[HN Gopher] What Plants Are Saying About Us
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What Plants Are Saying About Us
Author : dnetesn
Score : 44 points
Date : 2023-10-07 10:23 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (worldsensorium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (worldsensorium.com)
| carapace wrote:
| Cf the work of Michael Levin et. al.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Michael+Levin
| stevespang wrote:
| [dead]
| verisimi wrote:
| [flagged]
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| Plants are saying:
|
| Eat Mor Chikin
| duncan_britt wrote:
| Hahaha
| verisimi wrote:
| You laugh - but my earlier comment was flagged, presumably
| because of its comic nature. Which is fair enough, but I
| don't get why some comic comments are a problem (mine) and
| others not.
| Tade0 wrote:
| The only logical explanation I can think of is that either
| these other comments managed to fly under the radar, or
| more people found them genuinely funny.
|
| I don't know - I avoid attempts at humour because more
| often than not people don't find it funny and it doesn't
| add to the discussion.
|
| I mean, this is my best result this year(7 points):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36577360
| hammock wrote:
| Did you delete it? I see a questionably flagged dead
| comment at the bottom but it's not from you and it's not
| humorous
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Comedy is tricky, fleeting and there is great variance in
| tolerance to it among HN voters.
| pierat wrote:
| This place is much more for pedantic gotchas and devs
| showing really cool stuff off.
|
| The only jokes tolerated are the humans who post really
| stupid stuff.
|
| Actual jokes like from the ad campaign from Chick-Fil-A
| aren't really funny, either.
| goodbyesf wrote:
| It's the same reason comments criticizing journalists or
| mega media corporation is flagged now. Most social media
| are propaganda platforms.
| ysavir wrote:
| My own attitude is that I can appreciate the humor, but I
| want top comments to be informative, not comedy. I'll
| downvote jokes near the top to help bring informative posts
| up, but I don't downvote when they aren't at the top, or
| when there are no competing comments.
| not_enoch_wise wrote:
| Thank you for helping to keep HN focused on intellect
| over wisdom
| okokwhatever wrote:
| Oh man, it is so difficult to please you.
| imchillyb wrote:
| > user: RcouF1uZ4gsC -- created: March 26, 2013 -- karma:
| 16601
|
| > user: verisimi -- created: August 29, 2021 -- karma: 519
|
| I would posit the flagging had something to do with this,
| plus other data intrinsic to the words used.
|
| The above comment isn't just silly, but a reference to an
| ancient advertising campaign. Anyone over a certain age
| -old like me- will recognize that campaign.
|
| Large karma pools allow for more 'trust' on HN, and more
| leeway and access to special features.
|
| Only the Mods/Devs could answer your question succinctly,
| however.
| hammock wrote:
| There is a (bro science, so you will love it or hate it) theory
| I recently heard from Carnivore Aurelius that unlike fruits
| which evolved to be eaten, many vegetables have natural
| "pesticides" (believe he was using this term much more broadly
| than things you may have heard of like caffeine, nicotine etc)
| and pro-inflammatory compounds that cause our guts a lot of
| heartache when you eat them, because they don't want to be
| eaten
| adrian_b wrote:
| There is some truth in that theory.
|
| Because the fruits have evolved to be eaten, most of them are
| tasty, but they have a very low content of nutritive
| substances, so the plants do not lose much by giving them
| away.
|
| On the other hand, the parts of the plants that are the
| richest in nutritive substances are the seeds (this includes
| the edible parts of nuts).
|
| A human could easily live by eating only some combinations of
| seeds, without eating any other plant-based or animal-based
| food. On the other hand, it would be quite difficult for a
| human to live by eating only other parts of the plants,
| because those have low levels of nutritive substances, like
| proteins and fat, so they have to be eaten in very large
| quantities to provide enough.
|
| Because the seeds are the most valuable, most of them contain
| various harmful substances, attempting to discourage the
| animals that would eat them. Due to that, many kinds of seeds
| and nuts require special preparation methods in order to be
| used for human consumption, in order to remove or decompose
| the undesirable substances.
| alzamos wrote:
| Taleb in "Antifragile" talks about this as well. However he
| derives a different conclusion; he speaks of a phenomenon
| called "hormesis" which refers to a biological response where
| a low dose of a harmful stressor can have positive benefits
| on an organism.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| I'd be concerned about this but pretty much all studies I've
| seen show health benefits the more vegetables are included in
| the diet. We've been evolving with plants a long time and can
| deal with the secondary metabolites in edible vegetables.
| It's likely these exact compounds are responsible for many of
| the health benefits like cancer prevention, etc.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| Biology is all about survival and multiplying the species.
| Seeds are plants babies, the biological response is to make
| your babies aren't eaten! I think there's a book about this,
| probably Grain Brain, but I 'm not sure.
| apsurd wrote:
| That eating a plant's babies is bad is easily false if my
| 6th grade education serves me: plants bear delicious energy
| rich fruit so animals eat them and spread the seeds via
| digestive system. poop.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| Seeds are the babies, not the flesh. Nobody consumes
| fruits for seeds. Grains don't need this mechanism, they
| are fine spreading by wind.
| goodbyesf wrote:
| Plants slogan: 'The only good vegan is a dead vegan'.
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(page generated 2023-10-07 23:01 UTC)