Scientists warn of sperm count crisis • Hacker News Board

Re: Scientists warn of sperm count crisis

#81

Post by EthanHeilman » Sun, Dec 09, 2012, 9:51 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #75

EthanHeilman wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That citation agrees with me rather than with you. >"GOLDSTEIN: Well, no, because the past 100 years were - there was a big explosion of violence in the early part of the 20th century, but the 17th century was no picnic either. The Thirty Years' War destroyed a third of the population of Germany, and back through history there have been terrible wars much of the time." >"And even in prehistoric times, as many as a qu…

> I assumed that you were aware that most historians accepted that WW2 claimed the largest number of lives in human history: Largest number, but not largest proportion. A human alive during WWII was far more likely to survive that war than a human alive during the Mongol conquests or the An Lushan rebellion was to survive those. The Mongol conquests were about as deadly as WWII, yet happened in a world with only 1/5t…

>This business where literally everyone who replies to disagree with me only looks at absolute numbers is getting pretty irritating. It just makes no sense.

This is a learning moment. Other people are using different assumptions about war and how to measure it maybe they have something to offer you in perspective.

For example a war is not merely summed up by number of peoples killed nor is it understood by the chance that a single person at that time period might be killed or the total world population killed. In fact the level of war or numbers of wars could increase dramatically without any increase in violence by merely varying the culture, technology and other circumstances.

You did not address the fact that the source you cited for your argument supported my claims and not yours. Have you cast Pinker and Goldstein aside? If you still agree with Pinker and Goldstein then you agree with the claim I put forward and I'm not sure we have much more to talk about. If you don't agree with Pinker and Goldstein, why not?

Expressing how irritating or annoying you find the people with whom you are having a discussion is rude. Why do you think such statements are a good strategy?

Re: Scientists warn of sperm count crisis

#82

Post by Mz » Sun, Dec 09, 2012, 10:30 PM UTC

yason wrote: post #80

Mz wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a woman and I am sympathetic, but it sounded hostile to me. You are now dismissing that and blaming me instead of simply trying to clarify when I am the only person here taking you at all seriously. And given that I am having my head handed to me elsewhere on hn, I am not in a good frame of mind to bend over backwards to give you a receptive audience. If you would like to try again, I would be happy to give you…

Well, thanks for telling me what bothered you. I think I was just surprised to see the question of hostility being brought up at all. Certainly my words can be read in as many ways as there are readers, thus in my head that question was sort of off-topic so I think I didn't pay attention to how important it was to you and possibly others. I am not actively or passively hostile to women, at least to any such extent th…

HN can be pretty mysogynistic. (I have ben told other women have left because they find it unpalatable and I know that a lot of women downplay or hide their gender on HN because it is seen as a problem.) So, the environment here tends to bias perception. If you want support, you will need to make extra effort to avoid even an appearance of attacking the roles of women while talking about your concerns about the roles of men. Women are widely regarded to be second class citizens, something you no doubt know. The language you are using is more likely to be acceptable to women or other more "feminine"/not "hard science" types. It will not go over well with most members here. Not being careful of how your remarks will be perceived by the minority that might take you seriously practically guarantees you will not be anything but attacked.

I know from firsthand experience. You can check my remarks for how I am going down in flames elsewhere on HN today. Unfortunately, many years of history have painted me into a corner that, in practice, I don't know the way out of dven though in theory I know the general principles which should work.

I hope you find a path forward in discussing gender issues with people, whether here or elsewhere. I have long found such topics fascinating. But, yes, they are super touchy topics.

Re: Scientists warn of sperm count crisis

#83

Post by eliasmacpherson » Sun, Dec 09, 2012, 11:54 PM UTC

bcoates wrote: post #74

eliasmacpherson wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A man made Malthusian crisis is still a Malthusian crisis, crop failure and improper agricultural policy have a bearing on how big a population can subsist. 1% of the world's then population passed away in the Irish famine. Ireland's population is now 5 million and Britain's around 60. Ireland's population was extraordinarily large compared to the subsistence farmer's yields in 1845. Here's a chart: https://en.wikipe…

Massive subsistence farming in Ireland was not caused by the size of the population. If there were half as many people in Ireland in 1945, there would not be twice as much food to go around. The half-sized population would still have been packed into as little land as they could survive on. A crop failure would still mean starvation. There was no surplus to fall back on, not because the population was so large that i…

Correction to my earlier comment: it was 0.1% of the world's then population, not 1%.

The size of the population in Ireland was enabled by subsistence farming of the potato. The powers that were, did not have a control on the number of children per family. The spurt in population was risky and had Malthus' projections been heeded, population based checks on resource limits working as a preventive measure would have limited population growth rather than the death rate doing so.

Plots of land were handed down by subdivision among the male children in a family[0]. The population increased, but the land available to them remained the same.

Crop loss was estimated at one third to one half [1].

So to refute your point, if there was a smaller population, the land occupied by the total population would arguably have remained the same, and one third to one half of a crop loss could have been sustained without starvation and famine.

I am still convinced that it was a real life Malthusian crisis, aided and abetted by systematic exploitation. I do not think it's a stretch to say exploitation has not been eradicated. It's a certainty that children are still brought in to the world without a guarantee that they can be provided for.

We can argue for resource redistribution to prevent crises arising, however Malthusian 'prophecy' is predictive, and the Irish Famine was predictable without resource redistribution. I would argue we have already had a Malthusian crisis. I would further argue it's hubris to say that another is impossible.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_famine#Tenants.2C_subdiv... This paragraph only alludes to the process of subdivision, with only a small amount of research, you will see that it resulted in population exceeding the carrying capacity of the land they occupied in 1845. "Following the famine, reforms were implemented making it illegal to further divide land holdings."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_famine#Blight_in_Ireland (look for "Crop loss in 1845")

Re: Scientists warn of sperm count crisis

#84

Post by mikeash » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 12:02 AM UTC

EthanHeilman wrote: post #81

mikeash wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I assumed that you were aware that most historians accepted that WW2 claimed the largest number of lives in human history: Largest number, but not largest proportion. A human alive during WWII was far more likely to survive that war than a human alive during the Mongol conquests or the An Lushan rebellion was to survive those. The Mongol conquests were about as deadly as WWII, yet happened in a world with only 1/5t…

>This business where literally everyone who replies to disagree with me only looks at absolute numbers is getting pretty irritating. It just makes no sense. This is a learning moment. Other people are using different assumptions about war and how to measure it maybe they have something to offer you in perspective. For example a war is not merely summed up by number of peoples killed nor is it understood by the chance…

> This is a learning moment. Other people are using different assumptions about war and how to measure it maybe they have something to offer you in perspective.

Right, right. I'm supposed to sit back and think about why people are saying this stuff, while you're free to make idiotic statements about my ignorance of history. Did you ever stop to think that maybe I had some other reasoning behind my statement beyond ignorance of the death toll of WWII?

Regarding the claims, the only important one is whether we are headed toward perpetual war or not. The trend is against it. Specific timeframes are just bikeshedding.

> Expressing how irritating or annoying you find the people with whom you are having a discussion is rude. Why do you think such statements are a good strategy?

I'm hoping that it would cause people writing without thinking to take a moment before replying. No, it doesn't appear to be working well.