5 ms·

I am not only awed by the size and bulk of whales, but also the sheer meatiness of shrimp. It seems like these organisms are > 90% meat. Why do they have so muc

I am not only awed by the size and bulk of whales, but also the sheer meatiness of shrimp. It seems like these organisms are > 90% meat. Why do they have so much meat? What do they need all that meat for?

aae42 5y ago
https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thinkingMeat.html https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/think...
silisili 5y ago
Self preservation, ironically. They normally spend all day swimming around leisurely, but can do a tail flop to escape danger quickly. I say ironically (don't kill me if I'm misusing the word) because that same big abdominal muscle leads to creatures, especially humans, seeking them out for their meatiness. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caridoid_escape_reaction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caridoid_escape_reaction
0des 5y ago
I have a population of shrimp that have been breeding in my aquarium for quite some time now. They spend most of their time picking through detritus and otherwise managing the cleanliness of the rocks and sandbed. I'm curious if their 'meatiness' has something to do with how rapidly they grow and reproduce and the size of the clutches involved. A single female can have around 100 eggs or more attached to the underside of her belly, producing that many eggs has to require a decent amount of calories. Another hypothesis is that they appear to be detrivores, and aside from the snails co-habitating with them, they have very little competition for a seemingly endless supply of fish poop and plants to munch on. The variety I have are clear, so it's quite interesting to watch their inner workings as they eat and reproduce. Where you'd expect the "brain" to be, they have a stomach that is constantly engaged in some type of basic peristaltic motion that can pause itself when they are alerted or startled, unlike in humans where this is an autonomic process as far as I know.
- a9h74j 5y ago
  Caton in Overshoot called humans a detritus species. Your very descriptive paragraph might be mined for metaphors. For example, in place of a brain, does humanity have going a peristaltic action connecting mines to landfills?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - voz_ 5y ago
    Your username and comment make me think GPT3 wrote this. What do you mean?
    - Farmadupe 5y ago
      One of the most thought-provoking aspects of information theory is that when someone says something interesting in a small amount of words, it's indistinguishable from line noise. tldr; I've never read Overshoot either but I thought the post had an interesting perspective
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Can we cut the 'are you a robot, captain?' comments please? They are just a small step removed from 'are you a shill' (or worse: 'you are are a shill').
      - taneq 5y ago
        That’s just what a robot would say! /s That said, if you really can’t tell, does it matter? Shouldn’t we be judging comments on their content, not on who (or what) we think wrote them?
    - BBC-vs-neolibs 5y ago
      If you zoom out on humanity, it looks like a pump which pumps stuff from stripmines to landfills.
    - 5y ago
gumby 5y ago
Their locomotion requires an enormous amount of power. This is not uncommon in arthropods; cockroaches and crickets do too.
bch 5y ago
> It seems like these organisms are > 90% meat. Why do they have so much meat? What do they need all that meat for? Whales cultivated them for consumption.

aae42 5y ago

https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thinkingMeat.html https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/think...

silisili 5y ago

Self preservation, ironically. They normally spend all day swimming around leisurely, but can do a tail flop to escape danger quickly. I say ironically (don't kill me if I'm misusing the word) because that same big abdominal muscle leads to creatures, especially humans, seeking them out for their meatiness. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caridoid_escape_reaction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caridoid_escape_reaction

0des 5y ago

I have a population of shrimp that have been breeding in my aquarium for quite some time now. They spend most of their time picking through detritus and otherwise managing the cleanliness of the rocks and sandbed. I'm curious if their 'meatiness' has something to do with how rapidly they grow and reproduce and the size of the clutches involved. A single female can have around 100 eggs or more attached to the underside of her belly, producing that many eggs has to require a decent amount of calories. Another hypothesis is that they appear to be detrivores, and aside from the snails co-habitating with them, they have very little competition for a seemingly endless supply of fish poop and plants to munch on. The variety I have are clear, so it's quite interesting to watch their inner workings as they eat and reproduce. Where you'd expect the "brain" to be, they have a stomach that is constantly engaged in some type of basic peristaltic motion that can pause itself when they are alerted or startled, unlike in humans where this is an autonomic process as far as I know.

a9h74j 5y ago
Caton in Overshoot called humans a detritus species. Your very descriptive paragraph might be mined for metaphors. For example, in place of a brain, does humanity have going a peristaltic action connecting mines to landfills?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- voz_ 5y ago
  Your username and comment make me think GPT3 wrote this. What do you mean?
  - Farmadupe 5y ago
    One of the most thought-provoking aspects of information theory is that when someone says something interesting in a small amount of words, it's indistinguishable from line noise. tldr; I've never read Overshoot either but I thought the post had an interesting perspective
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Can we cut the 'are you a robot, captain?' comments please? They are just a small step removed from 'are you a shill' (or worse: 'you are are a shill').
    - taneq 5y ago
      That’s just what a robot would say! /s That said, if you really can’t tell, does it matter? Shouldn’t we be judging comments on their content, not on who (or what) we think wrote them?
  - BBC-vs-neolibs 5y ago
    If you zoom out on humanity, it looks like a pump which pumps stuff from stripmines to landfills.
  - 5y ago

gumby 5y ago

Their locomotion requires an enormous amount of power. This is not uncommon in arthropods; cockroaches and crickets do too.

bch 5y ago

> It seems like these organisms are > 90% meat. Why do they have so much meat? What do they need all that meat for? Whales cultivated them for consumption.