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Comment by cousin_it | Hacker News Reader

I read a nice explanation on LW. Imagine you need goods X and Y to live well. And imagine that in the ancestral environment, X usually came with Y. So evolution could get away with giving you the drive for X, but no drive for Y (though lack of Y would still make you suffer).

Now switch to modernity, where goods can be obtained more independently. For example, you can get tasty food (X) without some necessary nutrient (Y). So you end up suffering for lack of Y, but your drive is only for X. Moreover, as the market tries to provide X cheaply, it has an incentive to drop Y. I don't know how many such Y's we're missing now, but probably a lot.

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There's other variations too. Say you need some X and a lot of Y. But X is rare and Y is plentiful. Evolution leads you to an insatiable drive for X but not for Y. Then, suddenly mankind figures out how to cheaply produce X, e.g. salt and sugar.

Another- suppose food supplies are variable and insecure. The optimal amount of muscle & bone is exactly what you need and no more, and the optimal behavior is to be as active as required and no more. Viola, you get humans, one of few species whose bodies require ongoing training to stay fit & healthy, while paradoxically being quite lazy.

Agriculture. We got calories (X) from grain without whatever Y was in other plants and animals. Perhaps that's why the keto diet and others like it are helping so many people with a variety of problems. Regardless of what we eat today, there is little physical effort (another Y) required to obtain it, just a credit card.

Huh, that's interesting. The first example that popped into my mind was hunting. I'd imagine there's a lot to the experience; from tracking & pursuing, to the kill & paying respect to the life spent to sustain oneself, that one misses out on from picking out meat from the grocery store.

Forgive me, what’s LW?

lesswrong, if I had to guess

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