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Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

sciencedaily.com

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Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#161

Post by wu-ikkyu »

lisper wrote: post #151
wu-ikkyu wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>matter is just a bunch of atoms >Well, it is. Nah, it's much deeper than that as you well know. The word "just" implies there's nothing more to be explained. >No experiment has ever been done that contradicts either GR or the Standard Model. The Standard Model is an incomplete theory that fails to explain many physical phenomenon. Let's not pretend otherwise. >So unless the operation of the brain depends on new, un…

> it's much deeper than that as you well know Sure, but atoms are an extremely good approximation to the truth in the regime in which human brains operate. > The Standard Model ... fails to explain many physical phenomenon. Yeah? Like what? > you're just extrapolating? Of course. Until we have a full understanding of the human brain, there will be things about its behavior about which we must extrapolate (that's what…

>>The Standard Model ... fails to explain many physical phenomenon.

>Yeah? Like what?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model

>I am highly confident in this extrapolation.

Even still, we shouldn't state theoretical extrapolations as if they are facts. It's the difference between saying "x is caused by y" and "I think x is probably caused by y".

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#162

Post by dang »

Kenji wrote: post #160
dang wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18066758 and marked it off-topic.

More like: "We detached this subthread which spawned the most interesting discussion in this comment tree because we are addicted to controlling the conversation and we want things to conform to our social justice agenda - nothing controversial is allowed here." Your moderating produces negative value.

I'm glad you found it interesting. As you can see, it's still here to be enjoyed.

The problem is that generic topics like "do we have free will" frequently balloon into large discussions that crowd out the more specific topic at hand. If we didn't moderate HN this way, HN threads would consist mostly of the same generic discussions repeated over and over. I'm pretty sure the community wouldn't agree that it "produces negative value" to prevent that from happening, even though we don't always make the right calls.

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#163

Post by bluGill »

ergothus wrote: post #110
bluGill wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot choose to breed with someone who is already dead. Even if you succeed in breeding with someone (alive), if their genes are not very good your children won't live to breed. Thus if intelligence is a factor at all in survival (and it seems like it should be) your ancestors may not have had a choice but to select for intelligent.

> Thus if intelligence is a factor at all in survival (and it seems like it should be) your ancestors may not have had a choice but to select for intelligent. And this explains the large collection of (in our understanding) not-terribly-intelligent creatures on the planet how? Not trying to be snarky, just pointing out that intelligence is just one of many paths, and it's very hard to have strong conclusion about how…

I didn't mean to imply intelligence was a large factor, it need not be. There are thousands of factors, some more important than others. Some are even in direct conflict (intelligence is in fact in direct conflict with not needing too much energy to survive hard times - even while potentially providing more energy for those hard times). What humans have found successful doesn't say anything about about what any other animal will/should find successful.

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#164

Post by chiefalchemist »

woliveirajr wrote: post #2

Every time I find interesting (and frighting) that we are nothing but a collection of ourselves and virus and bacterias, written down to our DNA and RNA or living together with close dependence deep in our guts (literally). Going further, a lot of what we do unconciously is just what a virus or something else "did" to survive or spread in the past, and our free will isn't that free... Edit: "did" wasn't meaning that…

We are code. And often buggy code at that. Yet it's the random and imperfections that allow us to - for better or worse - persist.

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#165

Post by checkyoursudo »

lisper wrote: post #111
checkyoursudo wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because I love arguing about free will, and because I feel like a lot of the time people are not all talking about the same thing when they say "free will", would some of you be willing to tell me what you think "free will" means? Please say what you sincerely think free will means, and try not to give me strawman or devil's advocate positions on what you think your opponents think it means, if you would be so k…

Please notice that I was very careful to talk about the perception of free will, and not free will itself.

I was not intending to call anyone out at all. It's something I am genuinely curious about what people think.

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#166

Post by ZainRiz »

subcosmos wrote: post #10
wil421 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this mean you could be tested for the specific gene?

About 20% of the human genome is endogenous retroviruses. We've all got them, and there is significant evidence that they become more active in old age, and may be a factor in dementia and other illnesses.

Fact check: It's more like 5-8% according to Wikipedia. Still a significant number.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#167

Post by nanofortnight »

mc32 wrote: post #153
crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punishment runs counter to all forms of sustainable learning, according to the science of learning how to learn. Let's lovingly apply science to criminalization of people being human, rather than criminalizing human behavior. Let's not seek to punish. Let's start exploring other solutions spaces.

Let’s say you havd someone in the Army of some country, any country, and that soldier does heinous things contrary than that allowed by internstional convention on clearly a civilian population, let’s say, do we still say, “oh, hey, they were high, it’s an illness, let’s treat them and after done, let’s get them back in the army”.

Yes, obviously, if that can be proven to be the cause? Proper criminal rehabilitation and reintegration is very important.

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#168

Post by jrochkind1 »

> Not all humans have the same HK2 viruses in their genomes.

Did they take the list of all HK2 viruses, and test them all to see which one had a prevalence in identified addicts?

If they did that, would they admit it in the paper?

Maybe I've become too cynical, but my default is to assume statistical misuse these days.

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#169

Post by joncrane »

sandworm101 wrote: post #12

So what does this say about all the studies on rats, dogs, and all the other animals we have been using to study addiction? The rats that choose cocaine over food, are they running a different retrovirus?

There's a guy who did a drug abuse study on rats but not locked in cages. his theory was that being locked in a cage was different than being in a social environment. So he built a habitat where rats could socialize with each other, use hamster wheels, and run around obstacles.

In this population he found that almost NONE of the rats did harmful amounts of the narcotics-laced water. (He was using opiates as his "drug of choice.")

So his theory is that a) many animal models of addiction are wrong because they use animals in very confined spaces b) maybe people who feel "trapped" in their life are more prone to developing addiction, and we should be treating addiction as a social disease.

Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection

#170

Post by mmatear »

catawbasam wrote: post #85
buckminster wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? You don't need free will to adapt to feedback.

So if you believed I punched you deliberately, but also believed no action of yours would keep me from punching you again, does that mean you would do nothing? Even if I called you a coward?

Then do it you wont unless your DNA thinks the reward you get for validating your assumptions is greater then the consequences of your actions. Likewise for the person your debating. That's why internet debates are so much worse than in person way less consequence for your actions.
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