Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Artificial egg hatched 26 healthy chickens

nationalgeographic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 127 posts

Re: Artificial egg hatched 26 healthy chickens

#101

Post by detourdog »

dspillett wrote: post #79
detourdog wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book "The Machine Stops" was posted here a a while back it's a 100 years old and just as prescient as "Brave New World" and "1984". https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/e-m-forster/short-fiction/... I will look up We.

There was a good theatre adaption of The Machine Stops by a UK group called Pilot Theatre (I saw it at York). They performed it as a live Youtube broadcast during the faf of 2020, though I can't see it listed anywhere now. Worth having a look for if you have better sources than mine. I must have a scan of my media array later, to see if I downloaded a copy I can rewatch.

Thank you I will look for it.

Re: Artificial egg hatched 26 healthy chickens

#102

Post by wyager »

dweinus wrote: post #80

> says Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, who was not involved in the research. “We could better help millions of birds every year by solving the more immediate threats of disappearing habitats, collisions with building windows, and prowling outdoor cats,” Yes. Even if they stuck it at the end, it shows good journalism to call this out.

It seems bizarre to model the end goal of this research as "grow more birds". Obviously that's not the point

Re: Artificial egg hatched 26 healthy chickens

#103

Post by customguy »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #85
mplanchard wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No spoilers, but I used to think, along the lines of Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death, that Brave New World wound up being the more accurate picture of future society than 1984, despite being less well-known and referenced in cultural consciousness. Unfortunately, it seems like the former may be enabling the latter, so we may end up with a “porque no los dos” situation.

No spoilers, but I've come to think that "Brave New World" actually is Utopian—in the "give people what they want" department.

But they get conditioned to want to be cogs. At any rate, Huxley certainly did not intend it as utopian: https://www.huxley.net/bnw-revisited/

About his ideas for utopia he wrote "Island": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_(Huxley_novel)

Re: Artificial egg hatched 26 healthy chickens

#104

Post by nephihaha »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #77
mplanchard wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No spoilers, but I used to think, along the lines of Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death, that Brave New World wound up being the more accurate picture of future society than 1984, despite being less well-known and referenced in cultural consciousness. Unfortunately, it seems like the former may be enabling the latter, so we may end up with a “porque no los dos” situation.

1984 was as much (or more) about Stalinism and totalitarian tendencies in 1948 as it was a cautionary tale about the future.

Also a lot of criticism of the UK at the time.

Re: Artificial egg hatched 26 healthy chickens

#105

Post by nephihaha »

customguy wrote: post #103
JKCalhoun wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No spoilers, but I've come to think that "Brave New World" actually is Utopian—in the "give people what they want" department.

But they get conditioned to want to be cogs. At any rate, Huxley certainly did not intend it as utopian: https://www.huxley.net/bnw-revisited/ About his ideas for utopia he wrote "Island": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_(Huxley_novel)

His brother was Julian Huxley who was a prime mover in creating the UN. Julian had some curious views about the direction of the human race which may have found their way into Aldous' work.

Re: Artificial egg hatched 26 healthy chickens

#106

Post by mrec »

dullcrisp wrote: post #72
zamadatix wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least animals getting ground up live is a horror as old as time. We seem to always be moving in the other direction and creating more new horrors instead of making things better.

I agree we should focus more on reviving ancient horrors.

Agreed. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn: there's a reason it's a classic.

Re: Artificial egg hatched 26 healthy chickens

#107

Post by marcosdumay »

onion2k wrote: post #24
fontain wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A velociraptor skeleton is worth around $10 million. Hatch a few dozen per year and you’re making great money.

[Colossal Biosciences] has raised over $600 million and carries a valuation exceeding $10 billion. You're not making a return on that from selling velocirator skeletons. Nor is that sort of money in dodos and maos. Human cloning on the other hand...

You can have that kind of revenue cloning cows and horses. Easily so. A bit harder for chickens, but it's possible.

But I fail to see how cloning humans would get it.

Re: Artificial egg hatched 26 healthy chickens

#108

Post by apitman »

dweinus wrote: post #80

> says Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, who was not involved in the research. “We could better help millions of birds every year by solving the more immediate threats of disappearing habitats, collisions with building windows, and prowling outdoor cats,” Yes. Even if they stuck it at the end, it shows good journalism to call this out.

If you're not familiar with the stats on cats killing birds, look it up. It's pretty crazy.

Re: Artificial egg hatched 26 healthy chickens

#109

Post by FrustratedMonky »

stavros wrote: post #96
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. If you take all of Science Fiction, if you want, take all of Literature. And compare it to everything that actually has happened. Then Fiction has guessed at more things than have actually happened. So, a poor predictor. Not sure what that point is proving. We shouldn't look at fiction for any inspiration or cautionary tales? Just shut up and calculate?

The point is proving that "chickens now, maybe humans later" is just an extremely poor predictor. It's a useless disapproval of a new technology based on "hey, you can't prove it won't happen!".

Never said it is a proof.

But it is a necessary step.

So, we might not get humans. Ok, but we also wont get humans without simpler test cases along the way. Simpler animals, simpler mechanisms. So now we are taking those steps.

We can't see the end, but we are on the road.

Maybe that is why the fictional stories resonate here. It is easy to see the possible connections. Easy to make the leap from here, to what could be. Even if it is not an actual predictor like a scientific proof.

Re: Artificial egg hatched 26 healthy chickens

#110

Post by fragmede »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #109
stavros wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is proving that "chickens now, maybe humans later" is just an extremely poor predictor. It's a useless disapproval of a new technology based on "hey, you can't prove it won't happen!".

Never said it is a proof. But it is a necessary step. So, we might not get humans. Ok, but we also wont get humans without simpler test cases along the way. Simpler animals, simpler mechanisms. So now we are taking those steps. We can't see the end, but we are on the road. Maybe that is why the fictional stories resonate here. It is easy to see the possible connections. Easy to make the leap from here, to what could…

I still don't understand how an artificial hard physical egg, like the ones a natural chicken lays, which I'm pretty sure is not where humans come from; I don't understand where that is "on the road" simply because, and again, I'm no biologist, but as far as I know, humans don't come from hard shelled eggs.
Post reply on HN