xkcd.WTF!?

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Oversight

I felt so clever when I found a way to game the Fitocracy system by incorporating a set of easy but high-scoring activities into my regular schedule. Took me a bit to realize I'd been tricked into setting up a daily exercise routine.

Explanation

Fitocracy is a web site that turns workouts into a social game by awarding points, badges, levels and all sorts of other gamification. Megan and Cueball, by their judgment, have spent approximately two hours engaged in sexual activity. However, according to this cartoon, Fitocracy does not consider sex to be an activity acceptable for its site, despite the vigorous nature of Cueball and Megan's sexual workout. This could be due to an oversight (an unintentional error), as the comic is titled, or intentional, as Fitocracy does not consider sex to be an acceptable exercise.

The title text explains how sites like Fitocracy are so successful. Because human brains, especially the cynical ones, like to game the system whenever they can, they will find easy things to do that also score high. In the case of Fitocracy, these are simple exercises that add up a lot when applied daily. But the creators of Fitocracy (and other such successful sites, like Weight Watchers or Lumosity) know this, and, as "in Soviet Russia", the system games you, as shown, to adopt an exercise regimen, or to lose weight, or to get smarter, or whatever else there is.

Sex does raise your breathing rate and heartbeat, but as sparkpeople (a similar site to fitocracy) notes, it is not as effective as a session at a gym, as it does not typically use the main muscle groups in their full range of motion and doesn't sustain a raised heartbeat for a sufficient length of time. They consider sex to be less effective as cardio than brisk walking, as it burns only about 100-200 cal per hour, which is little raised above a typical resting rate of about 60 cal per hour.[1] (Of course, these statistics exclude several of the sexual activities Megan and Cueball engage in.)