141–150 of 159 posts
This seems too good to be true. Respiratory infections kill and debilitate a lot of people. If cranking up the innate immune system all the time reduced illness with no downsides, you'd think evolution would have done it already, but it didn't, which makes me think there's probably a downside, and the fact that the innate immune system is only cranked up when a pathogen is detected is probably because the downside is…
That’s not how evolution works.
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We've banned this account for egregiously breaking the site guidelines. You can't post like this here, no matter how wrong other users are or you feel they are. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46567569 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46541957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46540675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46540551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46388711 https://news.ycombinator.com/…
I don't care about this ban. But I find it so juicy the comments you directly link as me breaking rules.are direct call out of evil and Christian nationalism and literal denying video evidence....
Imagine if the rules were suspended whenever the topic is evil/terrible or people feel it is. That would amount to having no rules at all.
In fact, the opposite is the case: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
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I don't care about this ban. But I find it so juicy the comments you directly link as me breaking rules.are direct call out of evil and Christian nationalism and literal denying video evidence....
Two things can be true: (1) many things are evil and terrible; (2) HN commenters need to follow the rules. Imagine if the rules were suspended whenever the topic is evil/terrible or people feel it is. That would amount to having no rules at all. In fact, the opposite is the case: " Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelin…
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It can work the other way, too. Your offspring may be more likely to survive if you stop consuming resources once they become viable.
Are you sure that availability of resources was a limiting factor during a large part of human evolution? ie what has driven human population growth - a fundamental change in availability of natural resources or a fundamental change in how humans exploited them? I'd argue it's the latter, and that's driven by accumulated knowledge - and before writing - the key repository of that was - old people.
How much accumulated knowledge do hunter-gatherers have?
This seems too good to be true. Respiratory infections kill and debilitate a lot of people. If cranking up the innate immune system all the time reduced illness with no downsides, you'd think evolution would have done it already, but it didn't, which makes me think there's probably a downside, and the fact that the innate immune system is only cranked up when a pathogen is detected is probably because the downside is…
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I would also mention, just general auto-immune diseases. I would be very worried this could trigger those in people who wouldn't have gotten one otherwise.
What's interesting to me is that one of the biggest booms in pharma over the last ~10 years has been biologics / monoclonal antibodies that treat auto-immune diseases by SUPRESSING cytokines. Examples include TNF inhibitors like Remicade/Humira/Enbrel; or specific IL-XX inhibitors like Dupixent/Cosentyx/Skyrizi/Tremfya/etc; or interferon therapies for MS. These are increasingly used for a broad (unlimited?) set of au…
My wife has an autoimmune disease. Most all the evidence points towards gut biome but that shit is super complicated. We have very little research into what our gut biome needs to be.
This seems too good to be true. Respiratory infections kill and debilitate a lot of people. If cranking up the innate immune system all the time reduced illness with no downsides, you'd think evolution would have done it already, but it didn't, which makes me think there's probably a downside, and the fact that the innate immune system is only cranked up when a pathogen is detected is probably because the downside is…
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I don’t think you understand it, if you cannot connect the dots. And of course “survival for reproduction” is oversimplification of what’s actually happening. Chances for survival to reproduce of some individuals are greatly influenced by survival of their relatives in the same group. The traits that help whole group to survive will win in natural selection, including those that extend survival beyond what’s necessar…
> I don’t think you understand it, if you cannot connect the dots. This doesn't mean anything. > Chances for survival to reproduce of some individuals are greatly influenced by survival of their relatives in the same group. The traits that help whole group to survive will win in natural selection, including those that extend survival beyond what’s necessary to reproduce to what’s beneficial for the group. Which, of c…
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Are you sure that availability of resources was a limiting factor during a large part of human evolution? ie what has driven human population growth - a fundamental change in availability of natural resources or a fundamental change in how humans exploited them? I'd argue it's the latter, and that's driven by accumulated knowledge - and before writing - the key repository of that was - old people.
Humans have selective adaptations to reduce resource competition between older and younger members of populations - examples are menopause and testosterone levels. Part of the reason it benefited us that some but not all people become old is because people require more attention during two phases of their lives. Our biological evolution has prioritized care for the very young over the very old, with respect to a limi…
It's like saying cars pistons are designed to wear out - because they do and as the car is perfectly designed ( the mistake ) then it must be for a reason.
Also take menopause - it happens a female has all the oocytes ( eggs ) they will ever have already at birth. Menopause happens when they run out.
What you are arguing is that the number at birth is optimised with a very indirect feedback loop - as oppose to a very direct one of how much resources do you put aside for eggs in terms of maximising number of direct children versus resources used. Occams razor suggests the latter is going to be stronger.
If what you say is true - think about it - old people wouldn't gradually crumble due to wear and tear, they would have evolved some much more efficient death switch. ie Women don't suddenly die post menopause.
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Are you sure that availability of resources was a limiting factor during a large part of human evolution? ie what has driven human population growth - a fundamental change in availability of natural resources or a fundamental change in how humans exploited them? I'd argue it's the latter, and that's driven by accumulated knowledge - and before writing - the key repository of that was - old people.
The vast majority of human evolution happened in non-humans