4 ms·

Come on. This is not HN material. What's next? Lolcats?

by swombat 17y ago

coconutrandom 17y ago
sadly, yes.
- coconutrandom 17y ago
  happily yes?
  - coconutrandom 17y ago
    hahahahaah! indifferently, yes?
gojomo 17y ago
I find new discoveries about incurable diseases which change human personalities on the scale of individuals and whole societies very HN-worthy, by the same standard as other science/medical discoveries. Unfortunately, this is (1) old news; and (2) especially prone to obvious, knee-jerk LOLcats jokes -- there were already three before your comment. So I have mixed feelings about its topicality.
- timr 17y ago
  Some of us made LOLcat jokes because the story is old news. Maybe they weren't funny to you -- if so, mea culpa. The danger of demonizing bad jokes is that eventually, nobody will make any jokes at all; they can't all be funny. Then we're just a bunch of annoyingly high-strung geeks being Very Serious about matters which have absolutely no relevance.
  - biohacker42 17y ago
    I've never seen the danger of no jokes come to life. The other danger, that we end up as mostly one liners, is reality for both slashdot and reddit.
    - rbanffy 17y ago
      I think Slashdot's and Reddit's problems run deeper than one-liners. /. has some features I think would be interesting to add to HN (meta-moderation is a very interesting concept), while HN has some interesting things /. would stand a lot to gain if implemented (the idea editors shot down stories rather than post them).
      - krakensden 17y ago
        Whatever Slashdot's problems, they're still the gold standard in moderation systems, and something about that site seems to encourage long form comments- something I often miss here.
- electromagnetic 17y ago
  Firstly it's a very old discovery, just the effects of latent toxoplasmosis are becoming more newsworthy in tabloids and fluff pieces, traditionally the whole encephalitis was what people worried about. Toxoplasmosis' only agreed upon (and still alleged) effect is a decrease in neophilia, which is linked to monoamine oxidase A a product of the so called 'warrior gene' that is far more prevalent in society than toxoplasmosis infections (33% genetic prevalence amongst European whites IIRC and ~60% in Asian/Pacific Islanders). Oh and BTW toxoplasmosis is easily curable, it's regularly cured in humans and in animals that carry it used for food production (Pigs, Sheep and farmed Deers). The reason doctors don't treat it, is because you're safer to have latent toxoplasmosis than none at all, not only can it lead to miscarriages in women, but the chance of encephalitis increases with decreased immune function. So if you get toxoplasmosis when you're healthy, like most people, you'll be fine, but if doctors go around curing it you'll get reinfected and seriously increase your risk for death. Ironically the mild production of Monoamine Oxidase A is known for a decrease in danger-seeking behaviour, but extreme production (witnessed in people with the Warrior Gene) is known for an increase in danger-seeking behaviour. Toxoplasmosis apparently acts like the warrior gene for mice, but will in fact likely prolong the life of a human infected with latent toxoplasmosis.
  - gojomo 17y ago
    Very interesting, but in some ways contradictory to what I've read elsewhere, which includes: (1) the effect on humans might be different for men vs. women (with one becoming more withdrawn, and the other more reckless); and (2) that there's no treatment sure to reach latent cysts, and those that have the best chance have strong negative side effects. In particular, I've never heard that having a latent infection is better than none-at-all, or that a latent infection protects against reinfection any more than having shaken the disease entirely (which with many diseases leaves residual resistance). Do you have any references for this 'safer with latent toxoplasmosis' interpretation?
    - electromagnetic 17y ago
      There's been no scientficially-verifiable studies done on the actual behavioural effects of toxoplasmosis, either on people as a whole or on individual sexes. The behaviours most commonly noted in infected people is decreased jealousy in males and decreased frigidity in females; anything beyond these are largely debated and are essentially wild speculation. The biggest medical concern for infection is in women, no evidence has been shown that pregnancy will reactivate latent toxoplasmosis and allow it to become acute. If a woman is infected with toxoplasmosis it is safer to leave her untreated until she will no longer have children (around 50 years naturally, younger if her tubes are tied). Infection with toxoplasmosis when pregnant is exceptionally dangerous to the child (blindness and brain damage are exceptionally common, brain death can occur shortly after birth in many cases), but also very dangerous to the mother due to a suppressed immune system, which can start with flu-like symptoms and quickly progress to encephalitis. Treatment in males could be performed at any time, however the course of drugs for latent toxoplasmosis are either exceptionally strong, or exceptionally long term and both are far more harmful than the infection. Not to mention that if the infection isn't completely removed it may become acute, potentially causing eye damage and nasal lesions, possibly a loss of smell. The bigger problem if the infection becomes acute is that the hosts immune system has usually been somewhat compromised by the medications. There's also little proof of an immune resistance to toxoplasmosis and a person who has already been infected is highly likely to be reinfected, it is far more common to contract through your diet than your pet cat (prevalence in France is near 90%, but is near 5% in South Korea despite cat ownership averaging in the 20-40% around the world). This not only means you'll have to be retreated for the same exceptionally benign disease, but it increases your chances of acute infection. I'm sure a magical cure all of toxoplasmosis would undoubtedly do good, but it's prevalent everywhere in the environment, and despite animals being treated with medications to prevent toxoplasmosis, food is the number one way to contract it. You would have to treat a few billion humans and animals, including vermin and hope none will become drug resistant. Acute toxoplasmosis shows no signs of drug resistance, however latent toxoplasmosis already shows signs of drug resistant strains despite treatment barely being performed except in rare cases (Rh-negatives allegedly suffer decreased reaction time, which is dangerous for drivers, especially when already tired). I have no references for non-treatment toxoplasmosis treatment being safer, that's just common sense when populations like France are near 90% infected and show lower violence rates than lower infected populations like Britain (22%) despite the infection allegedly increasing violence amongst males. The statistics would appear to be contradictory to some of the assumptions made by doctors. What this really needs is an actual long-term behavioural study, but until then we have wild speculation with zero scientific basis and all appears to be contrary to current observable statistics.
kirubakaran 17y ago
May be you are a cat trying to keep us in the dark. Good try, but the cat is out of the bag.
joshu 17y ago
Loltaxoplasmosis. It is transmitted by lolcat feces.
pavs 17y ago
I think a fair question is what kind of topic would you classify as "HN material", be a bit specific if you can.

Come on. This is not HN material. What's next? Lolcats?

by swombat 17y ago

Come on. This is not HN material. What's next? Lolcats?

coconutrandom 17y ago

sadly, yes.

coconutrandom 17y ago
happily yes?
- coconutrandom 17y ago
  hahahahaah! indifferently, yes?

gojomo 17y ago

I find new discoveries about incurable diseases which change human personalities on the scale of individuals and whole societies very HN-worthy, by the same standard as other science/medical discoveries. Unfortunately, this is (1) old news; and (2) especially prone to obvious, knee-jerk LOLcats jokes -- there were already three before your comment. So I have mixed feelings about its topicality.

timr 17y ago
Some of us made LOLcat jokes because the story is old news. Maybe they weren't funny to you -- if so, mea culpa. The danger of demonizing bad jokes is that eventually, nobody will make any jokes at all; they can't all be funny. Then we're just a bunch of annoyingly high-strung geeks being Very Serious about matters which have absolutely no relevance.
- biohacker42 17y ago
  I've never seen the danger of no jokes come to life. The other danger, that we end up as mostly one liners, is reality for both slashdot and reddit.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    I think Slashdot's and Reddit's problems run deeper than one-liners. /. has some features I think would be interesting to add to HN (meta-moderation is a very interesting concept), while HN has some interesting things /. would stand a lot to gain if implemented (the idea editors shot down stories rather than post them).
    - krakensden 17y ago
      Whatever Slashdot's problems, they're still the gold standard in moderation systems, and something about that site seems to encourage long form comments- something I often miss here.
electromagnetic 17y ago
Firstly it's a very old discovery, just the effects of latent toxoplasmosis are becoming more newsworthy in tabloids and fluff pieces, traditionally the whole encephalitis was what people worried about. Toxoplasmosis' only agreed upon (and still alleged) effect is a decrease in neophilia, which is linked to monoamine oxidase A a product of the so called 'warrior gene' that is far more prevalent in society than toxoplasmosis infections (33% genetic prevalence amongst European whites IIRC and ~60% in Asian/Pacific Islanders). Oh and BTW toxoplasmosis is easily curable, it's regularly cured in humans and in animals that carry it used for food production (Pigs, Sheep and farmed Deers). The reason doctors don't treat it, is because you're safer to have latent toxoplasmosis than none at all, not only can it lead to miscarriages in women, but the chance of encephalitis increases with decreased immune function. So if you get toxoplasmosis when you're healthy, like most people, you'll be fine, but if doctors go around curing it you'll get reinfected and seriously increase your risk for death. Ironically the mild production of Monoamine Oxidase A is known for a decrease in danger-seeking behaviour, but extreme production (witnessed in people with the Warrior Gene) is known for an increase in danger-seeking behaviour. Toxoplasmosis apparently acts like the warrior gene for mice, but will in fact likely prolong the life of a human infected with latent toxoplasmosis.
- gojomo 17y ago
  Very interesting, but in some ways contradictory to what I've read elsewhere, which includes: (1) the effect on humans might be different for men vs. women (with one becoming more withdrawn, and the other more reckless); and (2) that there's no treatment sure to reach latent cysts, and those that have the best chance have strong negative side effects. In particular, I've never heard that having a latent infection is better than none-at-all, or that a latent infection protects against reinfection any more than having shaken the disease entirely (which with many diseases leaves residual resistance). Do you have any references for this 'safer with latent toxoplasmosis' interpretation?
  - electromagnetic 17y ago
    There's been no scientficially-verifiable studies done on the actual behavioural effects of toxoplasmosis, either on people as a whole or on individual sexes. The behaviours most commonly noted in infected people is decreased jealousy in males and decreased frigidity in females; anything beyond these are largely debated and are essentially wild speculation. The biggest medical concern for infection is in women, no evidence has been shown that pregnancy will reactivate latent toxoplasmosis and allow it to become acute. If a woman is infected with toxoplasmosis it is safer to leave her untreated until she will no longer have children (around 50 years naturally, younger if her tubes are tied). Infection with toxoplasmosis when pregnant is exceptionally dangerous to the child (blindness and brain damage are exceptionally common, brain death can occur shortly after birth in many cases), but also very dangerous to the mother due to a suppressed immune system, which can start with flu-like symptoms and quickly progress to encephalitis. Treatment in males could be performed at any time, however the course of drugs for latent toxoplasmosis are either exceptionally strong, or exceptionally long term and both are far more harmful than the infection. Not to mention that if the infection isn't completely removed it may become acute, potentially causing eye damage and nasal lesions, possibly a loss of smell. The bigger problem if the infection becomes acute is that the hosts immune system has usually been somewhat compromised by the medications. There's also little proof of an immune resistance to toxoplasmosis and a person who has already been infected is highly likely to be reinfected, it is far more common to contract through your diet than your pet cat (prevalence in France is near 90%, but is near 5% in South Korea despite cat ownership averaging in the 20-40% around the world). This not only means you'll have to be retreated for the same exceptionally benign disease, but it increases your chances of acute infection. I'm sure a magical cure all of toxoplasmosis would undoubtedly do good, but it's prevalent everywhere in the environment, and despite animals being treated with medications to prevent toxoplasmosis, food is the number one way to contract it. You would have to treat a few billion humans and animals, including vermin and hope none will become drug resistant. Acute toxoplasmosis shows no signs of drug resistance, however latent toxoplasmosis already shows signs of drug resistant strains despite treatment barely being performed except in rare cases (Rh-negatives allegedly suffer decreased reaction time, which is dangerous for drivers, especially when already tired). I have no references for non-treatment toxoplasmosis treatment being safer, that's just common sense when populations like France are near 90% infected and show lower violence rates than lower infected populations like Britain (22%) despite the infection allegedly increasing violence amongst males. The statistics would appear to be contradictory to some of the assumptions made by doctors. What this really needs is an actual long-term behavioural study, but until then we have wild speculation with zero scientific basis and all appears to be contrary to current observable statistics.

kirubakaran 17y ago

May be you are a cat trying to keep us in the dark. Good try, but the cat is out of the bag.

joshu 17y ago

Loltaxoplasmosis. It is transmitted by lolcat feces.

pavs 17y ago

I think a fair question is what kind of topic would you classify as "HN material", be a bit specific if you can.