4 ms·

Am I missing something? This is a link to an article where a bunch of scientists and public intellectuals answer the question, and it provides all kinds of cool

Am I missing something? This is a link to an article where a bunch of scientists and public intellectuals answer the question, and it provides all kinds of cool content, such as "impedance matching", and the notion that natural selection implies that our DNA can tell us about the environments our genetic ancestors lived in. Instead of reading, reacting, or engaging with any of those ideas, people are just directly responding to the headline as though this is an ask HN thread. I'm not sure that that's what was intended here? I would love to hear people talk about this "genetic book of the dead" idea. For instance, the terrifying drowning reflex that people have, there must have been scenarios in our evolutionary past where that happened often enough that this mutation came in handy, which is haunting to think about. I would love for this thread to be a discussion of the ideas presented in the article.

zuj 5y ago
Op here. Absolutely my ideas when I posted.
AussieWog93 5y ago
Quantum computing.
ssda2211 5y ago
I second this. If you are here and have skipped the article, I strongly recommended it. It is a fun and interesting read, and a jumping point for a bunch of rabbit holes I will probably end up wandering in this afternoon!
ghostpepper 5y ago
As someone who learned about the electrical meaning of impedance matching in school, where impedance is a commonly discussed fundamental quantity in circuits (it’s the AC equivalent to resistance), I have always tried to avoid using the term outside of engineering circles to avoid confusing people. This is the first I’ve ever heard someone deliberately apply it to a disparate array of phenomena but I have to say that, to me, the phrase makes sense in all those contexts and has a nice ring to it.
- jcims 5y ago
  Complete tangent here but I've noticed a form of impedance matching when I talk to certain people. I think it's a combination of natural cadence and information density or something, but there are some folks that I can effortlessly talk to and others where we constantly struggle with stepping on top of each other and/or seek clarification. It's a pairwise thing without a common cause that I can see. For example, I can see the folks that I struggle to talk with speak effortlessly with others as well. It's really odd. But anyway to drive the point home I started calling it an impedance mismatch which makes sense to some and not others. :)
- inopinatus 5y ago
  I've used it to discuss organisational dynamics. Most recently, for a small startup trying to establish a service agreement for a large enterprise customer, and the differences in values, expectations, processes etc that hampered the relationship, which we termed an "impedence mismatch" and all the engineers in the room at least nodded. Labelling certain problems this way, dispassionately and without rancour, really took heat out of the discussion, which assisted in finding solutions. In such circumstances, differences are bridgeable with understanding, which inevitably provokes jokes about certain people being transformers, being tightly wound etc.
pintxo 5y ago
> that our DNA can tell us about the environments our genetic ancestors lived in. It‘s afaik not the DNA transporting the information, but epigenetics. Eg everything around the DNA deciding what parts to read/ignore.
- popcube 5y ago
  he is talking about our DNA are evolution results of our ancients, and because they can estimate age and natural selection stress of genes, maybe it is possible to rebuild phenotype of ancient. For example, estimating egg size of octopus, web type of spiders... and so on.
potamic 5y ago
I think there's a huge problem with attention span on the internet. Dopamine rush from new content is a thing and there is so much of it available that people can't help chase it all the time. This kind of engagement really degrades the quality of a community and I think we should do all we can to keep it at bay. Explicit, inoffensive, boring headlines can go a long way in weeding out people who are looking for their next rush. I don't know, maybe if this post was titled, "Scientists discuss what concepts ought to be widely known", it would lend itself less to clickbait?
- quitit 5y ago
  Similar to other social news sites: a great many HN readers go straight to the comments to chime in. Often the articles themselves aren’t even more than a few minutes reading and the comments have questions and ideas that were directly addressed by the piece. There has been a long discussion about what to do about this problem (from slashdot to digg to reddit and so on) - however the idea of requiring commenters to jump through hoops or unpaid moderators to somehow keep the discussion factual seems more like a way to kill the site. For your amusement: pay casual attention to the comment count on any HN post that contains “apple” or one of their better known trademarks. No one is reading anything - it’s just a gangbang.
hoseja 5y ago
It's 206 article-level answers. Just an awe-inspiring level of content; and a lot of it resonates with me. Will take a while to read through.

zuj 5y ago

Op here. Absolutely my ideas when I posted.

AussieWog93 5y ago

Quantum computing.

ssda2211 5y ago

I second this. If you are here and have skipped the article, I strongly recommended it. It is a fun and interesting read, and a jumping point for a bunch of rabbit holes I will probably end up wandering in this afternoon!

ghostpepper 5y ago

As someone who learned about the electrical meaning of impedance matching in school, where impedance is a commonly discussed fundamental quantity in circuits (it’s the AC equivalent to resistance), I have always tried to avoid using the term outside of engineering circles to avoid confusing people. This is the first I’ve ever heard someone deliberately apply it to a disparate array of phenomena but I have to say that, to me, the phrase makes sense in all those contexts and has a nice ring to it.

jcims 5y ago
Complete tangent here but I've noticed a form of impedance matching when I talk to certain people. I think it's a combination of natural cadence and information density or something, but there are some folks that I can effortlessly talk to and others where we constantly struggle with stepping on top of each other and/or seek clarification. It's a pairwise thing without a common cause that I can see. For example, I can see the folks that I struggle to talk with speak effortlessly with others as well. It's really odd. But anyway to drive the point home I started calling it an impedance mismatch which makes sense to some and not others. :)
inopinatus 5y ago
I've used it to discuss organisational dynamics. Most recently, for a small startup trying to establish a service agreement for a large enterprise customer, and the differences in values, expectations, processes etc that hampered the relationship, which we termed an "impedence mismatch" and all the engineers in the room at least nodded. Labelling certain problems this way, dispassionately and without rancour, really took heat out of the discussion, which assisted in finding solutions. In such circumstances, differences are bridgeable with understanding, which inevitably provokes jokes about certain people being transformers, being tightly wound etc.

pintxo 5y ago

> that our DNA can tell us about the environments our genetic ancestors lived in. It‘s afaik not the DNA transporting the information, but epigenetics. Eg everything around the DNA deciding what parts to read/ignore.

popcube 5y ago
he is talking about our DNA are evolution results of our ancients, and because they can estimate age and natural selection stress of genes, maybe it is possible to rebuild phenotype of ancient. For example, estimating egg size of octopus, web type of spiders... and so on.

potamic 5y ago

I think there's a huge problem with attention span on the internet. Dopamine rush from new content is a thing and there is so much of it available that people can't help chase it all the time. This kind of engagement really degrades the quality of a community and I think we should do all we can to keep it at bay. Explicit, inoffensive, boring headlines can go a long way in weeding out people who are looking for their next rush. I don't know, maybe if this post was titled, "Scientists discuss what concepts ought to be widely known", it would lend itself less to clickbait?

quitit 5y ago
Similar to other social news sites: a great many HN readers go straight to the comments to chime in. Often the articles themselves aren’t even more than a few minutes reading and the comments have questions and ideas that were directly addressed by the piece. There has been a long discussion about what to do about this problem (from slashdot to digg to reddit and so on) - however the idea of requiring commenters to jump through hoops or unpaid moderators to somehow keep the discussion factual seems more like a way to kill the site. For your amusement: pay casual attention to the comment count on any HN post that contains “apple” or one of their better known trademarks. No one is reading anything - it’s just a gangbang.

hoseja 5y ago

It's 206 article-level answers. Just an awe-inspiring level of content; and a lot of it resonates with me. Will take a while to read through.