6 ms·

Tardigrades seem too of become the crash test dummies of science, seen stories of them being frozen, heated, starved.... Which made me ask - are they intellige

by Zenst 5y ago

Tardigrades seem too of become the crash test dummies of science, seen stories of them being frozen, heated, starved.... Which made me ask - are they intelligent "Does a Tardigrade have a brain? Tardigrades have a dorsal brain atop a paired ventral nervous system. (Humans have a dorsal brain and a single dorsal nervous system.) The body cavity of tardigrades is an open hemocoel that touches every cell, allowing efficient nutrition and gas exchange with no need for circulatory or respiratory systems." from https://www.americanscientist.org/article/tardigrades https://www.americanscientist.org/article/tardigrades Which is all interesting as AFAIK we still don't know for sure if they feel pain. Not that I'm siding with any side of the ethics in this respect - just fascinating how that line is defined and changed over time. Makes you wonder how we would view such science in a few hundred years. That all said, one question I do have - did they have some expected modelled result and this was science to see how their calculations compared to refine a model, or was it just science to measure results without any expectations or idea upon the results!

tomcam 5y ago
Would like to understand the downvotes on this
- pc86 5y ago
  "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - okamiueru 5y ago
    Thoughtful discussions should trump that, surely? Downvotes can be a reflection on many things, and wondering which or what, seems to be a fair thing to wonder about. Context is king. After all, the voting system exists to foster positive discussions. What do you suggest is the alternative correct phrasing then? Or are certain honest and curiosity based questions forbidden on HN?
  - sombremesa 5y ago
    PG doesn’t want you to talk about failed YC startups. HN doesn’t want you to talk about failed HN systems. One of Amazon’s leadership principles used to be “vocally self critical” but now it has been removed. I don’t know why this trend exists but it’s disturbing. “Please don’t talk about the bad stuff here” is the mantra of modern times. Heck, HN doesn’t even let you downvote or comment on YC job posts no matter how bad the company may be to work for. Then we come on here and talk about fake reviews and inflated ratings as if we aren’t part of the problem.
    - busterarm 5y ago
      HN's unwillingness to engage in meta conversation combined with somewhat vague rules and equally vague enforcement (sorry dang, although I do think you and the team do a good job in general) has really driven me away from participating as much as I used to. Many conversations worth having aren't had and many conversations had aren't worth having. The environment has been very polarized along certain lines and unfortunately I think trends towards reinforcing very myopic worldviews held by people with very skewed perspectives of the world at large. Just for some examples, crybullying runs rampant on this platform lately and I increasingly do not want to associate with a community that is used to coordinate and amplify personal attacks. Then there's the frequent contempt for the poor that tends to come up any time someone mentions rent regulations and/or zoning.
    - kodah 5y ago
      > PG doesn’t want you to talk about failed YC startups. We do though. I'm pretty sure the saga of Gab played out on this website in plaintext. Maybe that's not your definition of "failed" though? > HN doesn’t want you to talk about failed HN systems. Like that infamous no politics policy of 2016? That seems to get brought up every few months. It's worth mentioning changes to HN are very slow, and by design. Some changes are too fundamental to HN, which dang refers to as, "fucking with the firmware". > One of Amazon’s leadership principles used to be “vocally self critical” but now it has been removed. I'm honestly not sure how this is related. Anyway, I do think a lot of HN and ycombinator discussions happen but you end up having to be at the right place at the right time. By browsing other users comments I've discovered there's a lot of interesting threads I miss, which I was previously unaware of. Sometimes they don't spend that much time on the front page, or live on for days in /active.
  - mumblemumble 5y ago
    I actually disagree with the "It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." I've seen plenty of cases where the interesting discussion was in response to a "why the downvotes?" question. It seems like it's a fairly safe bet that at least sometimes the interesting discussion was actually sparked by the "why the downvotes?" comment, and, without it, people might not have been motivated to actually articulate their thoughts. I think the complaint that people are often trying to raise is that, while downvotes for comments that are actually hostile seem like a reasonable mechanism for keeping up the quality of conversation, the semi-official sanctioning of using the downvote button to register your displeasure with an opinion you don't agree with, without having to actually share your own opinion, encourages at least some thoughtful discussion to be replaced with knee-jerk reactions. Some folks who've been on HN since early on see it as the driver of a sort of "endless summer" effect, and are perhaps nostalgic for a time when the social conventions around this button were a bit different, and served to foster more civil, thoughtful discussion.
    - loceng 5y ago
      Upvotes-only system will drive quality contents towards the top and give them more exposure. Downvotes should just be gone, it rewards laziness and I suppose keeps lazier people who just enjoy/need a quick hit of dopamine to feel like they've contributed somehow - so probably keeps more people addicted and coming back, people who otherwise would get bored and not come back as much; it makes me wonder what quality of comments people who downvote also make, I wonder if the less downvotes people do the higher quality comments (need to define what attributes would be part of quality)? Dang/HN doesn't seem to be open to experimenting either.
      - mumblemumble 5y ago
        I've sometimes wondered a similar thing. Maybe keep the votes (even the down), but eliminate most the ways they're displayed aside from how they influence sorting. I don't see any problem with having a community moderation system. It's the aspects of gamification and public shaming that are troublesome. Do I really benefit from seeing my karma at the top right of every page? Does the community at large benefit from me seeing it? I'd be interested if sorting could be done better, too. The way that posts accumulate votes according to zipf's law together with a feedback effect where people mostly only read (and vote on) the top few comments means that there's a strong bias toward the discussion being dominated by the earliest posts. Ones that have had a chance to benefit from and be informed by points raised in earlier comments are at a bit of a disadvantage in the karmic rat race.
- belval 5y ago
  We routinely eliminate millions (billions)? of insects, fish a colossal amount of shrimp, lobsters and fish, and keep mammals in tiny cages for meat. Asking whether tardigrades feel pain is interesting, implying that there would be ethical concerns with experimenting on them seems a bit disingenuous.
  - Zenst 5y ago
    > Asking whether tardigrades feel pain is interesting, implying that there would be ethical concerns with experimenting on them seems a bit disingenuous. Thank you, I was just pondering the aspect, and was mindful just raising some aspects can be deemed as siding one way or another - an aspect I felt I clarified. I was basing from the perspective of what we did in the name of science in the past and how perspectives change. However it was a sincere avenue of debate/question and certainly not aware of giving the impression I knew more about the subject than came across. Sorry if it seemed that way. It may well be that in a few hundred years time, people may freely label such ethics of our time as disingenuous and that was the area of debate I find fascinating and the crux point I was raising. Hence was wondering if they had expected results or had some idea from data modelling from what they already knew. Though let's be clear - I'm not ethically labelling this as good science or bad science, more that whole avenue of debate around this and how we define such ethics and how they change over time, so I'm sorry that was not as well communicated as it clearly could of been.
    - canadianfella 5y ago
      You have about a million mites living on you that have more complex brains than tardigrades. Maybe you should philosophize about how many of these animals you murder in the shower.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
canadianfella 5y ago
>Tardigrades seem too of become the crash test dummies of science, * to have

by Zenst 5y ago

tomcam 5y ago

Would like to understand the downvotes on this

pc86 5y ago
"Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- okamiueru 5y ago
  Thoughtful discussions should trump that, surely? Downvotes can be a reflection on many things, and wondering which or what, seems to be a fair thing to wonder about. Context is king. After all, the voting system exists to foster positive discussions. What do you suggest is the alternative correct phrasing then? Or are certain honest and curiosity based questions forbidden on HN?
- sombremesa 5y ago
  PG doesn’t want you to talk about failed YC startups. HN doesn’t want you to talk about failed HN systems. One of Amazon’s leadership principles used to be “vocally self critical” but now it has been removed. I don’t know why this trend exists but it’s disturbing. “Please don’t talk about the bad stuff here” is the mantra of modern times. Heck, HN doesn’t even let you downvote or comment on YC job posts no matter how bad the company may be to work for. Then we come on here and talk about fake reviews and inflated ratings as if we aren’t part of the problem.
  - busterarm 5y ago
    HN's unwillingness to engage in meta conversation combined with somewhat vague rules and equally vague enforcement (sorry dang, although I do think you and the team do a good job in general) has really driven me away from participating as much as I used to. Many conversations worth having aren't had and many conversations had aren't worth having. The environment has been very polarized along certain lines and unfortunately I think trends towards reinforcing very myopic worldviews held by people with very skewed perspectives of the world at large. Just for some examples, crybullying runs rampant on this platform lately and I increasingly do not want to associate with a community that is used to coordinate and amplify personal attacks. Then there's the frequent contempt for the poor that tends to come up any time someone mentions rent regulations and/or zoning.
  - kodah 5y ago
    > PG doesn’t want you to talk about failed YC startups. We do though. I'm pretty sure the saga of Gab played out on this website in plaintext. Maybe that's not your definition of "failed" though? > HN doesn’t want you to talk about failed HN systems. Like that infamous no politics policy of 2016? That seems to get brought up every few months. It's worth mentioning changes to HN are very slow, and by design. Some changes are too fundamental to HN, which dang refers to as, "fucking with the firmware". > One of Amazon’s leadership principles used to be “vocally self critical” but now it has been removed. I'm honestly not sure how this is related. Anyway, I do think a lot of HN and ycombinator discussions happen but you end up having to be at the right place at the right time. By browsing other users comments I've discovered there's a lot of interesting threads I miss, which I was previously unaware of. Sometimes they don't spend that much time on the front page, or live on for days in /active.
- mumblemumble 5y ago
  I actually disagree with the "It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." I've seen plenty of cases where the interesting discussion was in response to a "why the downvotes?" question. It seems like it's a fairly safe bet that at least sometimes the interesting discussion was actually sparked by the "why the downvotes?" comment, and, without it, people might not have been motivated to actually articulate their thoughts. I think the complaint that people are often trying to raise is that, while downvotes for comments that are actually hostile seem like a reasonable mechanism for keeping up the quality of conversation, the semi-official sanctioning of using the downvote button to register your displeasure with an opinion you don't agree with, without having to actually share your own opinion, encourages at least some thoughtful discussion to be replaced with knee-jerk reactions. Some folks who've been on HN since early on see it as the driver of a sort of "endless summer" effect, and are perhaps nostalgic for a time when the social conventions around this button were a bit different, and served to foster more civil, thoughtful discussion.
  - loceng 5y ago
    Upvotes-only system will drive quality contents towards the top and give them more exposure. Downvotes should just be gone, it rewards laziness and I suppose keeps lazier people who just enjoy/need a quick hit of dopamine to feel like they've contributed somehow - so probably keeps more people addicted and coming back, people who otherwise would get bored and not come back as much; it makes me wonder what quality of comments people who downvote also make, I wonder if the less downvotes people do the higher quality comments (need to define what attributes would be part of quality)? Dang/HN doesn't seem to be open to experimenting either.
    - mumblemumble 5y ago
      I've sometimes wondered a similar thing. Maybe keep the votes (even the down), but eliminate most the ways they're displayed aside from how they influence sorting. I don't see any problem with having a community moderation system. It's the aspects of gamification and public shaming that are troublesome. Do I really benefit from seeing my karma at the top right of every page? Does the community at large benefit from me seeing it? I'd be interested if sorting could be done better, too. The way that posts accumulate votes according to zipf's law together with a feedback effect where people mostly only read (and vote on) the top few comments means that there's a strong bias toward the discussion being dominated by the earliest posts. Ones that have had a chance to benefit from and be informed by points raised in earlier comments are at a bit of a disadvantage in the karmic rat race.
belval 5y ago
We routinely eliminate millions (billions)? of insects, fish a colossal amount of shrimp, lobsters and fish, and keep mammals in tiny cages for meat. Asking whether tardigrades feel pain is interesting, implying that there would be ethical concerns with experimenting on them seems a bit disingenuous.
- Zenst 5y ago
  > Asking whether tardigrades feel pain is interesting, implying that there would be ethical concerns with experimenting on them seems a bit disingenuous. Thank you, I was just pondering the aspect, and was mindful just raising some aspects can be deemed as siding one way or another - an aspect I felt I clarified. I was basing from the perspective of what we did in the name of science in the past and how perspectives change. However it was a sincere avenue of debate/question and certainly not aware of giving the impression I knew more about the subject than came across. Sorry if it seemed that way. It may well be that in a few hundred years time, people may freely label such ethics of our time as disingenuous and that was the area of debate I find fascinating and the crux point I was raising. Hence was wondering if they had expected results or had some idea from data modelling from what they already knew. Though let's be clear - I'm not ethically labelling this as good science or bad science, more that whole avenue of debate around this and how we define such ethics and how they change over time, so I'm sorry that was not as well communicated as it clearly could of been.
  - canadianfella 5y ago
    You have about a million mites living on you that have more complex brains than tardigrades. Maybe you should philosophize about how many of these animals you murder in the shower.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

canadianfella 5y ago

>Tardigrades seem too of become the crash test dummies of science, * to have