tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post407076713901567623..comments2024-03-28T09:30:58.096-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: The AI saga continuesDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger109125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-66668213053893385882023-05-20T11:55:25.716-07:002023-05-20T11:55:25.716-07:00onward
onwardonward<br /><br />onwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-17412733733388603252023-05-20T10:45:52.275-07:002023-05-20T10:45:52.275-07:00Someone find a really good reference for when and ...Someone find a really good reference for when and where the y chromosome bottleneck was... and how it could have also affected the Americas?<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-56646824472217123252023-05-20T08:21:31.970-07:002023-05-20T08:21:31.970-07:00Alfred Differ: right before recorded history...
Y...Alfred Differ: <i>right before recorded history...</i><br /><br />You sir, are a born psychohistorian.scidatahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07152319593457629592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-7592921147242929762023-05-19T22:42:10.792-07:002023-05-19T22:42:10.792-07:00Yup. The bottleneck was pretty much world wide, bu...Yup. The bottleneck was pretty much world wide, but with some variation. Strongest data is for Eurasia due to the size of the population. [Check out my second link.]<br /><br />Not 15Kya. Closer to 7Kya. I've seen people quoting a range for the event between 8Kya and 4Kya with a peak somewhere in the middle. Basically right before recorded history began the bottleneck essentially peaked and then closed out.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-56836849824148490452023-05-19T22:22:08.881-07:002023-05-19T22:22:08.881-07:0015000ya suggests you're talking about the euro...15000ya suggests you're talking about the euro-african populations.<br />Has any study identified bottlenecks in Australian or American populations of that time?<br />(It might have a bearing on the 'beer and king' theory)Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38580241465582665542023-05-19T22:06:22.522-07:002023-05-19T22:06:22.522-07:00Y-Adam and MT-Eve only go back about a quarter mil...Y-Adam and MT-Eve only go back about a quarter million years last I checked, but with more genomes being collected all the time I'm sure the story will only get more interesting.<br /><br />Also, the two of them are from different sides of Africa and many, many generations apart.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87868040522327505692023-05-19T22:01:24.463-07:002023-05-19T22:01:24.463-07:00The narrative doesn't have elder brothers crus...The narrative doesn't have elder brothers crushing younger ones. Some of that likely DID happen, but no more than is usual when brothers don't get along.<br /><br />The story has elder brothers maturing while their father is still alive and able to help secure their futures. Involved fathers matter in the likelihood their sons will successfully reproduce. Involved fathers matter much less in the reproductive success of their daughters, but DO help with their financial success.<br /><br />The story goes that younger brothers are more likely to be left to their own resources when their fathers die young... which happened a lot back then.<br /><br />My suspicion is second and third sons would have had to gang up, but that still leaves them at the mercy of Lady Luck more than their elder brother.<br /><br />Larry,<br /><br />The bottleneck involves Y chromosome diversity. Population numbers were actually climbing. The food might have sucked in terms of nutrition, but there was quite a bit more of it. More babies survived as a result, but not as long as their ancestors.<br /><br />There are a variety of narratives that rely on conflict. One example can be seen here.<br />https://indo-european.eu/2018/05/post-neolithic-y-chromosome-bottleneck-explained-by-cultural-hitchhiking-and-competition-between-patrilineal-clans/<br /><br />Here is an earlier one that is less inclined to argue for a specific explanation. They say it must have been due to 'cultural changes' which is pretty broad.<br />https://www.centogene.com/resources/scientific-publications/a-recent-bottleneck-of-y-chromosome-diversity<br /><br />Look in the middle of the second paper and you'll see a chart that shows the problem. The way it is drawn makes it look like the Y-chromosome explosively diversified about 6-7K years ago. There is no justification for that, though. A narrative that works better is that earlier Y diversity simply didn't survive the era. Whole lines vanished from the human population leaving the illusion that diversity exploded a few thousand years ago... after whatever was causing the collapse stopped doing it.<br /><br />Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-39382152376409012232023-05-19T21:38:04.846-07:002023-05-19T21:38:04.846-07:00Tony the Y-Adam and mito-eve are totally different...Tony the Y-Adam and mito-eve are totally different going way, way back a million or so years.<br /><br />The Y bottleneck shows that just around 15000 y.a. - roughly at the time agriculture kicked in hard - Only a fraction of males passed on genes. My theory is a combination of kings and beer. Unlike chiefs who must fret that he's pushed the lower males too hard, a king with his 'army' of 20 soldiers could order anyone he disliked killed... and early on beer likely made for unpleasant behavior, till resistance built up.<br /><br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2582920456714250682023-05-19T19:32:23.843-07:002023-05-19T19:32:23.843-07:00The 'bottleneck' is a misnomer that arises...The 'bottleneck' is a misnomer that arises from strictly adhering to male or female lineages. The further back someone traces their ancestry, (either by father or mother) the greater the number of people who are descended from that same ancestor. Go far enough back, and everyone living is descended from that one person. This is how the concept of mitochondrial Eve and Y-gene Adam arose.<br />It does not mean there was only one breeding man or woman at a particular time. <br />Indeed, if one were to mix lineages you'd likely find other ancestors from that time.<br />It's just that everyone living has 'Adam' and 'Eve' as one their thousands of forebears.Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-7085180291732563802023-05-19T19:11:09.404-07:002023-05-19T19:11:09.404-07:00matthew:
Given that the odds of mothers dying in ...matthew:<br /><i><br />Given that the odds of mothers dying in childbirth were so high, I would expect to see later sons have entirely different Y chromosomes. Same grandmother, but different mother.<br /></i><br /><br />Y-chromosomes only come from the father, right? The mother's DNA doesn't enter into it.<br /><br />I'm still unclear on what the "Y-chromosome bottleneck" was bottlenecking. If younger brothers never reproduce but the older brother does, doesn't that pass along the same Y chromosome that the younger brothers would have?<br /><br />When you first started talking about the bottleneck, I thought the issue was something like the king spreads his genetics far and wide via his harem while other men are too poverty-stricken to have surviving children. I could see that as being a method for limiting the variations on Y-chromosomes remaining viable. But I don't see how a brother having advantages over his other brothers causes a bottleneck.<br /><br />Or am I totally misunderstanding the term?Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15024184104441771612023-05-19T19:10:23.787-07:002023-05-19T19:10:23.787-07:00I doubt the Y chromosome bottleneck was older brot...I doubt the Y chromosome bottleneck was older brothers crushing younger ones. Rather, it was all the brothers ganging up to steal women from other crushed males.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87690577437334278142023-05-19T17:10:05.688-07:002023-05-19T17:10:05.688-07:00Not sure about elsewhere, but in a lot of Dark Age...Not sure about elsewhere, but in a lot of Dark Age Europe (tm) there was no primogeniture. One of the problems of the early Frankish holdings was the periodic division of the kingdom between the surviving sons (not sure how this correlates further down the social chain.) One can easily see how instituting primogeniture in law can cut down on civil war and ever regicide, though, and how social evolution would reinforce primogeniture.<br /><br />Of course, the bottleneck you're referring to mostly predates historic record. I checked an online abstract and (if I'm reading this right -IIRTR) it looks like Africa had the least affected population. Que paso?<br /><br />PappenheimerUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08628667566485965800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52284956204971245032023-05-19T14:25:45.034-07:002023-05-19T14:25:45.034-07:00I don't doubt that at all. I suspect that fact...I don't doubt that at all. I suspect that fact is older than agriculture, though, and probably responsible for us mostly being serial monogamists.<br /><br />The only thing the bottleneck data can describe, though, is a collapse of Y chromosome diversity. Which woman had the child would show up on the mtDNA where no bottleneck is evident. Everything else is an explanatory construct open to scientific debate.<br /><br />What I want to see is the kind of stuff Sapolsky described in detail folded into models that try to predict how humans would have coped during the bottleneck era. It is far too tempting to apply how we would currently react to such an event, so I'd love to see the research ponder what might happen with slight variations in brain chemistry. They just might trip into a narrative that shows feudalism was an adaptive strategy. With that we'd be well down the road to describing the attractor chemically.<br /><br />Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-42032236812526129792023-05-19T14:12:16.189-07:002023-05-19T14:12:16.189-07:00Given that the odds of mothers dying in childbirth...Given that the odds of mothers dying in childbirth were so high, I would expect to see later sons have entirely different Y chromosomes. Same grandmother, but different mother. matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-90194555953351128552023-05-19T11:11:46.627-07:002023-05-19T11:11:46.627-07:00Larry,
I'm pretty sure you'd be proven ri...Larry,<br /><br />I'm pretty sure you'd be proven right if we had the historical data. I don't know exactly how they sifted it out, but the suspicion is that the ratio for first borns changed a bit. That makes some sense because latter born sons were at a distinct disadvantage in securing a family of their own when their parents (especially father) died before they matured.<br /><br />The explanatory narrative that competes with "men killing men in wars" is "shorter parental lifespans (poor food supply) undermined later born sons economic security". Since males with no finances rely more heavily on cheating secure males, they were also at a higher risk of being killed.<br /><br />------<br /><br />The bias toward Y chromosomes in first borns is very small. Instead of a mix of 100/100 boys to girls it is something like 105/100 early and then drops to 98/100 late.<br /><br />There is probably an argument to be made in favor of changes that led to girls becoming fertile earlier too. Poor food nutrition over 100 generations might just do that.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-65102874895007878152023-05-19T10:22:45.763-07:002023-05-19T10:22:45.763-07:00Apparently folk heroes who lose dramatically can b...Apparently folk heroes who lose dramatically can be forgiven much. Looking at you, Bonnie Prince Charlie.<br /><br />PappenheimerUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08628667566485965800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-60048244063029562682023-05-19T10:20:42.097-07:002023-05-19T10:20:42.097-07:00Dr Brin,
"Every time Lee tried that, he was ...Dr Brin,<br /><br />"Every time Lee tried that, he was humiliated"<br /><br />Lee attacked incessantly while outnumbered during the 7 days battles in 1862 and was widely celebrated for having driven the Army of the Potomac out of Virginia. He succeeded in his objective, though Pyrrhically.<br /><br />One look at the results of Malvern Hill should have taught Lee not to frontally attack US artillery, supported by infantry, well emplaced on high ground. The fact that he ever did so again should diminish whatever luster remains of his rep (still quite shiny among the descendants of the men he sent to die in vain). <br /><br />Pappenheimer<br />Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08628667566485965800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-44292796397068864192023-05-19T08:06:03.510-07:002023-05-19T08:06:03.510-07:00Alfred Differ:
a bit of evolution happened ... th...Alfred Differ:<br /><i><br />a bit of evolution happened ... that led to women being slightly more likely to have sons instead of daughters for their first born. The odds flip the other way for later births.<br /></i><br /><br />Pure speculation here, but I wonder if the distinction is that women are more likely to have sons <b>as first born</b> or more likely to have sons <b>when the woman herself is younger</b>.<br /><br />I mention this because my bother, my first cousin, and I all had daughters as first children, and we all reproduced later in life than is typical for first timers.<br />Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-48246518179423332402023-05-19T07:00:18.864-07:002023-05-19T07:00:18.864-07:00Larry,
The bottleneck event is about the male/fem...Larry,<br /><br />The bottleneck event is about the male/female ratio for the number of humans born who never manage to reproduce. That ratio is typically around 3, but near the peak of the bottleneck (8K to 4K years before present) is was closer to 17.<br /><br />Sure... it was the same chromosome for brothers, but there is evidence that a typical first brother was quite a bit more likely to reproduce than the second and third. This was bad enough that a bit of evolution happened (one of the most recent changes we can pin directly to selection) that led to women being slightly more likely to have sons instead of daughters for their first born. The odds flip the other way for later births.<br /><br />This is a very active research area, so thoughts are changing quickly as evidence shows up and crushes some of them. Many believe wars are enough to explain the ratio, but I don't think they explain the selection favoring first sons. Anyway, chances are good we will all live long enough to see more ideas emerge and then get plugged with arrows.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-40518291912975948222023-05-19T05:48:44.639-07:002023-05-19T05:48:44.639-07:00Alfred Differ:
I think the Y-chromosome bottlenec...Alfred Differ:<br /><i><br />I think the Y-chromosome bottleneck speaks loudly about how much it sucked to be the second or third son born relative to the first. <br /></i><br /><br />I figure I'm missing something obvious, but wouldn't second and third sons have the same Y chromosomes as the first son? So long term, what would it matter which of them did more reproducing than the others?Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-64195839569033558222023-05-18T22:21:00.679-07:002023-05-18T22:21:00.679-07:00Keith,
My son was diagnosed ASD when he was about...Keith,<br /><br />My son was diagnosed ASD when he was about to enter kindergarten. I'm probably supposed to use the broader term 'neuro-divergent' nowadays because of all the missteps taken by neuro-typicals, but I tend to shrug all that off and point out that learning how to adjust our world for them is worthy of my attention.<br /><br />I've also learned to respect self-diagnoses, but those who place themselves on the mild end of things also get a shrug from me because I suspect there is no sharp line between NT's and ND's. I tend to say "Welcome to adulthood. Now get busy adapting like all the rest of us do." but I do it with a grin and a helping hand if I can be useful.<br /><br />———<br /><br />I don't get all that upset at groups who eliminate all competitors… until they try to arrange the rules of the game so no new competitors can enter. My own employer was taken down by a new generation of sub-prime lenders after market forces almost caused an extinction event, but I can't really complain about having to find a new job and keep believing what I believe about markets.<br /><br />Eliminating all your competitors is actually kinda dumb. Suppose you do that. Now what? If your corporate culture is that competitive, they WILL think of something to do next… and it's unlikely to be healthy for your corporation even if the investors like it.<br /><br />I'm not a fan of utilities with closed markets. When they have a legal lock on their customers, all sorts of shenanigans ensue. I don't care what the service is, I'd rather intervene and break up utilities splitting them in such a way that infrastructure owners wind up with shared rights. Messy, messy… and we are far better off fostering niche players who offer competitive substitutions.<br /><br />———<br /><br /><i>IMHO, there should be substantial research in behavioral economics, cognitive science, neuro-science, social psychology, sociology, etc to attempt to answer questions like these…</i><br /><br />Heh. No. That's actually not a good assumption once you start hanging out in a community with many smart people who love to engage in competitive debate. Sometimes they ARE at the cutting edge of knowledge. They might not even know it.<br /><br />Look through the lit for Fermi Paradox explanations and you'll find our host along with his formal science writing. Take a good look at the other writers in that niche. Form a social connect tree relating who cites who and another for how deep they go on the topic. It won't take long because most words written about it are not peer-reviewed content. Most articles cover the same ground and stay shallow. The deep ones you can count with your fingers from one hand. The ONLY place I've seen the Feudal Attractor discussed in any detail is here relative to the Fermi Paradox. <br /><br />I'm not convinced male reproductive strategy alone is enough. I think our sucky options for food and sanitation after the ice melted have something to do with how we wound up in the attractor. I think the Y-chromosome bottleneck speaks loudly about how much it sucked to be the second or third son born relative to the first. Still… I love the creative process that emerges from constructive debate. As long as we have lots of ideas jostling to provide explanations, we won't suffer from intellectual inbreeding. I'll happily take up an opposing view so others get a chance to plug it full of bullets. 8)<br /><br />So, don't assume you aren't at the cutting edge of what's known. Sometimes it happens. Dance along the cliff's edge with us. 8)Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87488714696032308762023-05-18T22:01:07.100-07:002023-05-18T22:01:07.100-07:00Gettysburg the movie is a wonderful thing ... whil...Gettysburg the movie is a wonderful thing ... while its prequel stunk to high heaven. And yet, watching it again and some released out-takes, I have come to realize how desperately Ted Turner wanted to assert "Lee ALMOST won! It's the fault of others. Blame it on the 'ground' favoring the Union! It was SO close!"<br /><br />Naw. Lee was screwed the day Meade got the Army of the Potomac moving north in good order. There were zero paths to victory for him in the open - not forested - expanses of Pennsylvania. It was the Union's turn to say "let's see how good you are at maneuvering a lumbering army in an offensive!"<br /><br />Every time Lee tried that, he was humiliated/.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-49696828120766037552023-05-18T19:46:32.016-07:002023-05-18T19:46:32.016-07:00David,
I’d add competitive-cooperative politics a...David,<br /><br /><i>I’d add competitive-cooperative politics aimed at optimizing the playing fields...</i><br /><br />I'd argue that is an effect from earlier causes, but not one so rigidly required that it doesn't count as extra seasoning for the recipe. 8)<br /><br />As for the Gettysburg line, I see that as part of the Dignity ingredient. Another big part of it is tolerating failure as long as the person doing it demonstrates an ability to learn from it... and then tries again to succeed at something. Failing must be tolerated to some degree.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-47302039343889929412023-05-18T19:29:38.213-07:002023-05-18T19:29:38.213-07:00DP in previous comments:
In 1894 the London Times...DP in previous comments:<br /><i><br />In 1894 the London Times predicted that “In 50 years, every street in London will be buried under nine feet of manure.”<br /></i><br /><br />Could that be used to alleviate the phosphorous shortage?Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-40934167601162309982023-05-18T19:23:26.606-07:002023-05-18T19:23:26.606-07:00scidata:
In ROCKY HORROR, he played Dr. Frank-N-F...scidata:<br /><i><br />In ROCKY HORROR, he played Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a role that nearly ruined my reading of Jules Verne's "Le Chateâu des Carpathes".<br /></i><br /><br />"Il n'y a pas de telephones dans les chateaux!"<br /><br />(I never learned the French word for a**h**e)<br />Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.com