The "DNA is a Turing computer and everyone is born a blank slate" model is a bit too intellectually convenient for a 20th century that gave us egalitarianism and Turing computers.

It's mostly true, but not entirely, and the few percent that doesn't fit that model is enough to matter, and perhaps explains some persistent social phenomena which don't fit the picture.

More evidence of the environment producing subtle heritable modifications to DNA.

The world we live in is still far more Mendel's than Lamarck's, but it's perhaps more like 95:5 rather than 100:0.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48814572

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As someone who cares about music, there may be a superabundance of adequate, filler-level stuff which AI can adequately substitute for.

But for any given mood, moment or taste, there's only a finite amount of A-grade stuff.

There's only one Stevie Wonder, and only a handful of great albums of his. There have been similarly valuable talents since, across different styles and genres.

The industry is saturated at the B tier, sure. But without a market for that stuff, how are the labels supposed to grow and develop the few-times-in-a-generation talent that matters?

The original reason for low population density was agricultural work, which - even in the early days of mechanisation - was plenty physical.

Living in exurbia to work and consume like a city dweller is a new kind of stupid.

My point is just that if you /only/ do long cardio, it'll reduce the mass of muscle that you need both to burn calories and remain uninjured. Good to mix it up a bit.

The problem with doing a lot of cardio is that you need muscle to burn calories (especially so without injury and as you get older), and too much medium intensity cardio will start to chew up lean mass.

No harm in doing a bit of both though, especially if your goal is fitness/maintenance rather than maximum strength or a particular look.

"Kill all the wolves, die as a result from invisible bacteria carried by tiny arthropods - or from Type 2 diabetic heart failure, as getting out for a hike and staying safe is now too much hassle".

And if your heart is needing transplantation in the first place, you'll be running far below optimal for blood O2 and a dozen other things.

It'd be more surprising if it didn't result in significant change.

The idea that all stateful/regulatory stuff is entirely localised to the brain is a bit too simple to be true. Most of it, sure, but that last few percent can be doing all sorts of clinically important stuff. Nature is an incredibly brilliant engineer, but not always a tidy one.

Granted though many/most organs are stateful and somewhat adaptive - in a sense they'll "remember" what happened. Even plants possess that to varying degrees.

It's sheer brute force, tons of waste, seems like very little thought going in to fitting the implementation to the problem.

The value of compute can drop significantly in the event of users figuring out how to optimise for their particular need. And yep, there are wasteful applications that can burn whatever compute is available, but how much demand for that is there when it's properly priced?

Extreme example. Generating novel 4K VR video on demand. I'm certain there's a market for it, at $10/hour probably quite a healthy one, at $100/hour not so much.

However.

It's not rational relative to the short-term incentives of a typical corporation or investment vehicle. PE, VC, fund managers aren't paid to give a fuck about the social contract. Literally not in their job description.

As in: _why_ does everyone want a middle class life? _why_ is only a middle class life that's seen as being dignified?

I've friends across a wide range of ages, from late 50s to mid 20s, and it's notable that the older ones have stories of some incredibly grimy circumstances from their 20s which today's 20somethings would be unwilling to endure, they'd rather stay at home with their parents. Living in squats, bedsits or mobile homes, sofa surfing for extended periods, etc.

Lots of people in previous times started families when they were flat broke. Some out of choice, some it just happened. Granted that's not ideal, but they made it work.

Like we know at a crude physical level, we can give someone a bit of a boost with glucose and sympathomimetic stimulants, but sometimes it works a lot better than others. And it's ineffective for fatigue syndromes, but they can't be the other mechanical things commonly associated with fatigue either. (lactic acid, micro-tears and so on).