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By the way (and not flamebaiting here) this is one of the reasons why "this is natural selection" is the phrase that makes me the most angry in all of this. Dea
by mikorym 7y ago
By the way (and not flamebaiting here) this is one of the reasons why "this is natural selection" is the phrase that makes me the most angry in all of this. Death by flu is selection for random shit that cause you to be better off against only one thing and that is: that exact desease causing strain.
The worst thing about Covid 19 to me is how it selects against old people, and even worse: Friendly, sociable old people.
- Amorymeltzer 7y agoIndeed. Those sort of naturalistic[0] and appeal to nature[1] fallacies are infuriating. One advantage of being human is that "this is how things are" doesn't have to mean "this is how things must be." 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature
- amelius 7y agoSadly, the essence of our economy seems copied from nature with concepts like "winner takes all" and "survival of the fittest".
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Mirioron 7y agoThat's because humans need stuff to live. You want an economic system that keeps improving and nature is pretty good at it.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y agoNature is pretty good at finding good-enough local minima, but (ironically) very poor at finding best-possible intelligent designs. There has never been an economy like the latter, and it's a tragic failure of human imagination to believe that it isn't possible.
- collyw 7y agoThere have been designed economies. They don't appear to be very desirable places to live.
- tmerse 7y agoI think you mean local maxima as opposed to "best possible .. designs"/global maxima
- the8472 7y agoNature also optimizes for far more variables than humans do. We min-max for a handful of KPIs at most. Nature optimizes for everything that an organism needs to survive, including in once-in-a-lifetime circumstances. It must do so since most organisms don't have dedicated support infrastructures. Cars don't need to concern themselves with reproducing, a jaguar does. Sure, there are genuine inefficiencies like the laryngeal nerve but there also are plenty of apparently useless things that turn out to have some niche importance such as the appendix.
- wyoh 7y agoIntelligent designs economies are best associated with tyranny. See CCCP.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y agoIt's definitely possible. That's what large companies are for; they subsume some part of the economy into themselves, intelligently design it in ways that could never be found through an unplanned search, and are greatly rewarded if they do it well. Amazon, for example, found one of the best possible designs for both direct-to-consumer shipping and cloud systems. But we don't usually think about it that way. Most people who advocate for a planned economy don't want that kind of planning; they think it's bad to innovate in things like how jobs are structured, bad have a single large company in charge of most of your shipping, and bad that Jeff Bezos can build such a good company that his stake in it is worth billions. Planned economy advocates that I see generally want the economy to work how they specifically would prefer, without much regard for whether other people think that's the best way.
- collyw 7y agoSadly? Look at the history of the alternatives.
- whatshisface 7y agoIn theory you have bankruptcy, limited liability and the corporate person as devices meant to insulate human beings from the harsh natural environment that makes businesses work. Unfortunately, businesses can't stand being treated harshly (and politicians don't have the guts to do it) so we have bailouts, protective regulation, and federal troubled asset purchases, kind of defeating the point.
- robocat 7y agoNatural selection predominantly works before you breed. There are some kin effects if elderly are killed, but natural selection otherwise doesn’t apply much for the elderly.
- PietdeVries 7y agoTrue! If it would, then male baldness would have been "natural de-selected" a long time ago. But since men are getting bald mostly after they had their offspring, partners (nature) cannot select on this...
- rolltiide 7y agowomen don't mind bald men, it's just different women. which can be hard to accept. balding men on the other hand, not confidence inspiring.
- ballenf 7y agoI'd argue that killing off a source of wisdom and knowledge that hasn't been fully passed down hurts the species as a whole. This isn't a counter to your point, just another perspective.
- lazylizard 7y agoIt also selects against religious people...
- toss1 7y agoAt least selecting against religious people who congregate Seems that e.g., Buddhists regularly practicing month-long meditation retreats or Christians practicing 40-day contemplations might see a protective effect selecting them in, tho such practices may reduce reproduction rates, so what is the net balance?
- Jaruzel 7y agoConversely, the countries in the EU that have been affected the worse, are heavily religious countries that encourage regular mass gatherings as part of their faith. Not judging this, just pointing it out.
- necovek 7y agoI would definitely not call Spain heavily religious, or specifically Northern Italy. And definitely not France. Eg. Italy is at 72%, Spain at 49%, USA at 69%, France at 30% on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_coun... I would consider them countries where social gatherings are the norm, and I always related that to climate, rather than religion.
- wideasleep1 7y agoAnd concert goers, shoppers...
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago> Death by flu is selection for random shit that cause you to be better off against only one thing and that is: that exact desease causing strain. But that is, in fact, natural selection, isn't it? Natural selection ≠ selection for traits that benefit society.
- qayxc 7y agoNatural selection cannot apply if the vast majority of deaths occur in a demographic that is way past its reproductive phase...
- tirant 7y agoUnless the survivality of that demographic has an impact on the survivality of their descendants, as it has been proved.
- Wowfunhappy 7y agoI’m past the edit window, but I want to make absolutely clear that I’m not somehow arguing in favor if old people dying. Natural selection may be “natural”. But nature is unbelievably cruel.
- rezeroed 7y agoOld people aren't breeding - no natural selection.
- mirchibajji 7y agoThere are second order effects like: Old people taking care of the grand children so the parents can do other things. Old people sharing their experiences directly or indirectly with the younger generation etc.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y agoThis is why lazy Darwinian hand-waving is - let's be blunt - stupid and naive. By the time you get to a complex human culture, everything is about second and third order effects. We're here debating whether or not it's Darwinian that Covid-19 disproportionately affects old people, while the second and third order effects are a recession (if we're lucky and clever) and a depression (if we're neither). Given where we are as a species right now, both of those will have a much bigger impact on long-term human viability than any immediate deaths.
- lazyjones 7y ago> The worst thing about Covid 19 to me is how it selects against old people, and even worse: Friendly, sociable old people. That's cherry-picking IMO. It also selects against people with chronic diseases, high blood pressure, unhealthy habits like smoking and against people with poor hygiene.
- oaiey 7y agoWhere poor hygiene is everything below: always sterile. Otherwise fine.
- balfirevic 7y ago> The worst thing about Covid 19 to me is how it selects against old people, and even worse: Friendly, sociable old people. You think Covid 19 would be better if it selected against young people?
- tom_mellior 7y agoThat's not what the parent wrote at all, of course. For whatever it's worth, if Covid-19 killed more young people, it might have been taken more seriously earlier.
- balfirevic 7y agoYour dismissive "of course" is not warranted for the sentence that says "The worst thing about Covid 19 to me is how it selects against old people". Two ways for Covid 19 to not have that characteristic: 1) It doesn't select against anyone, meaning it doesn't kill people. 2) It doesn't select against old people, meaning it's less selective, meaning (keeping the same mortality rate) it kills less old and more younger people.
- tom_mellior 7y agoYes. These two valid readings are both not equivalent to your "better if it selected against young people".
- zantana 7y agoWell if history is any indicator that may change. https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-second-wave-resurgence https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-second-wave-resurge...
- Causality1 7y agoGiven the same number of deaths, aren't old people the age group you would choose to have the highest fatality rate?
- qqn 7y agoExplaining genetic drift has helped me deal with this faulty, dangerously misleading "natural selection" argument: https://youtube.com/watch?v=W0TM4LQmoZY https://youtube.com/watch?v=W0TM4LQmoZY
- dang 7y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22626013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22626013.