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

Engineering Sleep

minjunes.ai

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 205 posts

Re: Engineering Sleep

#31

Post by TeMPOraL »

almostlit wrote: post #7

If there was in fact a safe pathway to only needing 2 hours of sleep I would 100% use it and consider it a zero to one innovation. Although I think it would also come with a lot of pushback. One of my favourite questions to ask people is "if there was a way that allowed you to not sleep and be completely fine, would you take it?". Surprisingly (or maybe not) most people will answer no and say they like sleep to much.…

Count me in with you - I'd definitely say "yes" to less sleep. But, if it were a general invention, I don't think it would work as well as you say. Beyond the usual economics issue[0], for me the value of not sleeping is entirely conditioned on everyone else sleeping.

It's not that I don't like to sleep. It's that I also like me-time, autonomy, lack of other people's demands or expectations, and the only time to get that is when most people are sleeping, so the house is quiet and I can be sure no one will randomly want something from me[2]. Relaxation, unwinding, deep thinking, self-actualization are all competing with sleep for that limited amount of time. Everyone else not sleeping would cut into that for me.

--

[0] - Any generally available trick or change that allows someone to get ahead economically, quickly becomes a requirement. See e.g. working longer, coffee, cars, double-income households, increasingly also stimulant meds. It's a textbook Red Queen's Race[1]. "Less sleep" would be so profound a win that it would turn from "hack" into global standard pretty much in an instant.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race

[2] - Because of strong societal expectations of behavior, such as not calling or bothering people past 20:00-22:00.

Re: Engineering Sleep

#32

Post by Kiro »

naming_the_user wrote: post #18

I'm not really convinced that removing the need for sleep would result in me being more productive primarily because I'm not an always-on computer. The average day for me has huge differences in terms of my productivity at any given moment. I need downtime anyway, if I didn't sleep I believe that I'd end up vegging out in some way because I'm not doing 24 hours of flashcards. The discussions on here also always seem…

> I woke up early today and had a few hours of darkness, I can feel my mood and brainpower improving as the sun rises

I can't relate at all. Where I live the days are consumed by darkness in the winter and I see no effect on my mood or brainpower.

Re: Engineering Sleep

#33

Post by dinoqqq »

sinuhe69 wrote: post #28

My question is, if sleeping less (with FNSS) offers so much advantage, why haven't we all evolved to sleep less with FNSS? If a mutation offers a distinct advantage, natural selection will force us to adopt it sooner or later.

There is a theory that sleeping more hours was not a determining factor in survival [1]. Homo sapiens mitigated sleeping on the ground as a risk by sleeping in groups.

> However, too much deep sleep is dangerous. REM is the stage of sleep in which we experience dreams, so our muscles become paralyzed to avoid acting out these dreams. In his “social sleep hypothesis,” Samson suggests that our ancestors mitigated the risk of deep sleep by sleeping in large groups with at least one person on guard.

> “Human camps are like a snail’s shell. They can pick it up and move it around with them,” Samson says. Our ancestral hunter-gatherers might have slept in groups of 15 to 20 around a campfire, taking turns staying awake and watching over the others.

[1] https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/the-strange-sl...

Re: Engineering Sleep

#34

Post by grues-dinner »

hgomersall wrote: post #14
worksonmymach wrote: post #5

Why is it not a survival advantage? Probably because we didn't work 18 hour days, the extra wakeness would just be used for rest. Night shifts that anyone can do are still needed if you need tribal watchers, and normal 8hr sleeping people can wake upnand fight when needed. In terms of the gene, I am suprised how rare it is (90 families?) given I have met someone who needs only 4hr sleep. Another point is less sleep d…

There's a plausible hypothesis that sleep is the thing that evolved precisely to stop us doing things for any more time than is strictly necessary. That is, sleeping is safe.

Yes, but evolution didn't account for the need for those TPS reports to be ready by tomorrow morning and Bob over there is already 48 hours into his shift (don't worry he's on salary, the overtime is free).

Re: Engineering Sleep

#36

Post by trallnag »

naming_the_user wrote: post #18

I'm not really convinced that removing the need for sleep would result in me being more productive primarily because I'm not an always-on computer. The average day for me has huge differences in terms of my productivity at any given moment. I need downtime anyway, if I didn't sleep I believe that I'd end up vegging out in some way because I'm not doing 24 hours of flashcards. The discussions on here also always seem…

If sunlight improves your mood, add more lights to your place? Around my desk where I spend a lot of my time I have lights with a combined power of 150 watts and it's noticeable

Re: Engineering Sleep

#37

Post by XorNot »

naming_the_user wrote: post #18

I'm not really convinced that removing the need for sleep would result in me being more productive primarily because I'm not an always-on computer. The average day for me has huge differences in terms of my productivity at any given moment. I need downtime anyway, if I didn't sleep I believe that I'd end up vegging out in some way because I'm not doing 24 hours of flashcards. The discussions on here also always seem…

Productivity is irrelevant: when you have young children, any given amount of time where you can be awake and functional is incredibly valuable - particularly if it works outside the hours your children sleep.

Like I'll settle for "tired but no accruing sleep debt".

Re: Engineering Sleep

#38

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

exmadscientist wrote: post #30

Hey, discussion of orexin receptor stuff! As someone with clinically-diagnosed insomnia, I've been lucky enough to/unfortunate enough to have to try the orexin receptor antagonist sleep aids for a while. As recent, on-patent drugs, they are very, very expensive ($360/month was the number marked on the receipt slip, not that that means much in the US; I certainly wasn't paying that)... and they work. They really, real…

>(And for the record, I'm off them now due to other stuff clearing up such that I don't need this level of sleep assistance anymore. Not because I can't afford them.)

If it was available over the counter for, say, $50/month -- do you think you would be taking it just for the improved sleep quality?

Also, what was the specific name of the drug you had such a good experience with?

Re: Engineering Sleep

#39

Post by naming_the_user »

XorNot wrote: post #37
naming_the_user wrote: post #18

I'm not really convinced that removing the need for sleep would result in me being more productive primarily because I'm not an always-on computer. The average day for me has huge differences in terms of my productivity at any given moment. I need downtime anyway, if I didn't sleep I believe that I'd end up vegging out in some way because I'm not doing 24 hours of flashcards. The discussions on here also always seem…

Productivity is irrelevant: when you have young children, any given amount of time where you can be awake and functional is incredibly valuable - particularly if it works outside the hours your children sleep. Like I'll settle for "tired but no accruing sleep debt".

Are we assuming then that you're not treating the children? Because otherwise they just sleep less as well and now you're back to square one.

I suppose you can full dystopia it, go the other way, make them need 12-16 hours a sleep a day whilst you only need 4 ;)

Re: Engineering Sleep

#40

Post by benreesman »

I’ll admit I didn’t read TFA.

Some combination of the title and the submission domain triggered my tick even more than usual around the use of “AI”.

It’s extremely unlikely that I’ll regard any artifact as artificially intelligent if the broader context fails a pretty low bar for intelligence of any kind.

Post reply on HN