Orange juice exists due to climate change in the Himalayas millions of years ago | Hacker News Reader

Orange juice exists due to climate change in the Himalayas millions of years ago

theverge.com

76 pointsceeker20 comments

This is a particularly clever form of clickbait. The article describes how citrus, generally migrated from the Himalayas due to climate change. The title says orange juice.

Notice the subtle bait and switch here.

Citrus exists due to climate change in the Himalayas millions of years ago

Oranges exist due to climate change in the Himalayas millions of years ago

Orange juice exists due to climate change in the Himalayas millions of years ago

You want to click on the last one because your curious why they are so specific in the title, even though the article is about the general case and mentions the specific only in passing, almost as an excuse.

User-engagement optimizing "tricks" used by social networks and news sites will stop working eventually, and leave users with a bad taste of your company. Using data mining and A/B testing we are basically enrolling all users in a constant social science experiment so they can help us better hack their own brain. But following it blindly is incredibly short-sighted.

Yes it works, but every time you trick someone it ekes away at their trust and happiness using your platform. But this occurs over many such interactions so it won't show up in your metrics until much later, and then only in general stats so it's nearly impossible to measure the effect with the time scales that we actually record and test. Heck, the users themselves probably won't even notice anything specific but just have a slowly growing distaste for interacting with your platform.

Anecdotally, I've noticed this happening to me and people I know on many news and social sites. (Though, my sensitivity to this is turned up really high.) But this effect can help explain the cyclic nature of social networks, and perhaps Facebook's recent decline in the US.

Do your users come away from your site feeling good about their engagement? Assuming more is better may be hurting you in the long run.

A problem is that reputation is increasingly defunct, at least in my limited experience.

After getting curation & comments from hn, reddit, etc., my mobile browsers reader mode strips the design.

I had to look up the source after reading your comments. Therefore I'm not sure reputation will solve clickbait eventually.

> every time you trick someone it ekes away at their trust and happiness using your platform. But this occurs over many such interactions so it won't show up in your metrics until much later

Is there any way to prove when this is about to happen, or has happened? Otherwise it seems just as likely that users could have less distaste over time because the site has optimized to show them what they like.

If analytics can't measure it, and users dont notice it, how can we know if its real? Does every site that does a lot of a/b testing have this happen, and if not, what are the objective conditions under which it happens?

(disclaimer: I just launched a split testing product offering.)

If you _liked_ that, then you'll love James Burke's Connections TV series [1] and books of the same title [2].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series)#Conten... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Burke_(science_historian...

I never got the impression this was intended to surprise or trick anyone because it's far too obvious. It just feels like a way to make the subject matter vaguely interesting to the average reader.

I was expecting this and started with the comments :)

The article mentions that the himalayas grow by about 1cm per year, and that it has been growing for millions of years. Wikipedia says it is more like 5mm/year.

So I'm assuming a growth rate of 5km/My, while Everest is only about 9km.

I understand what has been limiting height: gravity, rock strength, erosion, sinking into the mantle... But since there is growth now, obviously these processes are not in short term equilibrium. So how does this play out? Are there apocalyptic landslides every million years or so? Or just periods of growth alternated with periods of shrinking?

Punctuated equilibrium[1] — growth followed by sudden collapse — could be the umbrella term for the scenarios you are thinking of.

The phenomenon, originally from biology, shows up in sandpiles and avalanches as well; it could explain the growth (or lack of it) of mountains too.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium

For any particular mountain or mountain ranger there could be a number of processes, some of which may dominate for periods of time.

It could be slow / fast growth followed by slow / fast sinking / decay / collapse / asteroid impact / weathering.

I image there have been a number of sequences that have played out in various locations over time.

Not to answer your question exactly, but you may want to look into the works of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ruddiman

He has hypothesised that the tectonic uplift and weathering of the Himalayas has had profound impact on Earth's climate and atmosphere.

Why are you assuming a linear growth model for it in the first place?

Linear is conservative in this case. One would expect the growth rate to shrink as the mountain grows.

The region never ceases to amaze. I have spent most of my adult life around Yunnan, and I am writing an ancient history of the area. It has significant historic links with India, Tibet, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Iran, Vietnam and China. It's the most biologically, culturally, linguistically, climatically and culinary diverse area of China and possibly the world. If you find yourself with time, cycle touring the area is one of the best things you can do anywhere on the planet.

This is kinda like saying my iphone exists because a fish decided to walk on land millions of years ago

The headline may read that way, but the article doesn't.

Easily the worst thing you can drink on a regular basis. I use to think OJ was healthily and drank it a lot. I stopped completely at some point a year or so back and over about 6 months lost over 20 pounds of weight I could never lose, even though I play hockey 2-3 days a week and workout pretty much every day. I went from 205, my college hockey weight, to 180 now.

There is a reason they use to give you a tiny juice glass for OJ, and I'd bet even that is pretty terrible for you daily.

You read the title, saw it had OJ in it, and rushed to the comments to rant about it?

Edit: And then you doubled down?

> hahahahaha keep knocking down glasses of OJ fatties !

Might want to be a little more professional when you have your professional website in your profile, Rick.

> You read the title, saw it had OJ in it, and rushed to the comments to rant about it?

It seems to be a strange quirk of HN lately. You see this often with facebook posts. "I quit facebook and it cured my cancer". There was a post about tea being good for you and someone chimes with something like, "I quit tea cold turkey and it helped me get a raise!".

Seems a lot of people on HN attribute their successes and failures to arbitrary things and something in a headline clicks and they have to evangelize.

> I use to think OJ was healthily and drank it a lot.

OJ has lots of vitamin C and sugar. If you need vitamin C and sugar this is good. If sugar causes you to store fat, maybe not.

nutrition is a systemic thing, not a prescriptive one..

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