The problem with most junk food is that it's both high in carbs, as well as fat. That's a combination that's very rare in nature, but it's very addictive. When you eat such a combination, the carbs will provoke an insulin response, which causes the fat to be stored, and the sugar to be used as immediate fuel, as well as converted to glycogen. Fat burning is reduced, because high blood sugar is more dangerous to the body than high fat.
After a while, the fat is stored, and the sugar is partly used, partly stored, and blood sugar starts to drop again. The body starts sending out hunger signals, while reluctantly burning some fat. You start eating again and the process starts again.
Because the body doesn't burn much fat (there's a constant supply of sugar), it reduces the number of enzymes required to burn fat, so it becomes more dependent on the sugar. This reinforces the cycle.
If you cut back on carbs, it takes a few weeks for the body to adapt to increased fat metabolism, but after that you have much reduced hunger, and less need for carbs. Weight falls off easily.
I don't like rice very much. It's got little flavor, and it's low on nutrients. I'd much rather skip the rice, and have some more vegetables and meat instead.
When you eat fat, the body produces Acylation Stimulating Protein, which causes the fat to be stored. Also, dietary protein causes an insulin response, which will cause dietary fat to be stored when eaten in combination.
The rules are largely written by processed food industry representatives, with the help of some paid research. Remember how trans fats were touted as a healthy alternative to saturated fats ?
What type of fat? Polyunsaturated fats? Monounsaturated fats? The "this will go straight to my belly" saturated fats?
People need a bunch of different fats, both saturated, monounsaturated as well as polyunsaturated, in different carbon chain lengths, and with double bonds at different places. A variety of natural fatty foods is good. Saturated fats don't go to your belly, unless you overeat them, or you eat them in combination with too many carbs.
What kids don't need is hydrogenated seed oils that are commonly used in cheap processed food.
Feed em lettuce at school, and a slab of bacon when they get home
Or take good food to school. Lettuce is crispy water, and doesn't provide the energy that kids require.
Obviously I meant the other part of your claim, that the body can synthesize the other fats in sufficient quantity.
Also, what's missing from your statement is a percentage of synthesizable fats vs fats that must be obtained from the diet, especially in relation to brain development.
Eating real food saves a lot of money on doctor bills. Some of the food is actually very cheap, especially the fatty cuts of meat, organs and bones, while providing superior nutrition. Plus the high fat content makes it a lot more filling, so often I only eat 2 meals a day, and I almost never eat snacks. I can prepare a healthy dinner for the price of a big starbucks beverage.
I'm not saying that a banana cake or snickers bar aren't crap. But if you just look at glycemic index (i.e. how quickly the sugars enter the blood), they score better than whole wheat bread. Go look it up.
As opposed to the Paleo nuts who claim 6000 calories a day will cause weight loss, while 2000 calories a day will cause weigh gain
As if that's the only alternative to the food pyramid.
My diet: eat real foods, including fresh meat, dairy, nuts, fish and vegetables. Avoid processed foods, including sugar, and grains. Not too much sweet fruit. Eat when hungry.
Nothing crazy, but much higher in fat/lower in carbs than recommended by the food pyramid, and similar to what people ate before the obesity epidemic, except that I probably have more variety (such as year round fresh vegetables).
Whole grains are marginally better, yes. Just like filter cigarettes are better than non-filter ones. If you want to reduce your blood sugar levels, it's actually better to eat sugared banana cake, or a snickers bar.
It is widely excepted that whole grains are better for you than bleached and heavily processed grains as they are far less likely to spike your blood sugar levels.
Whole grains spike your blood sugar faster than table sugar, and only marginally slower than white processed flour. Look it up, if you don't believe it.
The missing factors here are appetite and satiety. If you reduce carbs, and eat more fat, you feel fuller for a longer time. Even though the fat contains more calories per gram, you'll eat less of it, and reduce calories overall.
good training of large network requires bigger and bigger datasets, which are harder and harder to get.
Humans can learn stuff from much smaller datasets. That means that smarter algorithms should be possible to let computers do more with limited data.
Also, we can use different approaches. Imagine you want to train a computer about cats. You can give it 1 million 2D cat pictures, or you make a robot that can interact with a live cat. The 2nd option allows much more useful information to be extracted. And if you do both, it works even better. There's a lot more information you can get from cat pictures after you've experienced a real 3D cat for a while.
Details can be damn hard to figure out and it is not so unlikely that evolution already found something that damn close to optimum if you consider factors such as energy to build and operate.
Evolution has major restrictions, though. It can only use limited materials, both for construction, signalling and energy. It needs to be able to grow from a single cell, with all the information encoded in our DNA (less than 1GB worth of information, of which only a part deals with the brain). It has to evolve in small steps, each one beneficial to survival, starting from a squid. Once stuck in a local optimum, it can't get out. Also, biological learning is limited because it is localized. There's no master program that can update all your neurons at the same time, or rearrange big structures.
On the other hand, neurons are severely limited by the biological processes, so it's possible that we can make artificial neurons that are better than the ones in our brains. A small neuron is 4 microns. A small transistor is 0.02 microns, so we can pack a lot of computation in the size of a neuron, and make it run millions of times faster too.
That's obvious nonsense aptly demonstrated by organizations like Mensa
The problem is not with the IQ test, but with the MENSA criterium. They accept people with IQ of 130, which is pretty smart, but not a genius. On average, 1 out of 50 people has such an IQ, so 1 kid out of every two classrooms.
If MENSA had required an IQ of 180, it could be called a proper genius club. The only problem is that it would be too small to be profitable, and that the members would be too smart to join.
When people talk of super-human intelligence, they mean one capable of self-awareness
These are two independent things. Intelligence has to do with finding patterns, and using these patterns to solve related problems. That doesn't require self-awareness at all. And you can be self-aware but stupid. You need a combination of self-awareness and intelligence to survive in nature, but you don't need self-awareness to solve a math problem.
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It's impossible to compete with someone that will work 80+ hours a week for peanuts
Sure it's possible. Just work 90+ hours for peanuts.
The problem with most junk food is that it's both high in carbs, as well as fat. That's a combination that's very rare in nature, but it's very addictive. When you eat such a combination, the carbs will provoke an insulin response, which causes the fat to be stored, and the sugar to be used as immediate fuel, as well as converted to glycogen. Fat burning is reduced, because high blood sugar is more dangerous to the body than high fat.
After a while, the fat is stored, and the sugar is partly used, partly stored, and blood sugar starts to drop again. The body starts sending out hunger signals, while reluctantly burning some fat. You start eating again and the process starts again.
Because the body doesn't burn much fat (there's a constant supply of sugar), it reduces the number of enzymes required to burn fat, so it becomes more dependent on the sugar. This reinforces the cycle.
If you cut back on carbs, it takes a few weeks for the body to adapt to increased fat metabolism, but after that you have much reduced hunger, and less need for carbs. Weight falls off easily.
I don't like rice very much. It's got little flavor, and it's low on nutrients. I'd much rather skip the rice, and have some more vegetables and meat instead.
Cutting back dietary fat, while keeping total energy intake constant, means increasing carbohydrates, even without adding sugar.
Dietary fat cannot be stored as fat.
When you eat fat, the body produces Acylation Stimulating Protein, which causes the fat to be stored. Also, dietary protein causes an insulin response, which will cause dietary fat to be stored when eaten in combination.
The rules are largely written by processed food industry representatives, with the help of some paid research. Remember how trans fats were touted as a healthy alternative to saturated fats ?
What type of fat? Polyunsaturated fats? Monounsaturated fats? The "this will go straight to my belly" saturated fats?
People need a bunch of different fats, both saturated, monounsaturated as well as polyunsaturated, in different carbon chain lengths, and with double bonds at different places. A variety of natural fatty foods is good. Saturated fats don't go to your belly, unless you overeat them, or you eat them in combination with too many carbs.
What kids don't need is hydrogenated seed oils that are commonly used in cheap processed food.
Feed em lettuce at school, and a slab of bacon when they get home
Or take good food to school. Lettuce is crispy water, and doesn't provide the energy that kids require.
Obviously I meant the other part of your claim, that the body can synthesize the other fats in sufficient quantity.
Also, what's missing from your statement is a percentage of synthesizable fats vs fats that must be obtained from the diet, especially in relation to brain development.
Except for essential fatty acids, the body can synthesize the fat it needs.
Citation required.
Obesity is caused by eating too many calories.
And eating too many calories is caused by hunger, which is caused by insulin, which is caused by carbohydrate intake.
Good explanation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
They get plenty of trans fats, and lousy industrial oils, yes.
It's expensive, and it doesn't work.
Eating real food saves a lot of money on doctor bills. Some of the food is actually very cheap, especially the fatty cuts of meat, organs and bones, while providing superior nutrition. Plus the high fat content makes it a lot more filling, so often I only eat 2 meals a day, and I almost never eat snacks. I can prepare a healthy dinner for the price of a big starbucks beverage.
I'm not saying that a banana cake or snickers bar aren't crap. But if you just look at glycemic index (i.e. how quickly the sugars enter the blood), they score better than whole wheat bread. Go look it up.
As opposed to the Paleo nuts who claim 6000 calories a day will cause weight loss, while 2000 calories a day will cause weigh gain
As if that's the only alternative to the food pyramid.
My diet: eat real foods, including fresh meat, dairy, nuts, fish and vegetables. Avoid processed foods, including sugar, and grains. Not too much sweet fruit. Eat when hungry.
Nothing crazy, but much higher in fat/lower in carbs than recommended by the food pyramid, and similar to what people ate before the obesity epidemic, except that I probably have more variety (such as year round fresh vegetables).
Whole grains are marginally better, yes. Just like filter cigarettes are better than non-filter ones. If you want to reduce your blood sugar levels, it's actually better to eat sugared banana cake, or a snickers bar.
It is widely excepted that whole grains are better for you than bleached and heavily processed grains as they are far less likely to spike your blood sugar levels.
Whole grains spike your blood sugar faster than table sugar, and only marginally slower than white processed flour. Look it up, if you don't believe it.
more fat = more calories
The missing factors here are appetite and satiety. If you reduce carbs, and eat more fat, you feel fuller for a longer time. Even though the fat contains more calories per gram, you'll eat less of it, and reduce calories overall.
you can train to run a marathon in a few months
No. I've tried running. I end up with injuries when my run goes over a couple of miles.
No, a real language should allow you to program anything, including device drivers.
good training of large network requires bigger and bigger datasets, which are harder and harder to get.
Humans can learn stuff from much smaller datasets. That means that smarter algorithms should be possible to let computers do more with limited data.
Also, we can use different approaches. Imagine you want to train a computer about cats. You can give it 1 million 2D cat pictures, or you make a robot that can interact with a live cat. The 2nd option allows much more useful information to be extracted. And if you do both, it works even better. There's a lot more information you can get from cat pictures after you've experienced a real 3D cat for a while.
Details can be damn hard to figure out and it is not so unlikely that evolution already found something that damn close to optimum if you consider factors such as energy to build and operate.
Evolution has major restrictions, though. It can only use limited materials, both for construction, signalling and energy. It needs to be able to grow from a single cell, with all the information encoded in our DNA (less than 1GB worth of information, of which only a part deals with the brain). It has to evolve in small steps, each one beneficial to survival, starting from a squid. Once stuck in a local optimum, it can't get out. Also, biological learning is limited because it is localized. There's no master program that can update all your neurons at the same time, or rearrange big structures.
On the other hand, neurons are severely limited by the biological processes, so it's possible that we can make artificial neurons that are better than the ones in our brains. A small neuron is 4 microns. A small transistor is 0.02 microns, so we can pack a lot of computation in the size of a neuron, and make it run millions of times faster too.
Then replace "general purpose" with "multi purpose"
That's obvious nonsense aptly demonstrated by organizations like Mensa
The problem is not with the IQ test, but with the MENSA criterium. They accept people with IQ of 130, which is pretty smart, but not a genius. On average, 1 out of 50 people has such an IQ, so 1 kid out of every two classrooms.
If MENSA had required an IQ of 180, it could be called a proper genius club. The only problem is that it would be too small to be profitable, and that the members would be too smart to join.
When people talk of super-human intelligence, they mean one capable of self-awareness
These are two independent things. Intelligence has to do with finding patterns, and using these patterns to solve related problems. That doesn't require self-awareness at all. And you can be self-aware but stupid. You need a combination of self-awareness and intelligence to survive in nature, but you don't need self-awareness to solve a math problem.