone how to get out of debt, but they refuse to believe their debt problem has anything to do with their spending habits and instead constantly point to things like the predatory nature of credit cards. Those can all be proximate causes, but at the end of the day they are in debt because they spend more than they earn and they’ll never fix the issue if they refuse to acknowledge that simple fact. The govt can pay off their loans and they’ll still be in debt if they don’t shore up their ledger.

weightloser81 4y ago
CICO is literally not the root cause. In the strict sense it can't be since it's simply a thermodynamic equation applied to body weight. Equations are not causes. If you mean "overeating" then that's also not the reason. It's like saying that being sad is the root cause of depression. If your analysis of obesity doesn't factor in hormons then it's not going to get you any working solutions. Which is exactly what we observe in the public health sphere since the 1970ies. > Debt Nobody is contesting that. What you say is true but it's also just a very obvious and unhelpful restatement of the problem. I play soccer, badly. When better players give me feedback there is two kinds. One boils down to simply a restatement of the goals of the game: pass better, don't miss the goal, get the ball. I hope you agree that if you really think about it such exhortation are silly. What I actually need is advice that tells me HOW to achieve this. It's the same for debt, weight loss etc. Not to forget that Ketoers and Low Carbers starting with Attkins where and are viciously attacked by the CICO mainstream. When people here say stuff like "well get your deficit anyway you want" than this shows the influence that losing to LC for the last two decades had on the CICO faction. It wasn't like this when I started my keto journey. Back then they said it can't work because fat has the highest energy density and will make your heart explode.