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A chronic calorie deficit will trigger a suppression of the active thyroid hormone T3. Lowering T3 causes a lowering of the metabolic rate, which lowers the rate of caloric burn at rest.

#4212 doesn’t advocate a chronic deficit. Still, I’ll edit it to say that people shouldn’t be in prolonged deficits.

The value of gold is anchored, see #4155. The dollar has no such anchor.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but potatoes seem to be a good source of fiber. Very filling.

Carbonated water and diet sodas also feel filling, and they don’t even have calories. Diet sodas can help people lose weight. I like to drink Diet Coke when I’m on a cut. The caffeine gives me energy.

Most people are overnourished. One way to take control is to measure your daily energy expenditure and not eat above that.

Using an online calculator like https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html, you can get a decent estimate of your daily caloric needs.

Then, using https://cronometer.com/, track your food to ensure you don’t exceed your daily caloric needs.

By eating in a 500-calorie deficit, you can lose about a pound per week. Lift heavy weights a couple of times a week so the weight you lose is fat, not muscle.

This is a simple way to do body recomposition.

What asset you measure in and what asset you trade for don't necessarily need to be related.

What are some cases where they wouldn’t be related?

I don’t see how one could determine a good time to sell an asset without knowing what it’s worth in one’s target asset.

But if you decided, despite the dollar’s shortcomings, that you want to trade an asset for dollars, you wouldn’t measure your asset in ounces of gold. You’d measure it in dollars, wouldn’t you?

Or are you saying one should never trade assets for dollars?

Dollar-Cost Averaging

Dollar-cost averaging (DCA) is when you invest a fixed amount on a regular basis regardless of market developments.

This practice can work well long term for assets that reflect the value of the entire stock market (or a big part of it).

Long term, we can expect the stock market as a whole to gain value. So if you invest part of your income every month, say, then your position will grow in the long run.

In the meantime, you get to reduce risk by not investing all your money at once. You also get to react to developments that affect the stock market and can decide to interrupt your investment schedule. But I personally like ‘boring’ investment strategies, meaning strategies that are automated and reliable.

I think it would be arbitrary to measure the value in any unit that you aren’t hoping to trade your asset for.

For example, if you eventually want to get gold in exchange for your asset, measure the number of ounces your asset is worth and sell at an opportune time.

If you want to get dollars, measure your asset in dollars. Etc.

I don’t see how it matters for his argument. The value of anything fluctuates.

But gold isn’t fiat. The government can’t create more gold out of thin air.

Wiener’s critique of the dollar applies to gold, too. Both fluctuate. I see no rational preference for gold following from his argument.

Emoji reactions (#2159) are implemented as of ea482fb.

Wiener says the dollar can go up or down in value (usually down; prices usually rise).

He suggests that, due to this volatility, measuring the value of something in dollars is like measuring the width of a physical object using a rubber band. He implies that this measurement is unreliable and arbitrary because you can ‘stretch’ it just like a rubber band.

He concludes that we should measure the value of something in ounces of gold instead.

Am I understanding Wiener correctly?

Apparently, stocks have fallen since the dot-com bubble when measured in gold instead of dollars: https://x.com/elerianm/status/1976237139185574170

Some comments suggest measuring stocks in gold is arbitrary, others say this development is simply due to inflation.

Are they right or is this development a deeper sign that the economy is in trouble?

This is speculation, see #4106. If it really becomes an issue, I can retire the feature or improve it.

I plan to go piecemeal by starting with reactions to ideas as a whole, then maybe to paragraphs/block-level elements down the line.

Would this work better as a criticism of #4058? That way, the relationship between these ideas might be clearer, and there’d be the possibility of a criticism chain.

Related to #4062, making any part of the drug trade illegal just gives gangs and cartels a leg up over law-abiding citizens.

But that way, you pretty much ensure that only scumbags sell drugs. And they definitely don’t care about their customers.

Getting someone hooked on an addictive substance to get repeat business is predatory. It’s not an honest way to do business. Even if consuming drugs was legal, maybe the selling of drugs should still be illegal.

‘Board’

Need ‘standing’ bounties: they don’t expire. I keep finding myself wanting a standing bounty for #3069 so I don’t have to re-run expiring bounties.

Feature idea: pay people to criticize an idea.

You start a ‘bounty’ of an arbitrary amount (min. USD 5), which is prorated among eligible critics after some deadline.

There could then be a page for bounties at /bounties. And a page listing a user’s bounties at /:username/bounties.

When starting a bounty, the user writes terms for the kinds of criticism they want. This way, they avoid having to pay people pointing out typos or other unwanted criticisms.

Anyone can start a bounty on any idea. There can only be one bounty per idea at a time.

To ensure a criticism is worthy of the bounty, the initiator gets a grace period of 24 hours at the end to review pending criticisms. Inaction automatically awards the bounty to all pending criticisms at the end of the grace period.

Veritula should have some way to acknowledge an idea, including a way to show that a thread is resolved, at least for the time being, without having to comment.

Veritula should have some way to acknowledge an idea, including a way to show that a thread is resolved, at least for the time being, without having to comment.