[HN Gopher] Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'eme...
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Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'
Author : mgl
Score : 265 points
Date : 2024-06-06 01:45 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| > Karla Helena-Bueno discovered a common hibernation factor when
| she accidentally left an Arctic bacterium on ice for too long.
|
| I love how this story follows the magic pattern of so much of
| innovation and discovery - an accident. It's refreshingly human
| and not a mode of discovery that machine learning is going to
| completely take away from us.
| dojomouse wrote:
| I think ML is likely to be material to us making many more such
| discoveries. So much of the current constraint is not in the
| knowledge to identify the interesting pattern, but the capacity
| to look for it at scale.
| grugagag wrote:
| Yeah but you missed the point op was making
| markburns wrote:
| That seems an uncharitable view of the reply.
|
| The search space is huge, we sometimes find needles in
| haystacks by accident, isn't it exciting that we have tools
| now that can systematically check every piece of hay?
| richrichie wrote:
| ML search is more about 'averages' based on samples.
|
| Innovations like these are more about 'shocks' that
| surface fitting cannot capture.
|
| Note universal approximation theorem applies only to
| smooth surfaces.
| tomrod wrote:
| Not always. Quantile regression exists. And you can
| develop "no match" categories.
| richrichie wrote:
| Quantile regression is also about averages.
| tomrod wrote:
| Averages are formulated as measures of centrality in the
| L2 norm ("straight line" distance), sum(values) /
| count(values). Quantile regression uses modifications the
| L1 norm ("city block" distance); if median (50%) then it
| is a measure of centrality. Not everything is an average.
| If you're interested, this is a good (but math heavy)
| treatment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantile_regress
| ion#Computatio...
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Well said.
| radarsat1 wrote:
| But the better the mean surface is fitted (in a
| generizable way), the easier it is to spot outliers.
| dojomouse wrote:
| Perhaps. I was thinking along the lines of MarkBurns
| response - ML will allow us to efficiently look in those
| places we might otherwise only have searched by accident.
|
| If ops point was rather that "accident"/"luck" are uniquely
| human... I don't agree. Luck is when probability works out
| in your favour - and that can happen all the time with any
| sort of probabilistic search, which is rife in ML.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've been reading "The Making of the Atomic Bomb". But it's
| really about the process of discovery in nuclear physics. And
| most of the discoveries were made by accident.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Stephen B Johnson's "How we got to now" was enlightening on
| the topic of discovery for me
| (https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/how-we-got-now)
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| But if you don't study the math and physics hard, you will
| not be able to understand that you may have found something,
| valuable. It would be like Pearls Before Swine.
| COGlory wrote:
| I'm all for it. People get lucky, then try to rationalize the
| past with a skill narrative. Then they soak up all the grants.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| > People get lucky, then try to rationalize the past with a
| skill narrative. Then they soak up all the grants.
|
| They have to put themselves in the situation to get lucky
| first. This person got a graduate education, and was
| competent enough to be selected to be doing research in what
| is likely a multimillion dollar lab owned by an institution,
| then she had the knowledge and ability to notice and be able
| to identify what had "accidentally" happened with a micro-
| organism that we barely understand.
|
| Luck was the smallest part of this discovery. I would say
| that the grant money is well spent funding someone so
| "lucky".
| COGlory wrote:
| Everyone in science works hard. Only a few get lucky.
| People get scooped every day.
|
| Source: spent years looking hard for hibernation promotion
| factor in P. aeruginosa ribosomes via cryo-EM. Got a PhD
| and worked a whole lot of 16 hour days. Never got lucky.
| brg wrote:
| If this story were at all true, then you know very well
| that not everyone in science works hard. In my graduate
| cohort, those who did the sets first year, set themselves
| into research, and worked hard graduated. Those who did
| not left with a masters, although many found success in
| other fields. It was quite clearly delineated.
| COGlory wrote:
| I'm talking about at the PI level. And yes of course a
| few people don't work hard, but the overwhelming majority
| do not differentiate themselves by how hard they work, is
| the point I'm trying to make. Your average PI has the
| skill set to take advantage of getting lucky.
|
| Not sure what you're insinuating about the story not
| being true, would you like to see maps?
| freilanzer wrote:
| Are you saying that people with a masters degree don't
| work hard?
| lukan wrote:
| I know some worked very hard, to not work very hard
| anymore.
| mistercheph wrote:
| Many work hard designing and assembling perpetual motion
| machines
| withinboredom wrote:
| I can understand why, it's clearly possible. Just look at
| the galaxies moving away from us faster than the speed of
| light. Anything is possible, if you work out the magic.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| But, see, that's the problem. I _can 't_ look at them...
| bregma wrote:
| Ah, but serendipity favours the prepared mind.
| COGlory wrote:
| I agree with this - but there's far more prepared minds
| than serendipity, and I think the mistake we make is
| assuming people can control that serendipity aspect to
| produce repeat performances.
| John23832 wrote:
| > People get lucky, then try to rationalize the past with a
| skill narrative.
|
| This is literally the opposite of the situation put forth in
| the article. Accidental discoveries are accidental
| discoveries.
|
| > Then they soak up all the grants.
|
| What use does a machine learning model have for a grant? This
| seems like something that is uniquely useful to humans.
| Karellen wrote:
| > The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that
| heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but
| "That's funny..."
|
| -- commonly attributed to Isaac Asimov
| neutronicus wrote:
| As a one-time scientist, I think Asimov may have been tricked
| by extreme selection bias on "That's funny..." utterances. It
| almost always precedes a crushing realization that you have
| fucked something up and probably wasted a lot of time.
|
| You're probably days down exploring that explanation before
| the eventual "holy shit" (that I never really had the benefit
| of experiencing).
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| not necessarily, machine learning can make more accidents
| faster
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Maybe AI won't forget bacteria in the ice, but like us, it is
| really good at finding patterns, but at a massive scale.
| Instead of an accident it could find the hibernation mechanism
| from another angle.
|
| And if AGI becomes a thing, it might go "Hey, this is funny" in
| weird ways after it has ingested enough data.
|
| I love the novel Colossus because almost 60 years ago it
| portayed realistically how a nascent AGI could behave:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_(novel)
| nico wrote:
| Very similar pattern to the recent stories about grokking
| (someone leaving a model training for too long by accident,
| then discovering something unexpected when realizing the
| accident)
| dools wrote:
| Dehydrate!
| wdh505 wrote:
| I'm having visions of old people freezing their bodies and
| inducing "dormancy" so they can wake up when the world is a
| better place. I would invest in that company.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| It won't be very useful if you're already old, more practical
| approach would be to freeze yourself in your youth until they
| find a way to stop ageing.
| Nicholas_C wrote:
| You could unfreeze yourself when they figure out how to
| reverse aging.
| jrflowers wrote:
| How does one unfreeze oneself
| exe34 wrote:
| Very slowly, to avoid the crystals forming suddenly.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| I think microwave is the answer. Though you may end up
| with a cold heart.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Reversing maybe harder than slowing and you would have to
| wait longer.
| gryfft wrote:
| I mean, it's been going on for over fifty years[0].
|
| 0.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcor_Life_Extension_Foundatio...
| onionisafruit wrote:
| The real trick is being somebody that a future generation will
| go to the trouble of defrosting.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| That's a fool's errand. The trick is to make sure your body
| is continually controlled by some kind of computer that will
| wake you up when a set of conditions is met, so you don't
| need to rely on future humans. You also need to make sure
| your cryopod is stored someplace where troublemakers won't
| find it and turn it off.
|
| The best thing I can think of is putting your cryopod in a
| lava tube on the Moon, powered by a small nuclear reactor or
| maybe a large RTG.
| lukan wrote:
| "The best thing I can think of is putting your cryopod in a
| lava tube on the Moon, powered by a small nuclear reactor
| or maybe a large RTG."
|
| And then hope nothing critically fails for centuries ...
|
| Unless we have perfectionized robots by the time you go
| into the cryopod, you might as well bet on humans. And if
| we "perfectionized robots", that do not fail all the time,
| we already would have a very different world.
| kolinko wrote:
| You could have multiple failsafes, and after a part of
| them fail, you dehibernate automatically. We have systems
| that work well with such approach - planes being the most
| notable example - multiple redundancies, and when sth
| critical fails, you land asap. Works most of the time.
| lukan wrote:
| And then you wake up on the moon in a lava tube too early
| with a partly failing system and hope that everything
| else still somewhat works? With current technology level
| I definitely would rather bet on humans.
| krisoft wrote:
| > you dehibernate automatically
|
| You what now? :) I think you watched too many scifies and
| started to believe that the plot devices are reality.
| "Hybernation" is a thing in movies because the writers
| wanted to write stories involving humans and long space
| travel. It is not a working technology in reality. It
| might become one day, but your RTG powered cocoon is not
| going to invent and perfect it for you while you are
| asleep.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| Robots? We're talking about cryopods here, not something
| that needs a robot where you need to operate accurately
| in 3D space. It just needs an electronic control system
| to monitor conditions and control some machinery, similar
| to a washing machine or microwave oven.
|
| We already know how to make redundant computer control
| systems, like for aircraft. It's not _that_ hard. They
| _don 't_ "fail all the time" either. Sure, your crappy
| Windows computer does, but no one with a brain uses that
| for anything safety-critical.
| lukan wrote:
| And you would trust that thing "similar to a washing
| machine" to run perfectly well for centuries?
|
| And not that hard? Are you aware of Murphy's law?
|
| Basically, give anything enough time and all the possible
| things that can go wrong, _will_ go wrong. So your
| windows powered cyopod breaks after 1 year at most. And
| your embedded tiny verified OS manages 100 years, hurrey.
| But dead is dead.
| hawski wrote:
| You wake up in the middle of the moon and then what?
| Jach wrote:
| If we found a crypt of a hundred well-preserved mummies from
| a few thousand years ago who for all we could tell were
| basically peasants in their lifetimes, not grand or
| interesting people, and we had the ability to revive them
| into the modern world, I still think we would. The "interest"
| factor of future generations reviving cryonics customers when
| it's possible to do so is like the weakest factor in trying
| to predict whether cryonics will work at all.
| lukan wrote:
| Because one crypt and some humans would be a curiosity. But
| a cluster of crypts containing thousands or even millions
| of those old weird people who will be likely just a burden
| to a way more advanced society? I am sceptical.
| wruza wrote:
| The real trick is the world being a better place.
| bamboozled wrote:
| You don't need to freeze yourself, you just have children, that
| is how life goes on.
| phito wrote:
| That's completely different?
| ineedaj0b wrote:
| sadly not as much as you think. if you have siblings with
| children and they get older hang out with them. the
| similarities will worry you
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Part of life, yes. Just not the part we care about.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| Just ask any parent who had worthless kids how well that
| works out in practice. Sure, you might get lucky and have
| good kids, but lots of parents don't, and it's not always
| their fault.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Their kids might be really nice?
| mock-possum wrote:
| My concern is more with _my_ life, not life itself.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Well, it's not a permanent thing apparently.
| vajrabum wrote:
| It's still sci-fi I think but we're getting a bit closer. This
| came out the other day.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40400591
| aitchnyu wrote:
| What does science say? I strongly believe what freezes the body
| will (not just figuratively) pull the plug on the brain.
| lukan wrote:
| If too many not so old people would use it, the effects might
| be not great:
|
| https://xkcd.com/989/
| bmitc wrote:
| I'd short it.
| jimberlage wrote:
| What if they wake up and the world is a worse place?
|
| You're making a big bet that people in the far future will look
| at your preserved body as a resource to cherish, not one to be
| exploited.
| begueradj wrote:
| This reminds me of the fact that humans used to be able to
| hibernate (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1117993/)
| and (https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a35033907/early-
| hum...)
| lukan wrote:
| From glancing over, it does not really seem a confirmed fact,
| but a hypothesis.
|
| "They chose to spend the worst part of the year trying to sleep
| through it inside of relatively safe caves, and to do that,
| they sacrificed nutrition and vitamin D from the sun."
|
| Also it does not really matter for your vitamin D levels, if
| you are outside in winter in the north or in a cave. The sun is
| too low for the body to produce Vitamin D anyway (only the
| Inuit for example do not need sun, to produce Vitamin D btw. )
|
| And that they lacked nutrition in winter can also just mean,
| that there simply was not much food in the winters, which is
| kind of expected, before humans developed storage and
| preservation technologies?
| seszett wrote:
| > _only the Inuit for example do not need sun, to produce
| Vitamin D btw_
|
| As far as I can tell, they need vitamin D just like any other
| life form and can only synthesise it from the sun, just like
| all other lifeforms on Earth.
|
| They might have adapted to reduced amounts of available
| vitamin D though[0], _because_ they don 't have much of it
| available to them in the first place and because there's
| really no other source than producing your own from the sun,
| or eating things that have produced it from the sun. So they
| have a vitamin D deficiency, but it's less severe than for
| most people.
|
| [0]https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/etudinuit/2016-v40-n2-e
| tu...
| hyperthesis wrote:
| Don't they (traditionally) also have a much higher meat
| intake than average, which supplies vitamin D?
| amenhotep wrote:
| They particularly prized whale and seal blubber - very
| good vitamin D sources. Also present in the livers of the
| fish they'd eat raw.
| lukan wrote:
| I might have believed a urban legend then. I will look into
| that.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Humans cannot _synthesise_ vitamin D, but we can acquire it
| through _diet_ from other sources, including particularly
| fresh fish, which are abundant in Inuit diets.
|
| Note that numerous of the sources listed here are fortified
| (that is, have additional vitamin D added), however it does
| occur naturally in some sources as well:
|
| <https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/resources/2020-2025-diet
| ar...>
| legulere wrote:
| > The major natural source of vitamin D is synthesis of
| cholecalciferol in the lower layers of the epidermis of
| the skin, through a photochemical reaction with
| Ultraviolet B (UV-B) radiation from sun exposure or UV-B
| lamps.[
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| It might seem like a cheat, but healthy humans can
| photosynthesize (metaphorically) vitamin D. It's one of
| the free lunches our bodies have, if you ignore sun
| damage.
| yread wrote:
| That first article from BMJ 1900 reads a bit like Gulliver
| tales. The second article is about hominids 400k years ago,
| quite long ago
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| 400k years ago is not _" quite long ago"_ on an evolutionary
| time scale.
| yread wrote:
| Sure, when you're looking at bacteria vs humans these guys
| are like our twins. But these non-homo hominins were not
| even our ancestors, they are close to Denisovans
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12788
|
| Our last common ancestor was ~990k years ago (table 1).
| That's quite long ago in human development
| piuantiderp wrote:
| High serotonin, cold exposure, low sunlight. Almost makes you
| think one _could_ hibernate. But then, to what purpose? Would
| likely shorten the lifespan, increase risk for cancer
| l2p wrote:
| Space exploration seems like the obvious candidate to me.
| wayoverthecloud wrote:
| When you get caught up on the hustle of modern society and lose
| yourself in modern technology, it's so easy to forget that you
| are a part of a larger whole and there is more life on Earth
| besides human.
|
| For some reason knowing that other animals exist just for the
| sake of existing and even sleep off when life gets harder gives a
| new perspective. I feel that we humans use too much knowledge and
| complicate problems even when there's a simple solution. I think
| that our bodies are highly intelligent and humans intrude a lot
| in it's natural functioning by inventing too much techniques and
| methods. Like I want to stay awake, drink coffee. Drink coffee,
| get insomnia. Insomnia leads to unhappiness. Take insomnia meds,
| get withdrawals. Generating more problems along the way while
| forgetting what the solutions were even for in the first place.
| If we just listened to our bodies signs, it pretty much tells us
| why you you are lethargic and need coffee in the first place.
|
| Sometimes we should just trust nature to do it's work. This
| article was a refreshing read.
| therein wrote:
| I don't quote The Bible often but I think we can have some
| space for a quote here:
|
| "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store
| away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you
| not much more valuable than they?" Matthew 6:26
| exe34 wrote:
| the heavenly step-dad doesn't care when they die of
| starvation either.
| fire_lake wrote:
| A systematic study of birds would find that many do indeed
| starve to death.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Is the goal of humanity to replicate infinitely and love as
| long as possible regardless of anything else ?
|
| Because that's what cancers do and it never end well for
| the host
| dukeyukey wrote:
| To a point, yes. That's the goal of practically any
| living thing, including cancer.
| lukas099 wrote:
| I don't think anyone said or implied that
| mrguyorama wrote:
| In what way does cancer "love"?
| jonplackett wrote:
| I do enjoy scientific debunkment of religious quotes.
|
| After the Notre Dam fire someone on Twitter was claiming a
| miracle because the golden (statues I think?) had survived.
| Someone then pointed out that the melting point of gold is
| several hundred degrees above the temperature of a wood
| fire.
| Y_Y wrote:
| > melting point of gold is several hundred degrees above
| the temperature of a wood fire
|
| A grand miracle indeed
| graemep wrote:
| So do people - at least those lucky enough not to be part
| of a reasonably affluent industrial society.
|
| You do realise that metaphors are never perfect?
| Modified3019 wrote:
| And quickly too, the small ones live on a metabolic knife
| edge and can go down in as little as two days.
|
| Here in the valley of Oregon, we don't get snow often or
| for very long, but one late winter/early spring we suddenly
| got 1-2 feet snow cover for at least 3 days. I'll never
| forget the few dozen birds I saw dead on the side of the
| roads because they couldn't get to food.
| flakeoil wrote:
| I'm curious, what does that quote really mean? I can attempt
| to draw a few conclusions, but I'm not quite sure of either
| and they can also almost be the opposite of each other.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| You have to bust your ass to live while the bird just lives
| freely with helpings from God, despite man supposedly being
| made in God's image and stuff.
|
| I think it's a misguided sentiment of its time, we know
| today that birds also bust ass in their own birdy ways to
| live. We all bust ass.
| maxbond wrote:
| I don't know that I know what it means, but I'll tell you a
| thought it brought to mind.
|
| A while ago I was having a discussion, and someone asserted
| that synthetic fertilizers are necessary because composting
| doesn't scale.
|
| And my reaction was, surely composting scales to an entire
| biosphere - like, empirically we know this, right? There
| was a massive biosphere long before there was a Fritz
| Haber. Surely it's that we don't have the required
| technology and wisdom to create supply chains that can run
| as closed loops and accept inputs that aren't so rich and
| concentrated?
|
| I don't want to argue this point, there are definitely good
| counterarguments that could be made, but I'm just trying to
| illustrate the shift in perspective I think the commenter
| may have been going for rather than change the topic.
| Scarblac wrote:
| The argument doesn't quite work imo because farmers are
| actively working against the normal ecosystem - we don't
| want the normal plants to grow there, we want our desired
| crops. With enough production for us to feed the world
| and to give farmers a living wage.
|
| I still think it's doable (but not if we also want to
| feed many times our mass in lifestock), but it's not
| easy.
| hawski wrote:
| Farmers also want to have a large swaths of a monoculture
| plant, because it is easy then to mechanize. That goes,
| as you say, against the normal ecosystem. Permaculture
| gardens look much different, but you can't easily
| mechanize that.
| Scarblac wrote:
| Yes, and the more manual labor it needs, the more time
| intensive it is, the harder it is for someone to make a
| living.
| maxbond wrote:
| I don't want to argue the point (but I also am not
| dismissing your points, the position I put forward is
| definitely not unassailable), but I think there's an
| opportunity to make my original point better here, which
| is; sometimes we get trapped in the logic of our own
| systems and fail to think outside the box. Is it
| monoculture or low-N culture really required? Or is it a
| local optimum we lack the imagination to see beyond?
|
| What got you here might not get you there. You can go
| really far with a monolithic web app running on top of a
| relational database. But if you scale far enough, you'll
| need to pull some pieces out and hook them up to
| databases with relaxed constraints.
|
| There are good engineering reasons for us to do things
| the way we do them, and maybe it was the only feasible
| way for us to get to this point. But presumably if we
| continue to grow, we will enter a different phase with a
| different set of tradeoffs. That phase will probably
| involve exerting less control, it will probably also
| involve worse unit economics, but may also scale further
| with fewer externalities.
| krisoft wrote:
| > surely composting scales to an entire biosphere
|
| By definition, yes.
|
| > There was a massive biosphere long before there was a
| Fritz Haber.
|
| There are about five times more humans today than there
| were when Fritz Haber invented his process.
|
| The question is not "will there be an ecosystem". Of
| course there will be. The question is are you ok with 4
| out of 5 person potentially starving to death.
|
| > Surely it's that we don't have the required technology
| and wisdom...
|
| Synthetic fertilizers is the required technology and
| accepting that is the wisdom.
| maxbond wrote:
| > Synthetic fertilizers is the required technology and
| accepting that is the wisdom.
|
| Again, I don't want to get into a debate about
| agriculture, I'm trying to discuss the quote, but these
| are the types of assumptions I'm suggesting are worth
| questioning.
|
| The question is, are there ways to exert less control and
| get better outcomes? I'm not suggesting we let 80% of
| people starve. I'm suggesting we not be obsequious to the
| logic of the technology we've already built, when
| deciding on what to build next. (I elaborate in a cousin
| comment.)
|
| Consider that in the extreme, if you have a linear supply
| chain with Haber-Bosch on one end and a landfill on the
| other - when you scale to enough people, you will _also_
| have mass starvation. Haber-Bosch isn 't a "wisdom we
| accept" or "the" definitive technology. It has tremendous
| application, but it isn't magic. We're not simply done
| innovating in this area.
| js6i wrote:
| It's interesting how people come and mock without having
| any framework of understanding the thing. It's almost like
| a lost language. Consider air - it is immaterial, the
| spirit/principle/reason/meaning/pattern of things. It's
| also the vehicle for speech, and when we stop breathing it
| we die. I don't think the quote (or the broader text) means
| a single concrete thing - it's saying something about how
| the world works, and should be applicable in multiple ways.
| Under appreciated rabbit hole!
| wruza wrote:
| A purpose of a religious text is to control people. They
| do that through well-known ways. It says "blah-blah, but
| look at this fallacy you aren't aware of, so believe in
| god", at different zoom levels. Every one of these is
| trivially deconstructible cause their main target was
| uneducated masses which had no scrutiny. Those who had it
| were religiously "educated" and accounted for. Religions
| that didn't do that didn't survive. That's the framework
| of understanding. This thing wasn't written by "god",
| it's a work of a few scammers, sadly the biggest in our
| history.
| js6i wrote:
| It seems to me that your stand is analogous to
| anarchists' about law and government. Sure, there's a
| tyrannical aspect that can get out of hand, but it's far
| from the whole story.
| wruza wrote:
| I don't think this is a good analogy, since laws and
| government don't tell you how the world works, it's
| either observable without explanation or left
| unexplained. In religion there's no whole story, it all
| made up. It may contain some real life parts, but it
| could do so without religious parts. Real life stories
| doesn't make it more credible in sentences containing
| "god". In fact, the quote of this subthread is wrong,
| false, debunked. There's no need to look at it in
| context, cause whatever role it plays in it can't make it
| look good. Looking at falsehoods "in context" and
| referring to "deeper knowledge and proper understanding"
| is a beloved theme of religious manipulation.
| js6i wrote:
| I think the disconnect is that you seem to consider
| religious texts as a dry statements of fact. That doesn't
| make any sense, they're clearly not that.
|
| Would you say the same about great works of fiction, or
| old fairy tales that for some reason keep grabbing our
| attention and we repeat them for generations? That
| they're just falsehoods because duh, frogs obviously
| can't talk? Or can they have some deeper meaning? Stating
| facts is not the only way to describe the world.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| > Would you say the same about great works of fiction, or
| old fairy tales
|
| Do you thing religious followers, such as Matthew, see
| god/heaven/etc as being merely a metaphor?
|
| > That they're just falsehoods because duh
|
| per previous poster: "laws and government don't tell you
| how the world works"
|
| works of fiction doesn't purport to either. They might
| have morals, or subtexts, as much of the contents of the
| Bible does - but some things in there are meant to be at
| least partially literal, such as the existence of a
| divine being that created the world.
|
| What's the greater message behind "God takes care of
| lesser creatures" when there's no proof of such a thing?
| That things will generally turn out alright if you don't
| plan ahead (demonstratably bad advice)..
| js6i wrote:
| > Do you thing religious followers, such as Matthew, see
| god/heaven/etc as being merely a metaphor?
|
| No, I'm not suggesting that. The alternatives to just
| reporting facts are more than "merely a metaphor".
|
| > works of fiction doesn't purport to either. They might
| have morals, or subtexts
|
| Disagree - I think they distill patterns from the factual
| and present them in the form of stories, encoded in the
| structure of the story. If you're a materialist you might
| say that the story is less true than the factual
| manifestations of the patterns, I'd say it's more true;
| and that it's telling something about the world.
|
| > What's the greater message
|
| We're debating if zero even exists, don't ask me about
| analysis ;)
| batch12 wrote:
| Actually the purpose of that whole chapter is about not
| being a hypocrite, being authentic, not being greedy, and
| having faith. It's a quick < 5-minute read.
| wruza wrote:
| Yeah, a bunch of dudes created a book (which costed a
| fortune or two before typewriter age) to tell everyone to
| be good just for the sake of it. As plausible as it can
| get. /s
|
| It's a medieval gaslightenment and it would be great if
| people kept it private at least.
|
| PS. purpose is different from meaning, the latter is just
| a medium for purpose and may be arbitrary.
| batch12 wrote:
| I feel the same sometimes about people's opinions. Alas,
| people can say what they want.
| soco wrote:
| Maybe they do have a framework, allowing them to mock it?
| There must be a reason why there are so many holy
| writings on this remote little planet.
| wruza wrote:
| What "real" meaning do you think here? It says look, birds
| live somehow and you're a man, much more important being to
| the guy in the sky. So don't worry and continue to pay,
| he's on it.
| tzs wrote:
| It has been taken in a variety of ways. See the "Analysis"
| section on the Wikipedia page [1] for it for a few
| examples.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_6:26
| batch12 wrote:
| Most verses aren't intended to be read alone, they weren't
| written that way originally. The indexes were added later.
| The whole section (25-34) is about not worrying. With the
| summary being "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for
| tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough
| trouble of its own."
| figassis wrote:
| We invented technology and methods to make things that are
| meant to be difficult, easy (like food, transportation, mating,
| surviving). So now we have to invent more technology and
| methods to find an equilibrium for the system that we broke and
| barely understand, so we continue to break it and abstract away
| the instability, understanding it less and less. I mean, what
| is the purpose of the stock market? housing/mortgage market? An
| upvote? The cookie banner and ad tracking industry?
| NilMostChill wrote:
| - Maintaining and increasing high level wealth, also Control
|
| - Control, also profit
|
| - Control, albeit in a less direct form than housing also
| data and profit
|
| - The pretense of caring about privacy issues, so politics
| and control
|
| - Profit/control
|
| If you ask, "why?" for almost anything in today's society
| it'll come down to money/power, which are functionally mostly
| the same thing.
|
| Exceptions exist sure, but they are called exceptions for a
| reason.
|
| My perspective at least, i'm sure others think differently.
| leobg wrote:
| Had a very similar thought this morning.
|
| With the amount of technology today, we should be the happiest,
| wealthiest generation alive.
|
| My grandmother, born in the 1920s, still experienced hunger as
| a child, fled from the Russians through the ruins of bombed out
| cities, and, up until not too long ago, had to make a fire in
| order to have warm water for the bathtub. But I've never heard
| the word "depression" from her even once. Then you look at
| today's younger generations, and you see it everywhere.
|
| When you bought a roll of bread 40 years ago, you would be
| entering a shop owned by the baker. You would be getting a roll
| that was made by hand with local ingredients. And the woman at
| the counter would be friendly and relaxed, and she would be
| earning enough doing this simple job to have a normal family.
| Today, when I want to buy a roll, I enter a shop that heats up
| rolls that they get from an industrial scale bakery. It costs
| about 5 to 10 times as much. And the woman standing at the
| counter is of the lowest socioeconomic status, because the
| salary she gets for her work is barely enough to afford her
| some tiny apartment.
|
| I would be able to except that many things just don't change,
| and every generation has its problems. But if we believe the
| mantra that progress in technology makes us happier and
| wealthier than those that came before, I think we're kidding
| ourselves. That, to me, seems more and more like a modern form
| of organized religion. And I'm not sure who the priests are.
| soco wrote:
| Maybe it's not about the things we have, but about the hope
| we have. You run away, you change, you survive things because
| you have hope in a better future. You even work to make a
| better future for your kids. You have hope. What hope have
| those people today?
| ffsm8 wrote:
| Or phrased differently: she struggled for her survival.
| It's a very physical one-off challenge that you can master
| (or not).
|
| That's inherently very different to realizing that the
| golden era has basically passed and it's only gonna get
| worse from here, societally speaking.
|
| None of the inherent issues our societies has had were
| solved. They've just become worse with every decade,
| inequality in particular has gotten worse with every
| technological advance, and it'd expect it to get
| meaningfully worse with LLMs now, too.
|
| A select few will still get meaningfully richer, but - on
| average - their prospects for their future are a complete
| dumpster fire.
|
| You (leobg) are likely right that people a few hundred
| years ago probably wouldn't have become depressed like Gen
| Z, Alpha and likely soon Beta too... But they'd probably
| long since taken up their arms, wiping out a good chunk of
| the population and consequently redistributing wealth to
| the survivers. Do you honestly think that'd be better for
| _us_?
| WJW wrote:
| Historically, the people taking up arms certainly did NOT
| distribute wealth if they won. Rather, the leaders of any
| successful rebellion just became the new elite and the
| poor remained the poor but with new leadership.
| octopoc wrote:
| That's not how it was among the Germanic peoples at
| least. They followed people who were called "gold-giver".
| It was seen as the responsibility of the leader to bring
| wealth to his followers in exchange for their loyalty and
| courage. I think Christianity changed that expectation to
| some degree.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > It was seen as the responsibility of the leader to
| bring wealth to his followers in exchange for their
| loyalty and courage.
|
| Replace the word wealth with prosperity and the same
| applies for your later example. The leader is just
| someone you can't see, touch, or hear so is harder to
| displace.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| You're looking at it very 1-dimensionally.
|
| The war leaders certainly didn't literally distribute
| wealth to the conscripted people. Instead you had
| plundering, with the winners simply taking things and the
| dead were ... Well, outta the picture, consequently the
| survivors had the opportunity to become skilled craftsman
| and marry after their return, as most didn't survive
| (even if their side won).
|
| Let's say a farmer family's children were all
| conscripted. 5 left and 2 returned. Before the war, 4 had
| few prospects. After the war, both will have prospects,
| one to succeed the farm and the other one as the husband
| to another farm that didn't have anyone return.
| leobg wrote:
| You mean like kids looking forward to growing up. But once
| you're grown up, or even old, there just isn't anything to
| look forward to anymore?
| WJW wrote:
| > With the amount of technology today, we should be the
| happiest <...> generation alive.
|
| Only if you think that wealth is what makes people happy, but
| we just need to take a look at all the unhappy wealthy people
| all around us to see that that is not the case. Poverty _can_
| make people unhappy of course, especially the stress that
| comes from uncertainty. But prosperity alone is not
| sufficient for happiness. Generations of social researchers
| and philosophers have thrown themselves at this problem.
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| I'd wager a lot of it comes down to the difference between
| material wealth vs. a wealth of time. That's the one thing
| money can't buy.
| histriosum wrote:
| Except that money DOES buy time. When I have money, I can
| convert it to time to do things I enjoy. When I don't
| have money, I need to spend my time to get money in order
| to survive. I find the statement that "money can't buy
| time" something that only a fairly wealthy person would
| believe, and not at all accurate in practice.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > I find the statement that "money can't buy time"
| something that only a fairly wealthy person would
| believe, and not at all accurate in practice.
|
| Most people with money are old, because that's how you
| get money in general: provide value over a long period of
| time. But they would probably all trade that money for
| being 22 again, and having a lifetime ahead.
| prewett wrote:
| Someone asked a substitute teacher if she would make that
| trade, and she said she wouldn't, not unless she could
| retain what she knew now. So, buy a renewed youth? Sure.
| But do 22 again as a 22 year old? Nope. Now that I'm
| "over the hill", I see what she meant. Being 44 is
| similar to the difference between 11 and 22; not as
| drastic, but the stuff I understand about life I would
| not even be able to communicate to 22 year old me.
| Definitely would not want to relive my 20s. "Life starts
| at 40" is not just cope, there's some truth in there,
| too.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Yes, but you're not 70 and wealthy. 44 is still pretty
| young[0].
|
| [0] this may be cope
| histriosum wrote:
| I would agree with the statement that money can't buy
| time that has already passed, because nothing can do
| that. Money can definitely buy time in the present
| moment, though.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| Where did you get the "amount of technology" = "wealth"
| from parent's comment?
|
| With the current amount of technology we could put a roof
| over people's head, provide clean water and safe foods and
| medicines. This has nothing to do with owning a Lamborghini
| or eating a Michelin star restaurant, which would indeed
| count as superfluous wealth that doesn't actually improve
| happiness.
| prewett wrote:
| Technology makes possible things cheaper and impossible
| things possible, which is a form of wealth. At any rate,
| both money and technology can make us materially
| comfortable. But the reason "money can't buy happiness"
| is that a large part of happiness comes from connections
| with people, to society, and perhaps even to nature.
| Another large part comes from one's meaning or purpose.
| Neither of those can be bought or technologied.
| fardinahsan wrote:
| This is overly simplistic thinking. Of Course increases in
| technology isn't the only factor determining aggregate
| societal well being or happiness or whatever. But it would be
| naive and disingenuous to suggest anything other than it
| being monotonic at the very least.
|
| This also asks for a search for better social technology, as
| opposed to asserting that we must slow down the search for
| better physical technology because the social technology
| isn't keeping up.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| At least as measured by suicide rates in the US your
| grandmothers likely generation new quite well what depression
| was even if the word didn't matter. Between the 1920s and the
| end of WW2 the suicide rate per 100000 was lowest at 15 but
| reached almost 22.
|
| The pandemic rate which caused (rightly) lots of angst and
| introspection was 14.3.
|
| We should investigate what is causing increased levels of
| depression currently but we shouldn't assume it was absent in
| other generations when we do it.
|
| https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-us-suicide-rates-
| since-19...
| hxriv wrote:
| Should have let the op continue their victim blaming
| tirade. Was just getting good.
| leobg wrote:
| Point taken. Can't get more textbook survivorship bias. :)
| xhevahir wrote:
| > At least as measured by suicide rates in the US your
| grandmothers likely generation new quite well what
| depression was even if the word didn't matter.
|
| They knew what suffering was, and arguably did more of it.
| But very few of them thought of it as a primarily medical
| problem, one requiring intervention by professionals,
| medicine, and so on. People who think of their problems in
| this newer way handle them differently, and not always
| better.
| iamEAP wrote:
| > But I've never heard the word "depression" from her even
| once. Then you look at today's younger generations, and you
| see it everywhere.
|
| Reminds me of Act 2 from this "This American Life" episode.
| Sub "Toska" for "depression" and maybe you'll see things in a
| different light.
|
| https://www.thisamericanlife.org/822/transcript
| Chris2048 wrote:
| > It costs about 5 to 10 times as much.
|
| Is that true, the mass produced bread is more expensive?
| leobg wrote:
| Difficult to calculate, with inflation and everything. But
| I do remember from the 1980s that a roll of bread was ~2
| Euro cents (5 Pfennig), nominally. And now it's ~20.
|
| With industrial baking, modern fertilizers, farming
| automation, global container shipping, and all of that, one
| would reasonably expect it to have gotten significantly
| cheaper.
| pwillia7 wrote:
| Maybe this is just because we culturally overvalue the
| individual. Maybe technology helps us survive and have 'more'
| on a macro level but causes problems on a micro level, and
| maybe we are more geared 'naturally' than we believe to
| sacrifice our micro for a good human macro. I think about
| ants that sacrifice themselves for the good of the colony,
| surely without the same reasoning we would do something
| similar for[1].
|
| [1]: https://www.science.org/content/article/exploding-ants-
| sacri...
| ses1984 wrote:
| Evolutionary biology and game theory can offer insight
| here. Ants are genetically identical which drives this
| behavior.
| pwillia7 wrote:
| Interesting! I didn't know that
| leobg wrote:
| Leo Tolstoy, What I Believe:
|
| Just like the winegrowers, who, living in a garden not
| cultivated by them, had to understand and feel that they
| were in immeasurable debt to the landlord, people must also
| understand and feel that from the day of their birth until
| their death, they are always in immeasurable debt to
| someone: to those who lived before them, to their
| contemporaries, and to those yet to come; to that which
| was, is, and will be the beginning of everything. They must
| understand that with every hour of their life, as they
| accept life, they reinforce this obligation that binds them
| to life and its origin, and that therefore, the person who
| denies this obligation and lives for themselves, in trying
| to preserve their personal life, ultimately destroys it.
|
| This is precisely what Christ repeated many times.
|
| The true life is only that which continues the past life
| and contributes to the salvation of the present and future
| life.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| I think there are 2 aspects to the anecdote about your
| grandma.
|
| Firstly, no one spoke about depression, because it as a
| condition was not recognized. It doesn't mean people didn't
| feel depressed.
|
| Secondly, this time supporting your argument, perhaps when
| people go through terrible things in their childhood, they
| grow resilient towards adversity. If you know things can get
| a lot worse, you don't really worry about minor things.
| j0hnyl wrote:
| "With the amount of technology today, we should be the
| happiest, wealthiest generation alive."
|
| I actually think we are.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| I think there is a lot to unpack in your anecdote about the
| baker vis-a-vis happiness vs proliferation of depression in
| modern life.
|
| If I had to summarize my own thoughts about it, it's
| ownership, community/relationships, and hardships/challenges
| that can be overcome through hard work.
|
| Modern technology counter intuitively gives us very little
| agency everything is owned by faceless/soulless corporations,
| technology "connects us" in unparalleled ways but also
| isolates us, and while life has and likely will always be
| hard for the majority there is a feeling of invisible prisons
| enabled through technology that no amount of hard work can
| overcome.
| leobg wrote:
| I agree. Especially the ownership thing.
|
| Tangent:
|
| I remember my mother, in the 1980s, getting a parking
| ticket. So she had to go to the local police officer. We
| were a tiny town, a village almost. But there was a police
| station. And the officer was in charge of this case. He
| talked to my mother. She explained. And he ended up saying
| that in this case, he'd be willing to make an exception.
|
| Fast forward to today. I drive to school in the morning.
| There's a van at the side of the road. It's not even
| police; some kind of contractor. Out on the road, there's a
| fancy radar/speed trap thing. They probably paid EUR100,000
| of taxpayer money for it, plus a servicing contract. Were
| probably promised that it's gonna pay for itself within two
| years. And now the two dudes sit inside the van. The
| machine is doing the work. Tickets are being sent out
| automatically by a computer system. And there is literally
| nobody who owns the process.
|
| It is an abstract machinery, turning citizens into objects.
|
| My mother and the policeman, as a result of the encounter,
| had reached an understanding. They became partners in the
| higher principle. There was a true connection between the
| citizens and the state. The state had a face, and there was
| a local representative who was in charge.
|
| Today, the state has no face. Even the judges in the legal
| system just act as tiny wheels in the machinery. It's hard
| to find anyone whoever owns anything. Much less owns up to
| anything.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| The opening scene of American Gangster Denzel
| Washington's character is the driver/right hand man for
| Bumpy Johnson. They go into a store and Bumpy has a heart
| attack, Denzel calls for help, and Bumpy just says
| "forget it frank, there's no one in charge."
|
| And so it is when PayPal or coinbase accounts get frozen,
| or social media accounts get suspended without notice or
| explanation, Gmail accounts get hacked or deleted in
| freak occurrences. Good luck getting any help, there's no
| one in charge, the best you can hope for is social media
| shamming which only works when you already have
| influence.
| confidantlake wrote:
| While I agree with what a lot of what you said, there is a
| lot of survivorship bias in a single anecedote. My Grandma
| also has a very similar story, born in 1920s, fled from the
| Russians, no depression. But there is family from the same
| time period that committed suicide. Then for every one
| suicide there were 10 people that lived out of the bottle. So
| even though no one talked about depression it was there.
| leobg wrote:
| Is she still alive? I can recommend interviewing her about
| the past and recording it. There may come a time where you
| will be glad to have those recordings. Or your
| children/grandchildren. Also, given the right prompting,
| you may learn things about her that you have never seen
| before.
| confidantlake wrote:
| She is, and mentally very sharp too. That is a great
| idea, will do that.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| >it's so easy to forget that you are a part of a larger whole
| and there is more life on Earth besides human.
|
| Humans actually utilize quite a big chunk of the biomass.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It depends how you count it, whether you include plants etc.
| Humans are only 0.01% of all biomass, but humans and
| livestock completely dominate the "mammals" category.
|
| Funnily enough, the livestock population weighs about twice
| as much as the human population.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Humans and livestock completely dominate not only the
| "mammals" category, but the entire "terrestrial
| vertebrates" category.
|
| There are only a few other terrestrial animals of
| comparable biomass with humans, e.g. ants and termites.
| ambientenv wrote:
| There's some further thought-provoking discussion in a recent
| conversation with Daniel Scmachtenberger [1] talking about what
| you suggest.
|
| [1] Moving from Naive to Authentic Progress: A Vision for
| Betterment - https://youtu.be/tmusbHBKW84
| nunez wrote:
| > I think that our bodies are highly intelligent and humans
| intrude a lot in it's natural functioning by inventing too much
| techniques and methods. Like I want to stay awake, drink
| coffee. Drink coffee, get insomnia. Insomnia leads to
| unhappiness. Take insomnia meds, get withdrawals. Generating
| more problems along the way while forgetting what the solutions
| were even for in the first place. If we just listened to our
| bodies signs, it pretty much tells us why you you are lethargic
| and need coffee in the first place.
|
| This has come into hyper clarity for me ever since
| transitioning to minimalist shoes/sandals ten years ago and
| foregoing all caffeinated beverages this past December.
|
| It's actually quite insane to think about how accessible coffee
| is and how much of our modern economy relies on people
| consuming it.
|
| Consulting, big law, investment banks and lots of blue collar
| jobs (for example) rely on workers pulling 12+ hour days to do
| what mostly amounts to eye-watering amounts of paperwork. Given
| that sleep naturally becomes an afterthought when working under
| these conditions and showing any signs of weakness is frowned
| upon, coffee, sodas and energy drinks are all but required to
| function.
|
| Similar deal with shoes. Feet are incredibly complex systems
| that are designed to withstand lots of abuse. Unfortunately,
| big shoe companies built their fortunes off of selling shoes
| that are great for sports but terrible for everyday use.
| Instead of pushing more minimal shoes that counteract weakening
| feet while being simpler to make, they push orthotics and shoes
| with more advanced technology and thicker sole stack.
|
| It's depressing to think about, so I try not to!
| lumb63 wrote:
| +1 for minimalist footwear. I keep telling anyone who will
| listen, "isn't it crazy that we don't have foot shaped
| shoes?" And then we wonder why we have bunions, knee pain,
| and tight hips when we sit sedentary at a desk all day in our
| not-foot-shaped shoes.
|
| I highly recommend reading The Technological Society by
| Jacques Ellul. It was written in the '60s about how
| technology influences the direction of humanity and all the
| unintended consequences that come from that, and how we turn
| to more technology to solve those problems. It was a very
| prescient book.
| gavmor wrote:
| In that vein, I highly recommend Katy Bowman's "Move Your
| DNA," and "Whole Body Barefoot." Bowman's biomechanical
| analysis of modern movement, furniture, and the built
| environment has changed the way I walk, sit, and carry
| things.
| digging wrote:
| Caffeine isn't an invention of modern industrial society,
| we've been boiling every caffeinated plant we could find for
| thousands of years. I would still drink it if I didn't have
| to work for a corporate employer. In fact I enjoy it much
| _more_ on my days off when I get to make art. I don 't mean
| to get too defensive of it, but I find it quite strange when
| people lump caffeinated drinks in with completely artificial
| aspects of life.
| nunez wrote:
| Caffeine (and coffee) are not inventions of modernity, but
| hyper-caffeinated drinks, like energy drinks and sodas,
| most definitely are. Also, coffee consumption has increased
| over time, like this article shows:
| https://perfectdailygrind.com/2024/04/us-consumption-
| hits-20...
| digging wrote:
| Sure but that's different from total abstinence.
| sgt_bilko wrote:
| Makes me wonder if organisms on Mars (if they ever existed) used
| such a mechanism
| surfingdino wrote:
| > Instead of complaining about what we're missing when we're
| asleep, maybe we can experience it as a process that connects us
| to all life on Earth, including microbes sleeping deep in the
| Arctic permafrost.
|
| I'm quite happy to know that "microbes sleeping deep in the
| Arctic permafrost" are asleep. I'd rather not have to think what
| might happen when they wake up.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| It's an interesting idea, why do humans and other species
| sleep? Maybe it is simply because they can. If there's no good
| reason to be awake, then sleep. Save your energy for a better
| time to be awake. That doesn't answer why we have dreams
| however.
| Sharlin wrote:
| People literally die if they go long enough without sleep,
| and of course everybody knows the cognitive impairment that
| even a moderate amount of sleep debt causes.
|
| That said, saving energy is certainly one part of it - and
| what else could a diurnal species do in the darkness anyway?
| (And similarly for animals adapted to night or twilight
| activity).
| Moldoteck wrote:
| imo microbes/viruses carefully evolved after countless
| encounters of antibiotics and other stuff that we have now may
| have the same or greater danger level
| geon wrote:
| They might start releasing enormous amounts of CO2 and methane.
| ssijak wrote:
| Cant wait to see what types of bacteria and viruses are dormant
| in permafrost that is thawing /s
| xyst wrote:
| To me, seems like this is what we describe today as a "comatose"
| state. Is the individual "brain dead" or did the person sustain
| so much damage that it required an "emergency brake".
|
| The body and mind is healing itself but today's scientists and
| doctors cannot fully quantify it. Only using "primitive" tools
| (EEGs, CT, MRI) which only allow us to see through a tiny keyhole
| of what is a vast number of possibilities.
| krisoft wrote:
| > To me, seems like this is what we describe today as a
| "comatose" state. Is the individual "brain dead" or did the
| person sustain so much damage that it required an "emergency
| brake".
|
| I'm not sure what you are talking about, but "comatose" and
| "brain dead" are two very different states. If you are brain
| dead you are not comatose.
| trenchgun wrote:
| That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons
| even death may die
| rolandog wrote:
| Wow. This is nature's mechanism for lazy evaluation.
| thimkerbell wrote:
| "Biologists discovered a widespread protein that abruptly shuts
| down a cell's activity -- and turns it back on just as fast."
|
| Maybe we need this for dogs, so their lifespan isn't
| substantially squandered when their owners are at work.
| Ductapemaster wrote:
| You should check out a company called Loyal -- they're making
| lifespan increasing drugs for dogs of all sizes!
| niemandhier wrote:
| This feels quite distopian.
| hnbad wrote:
| Turning your pets on and off to accomodate your lifestyle?
| Yeah, that doesn't sound great. I'm sure there'd be a huge
| market for it though.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Is the value of a dog's life subjectively tied to the enjoyment
| of the owner? May as well shut down when the owner is asleep
| too... or, get a robot dog instead.
| tzs wrote:
| I think you and most of the other commentators are not
| reading the suggestion the way it was intended.
|
| Dogs are usually very social. If they are left alone they
| will often be very unhappy. I think what was being suggested
| was that if a dog that was going to be left alone for half
| the day each work day could be "turned off" during that time
| so it would not experience those hours of loneliness it would
| make the dog's life happier.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Nobody seems to be mentioning the therapeutic possibilities. I'd
| love to be able to make a bacterial infection dormant. Or a
| tumor.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Tumors might be difficult, since afaik, cancer cells aren't
| working correctly by definition.
| frenchyatwork wrote:
| Also, the classic issue with tumors, is that they're your own
| body, and it's hard to selectively target them. Any treatment
| that hibernates tumor cells is likely hibernate normal cells,
| and be incompatible with life; unless you get really lucky.
| mvc wrote:
| Sshhh. Noone tell the proles that it's perfectly natural to have
| a bit of slack where many individuals in complex systems are
| doing nothing and, far from being a leech on society, it is
| actually essential to keeping the overall system alive.
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