Also loved the computer program analogy.
What does that even mean? Do you want to say that the probability is high?
Should we not believe the research above to contain 1/3 insects tested carried pathogenic parasites? Does this not strike you as extreme. Potentially an order or orders of magnitude more dangerous?
If more people are eating insects than before that might increase risks.
I don't really have any opinion on this, nor any horse in the race.
But, what does any of this have to do with exponentials?
> [...] the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential [...]
Exponential in what input variable?
``` probability(catastrophic outcomes) == e ```
/s
The lethality of of that type of outbreak become stronger the longer the we ignore that threat.
It’s just pure Maths to be honest.
Could you explain to me what is exponential about this process?
'Shaburn' made some claims that sounded like they want to be math, but didn't make any sense as math. Hence my confusion.
I recognise that people use terms colloquially, like 'exponential', but given all the (pseudo?) sophisticated, math-y language in the comment
> Given the rate of mutation and transmission in bugs with natural gestation and migration, the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential without a similar dataset in other human food sources.
I had hoped that Shaburn actually had a more concrete model in mind that they could explain.
Average lifespan of... A. Bacteria: 12 hours B. Insect: 12 months C. Mammal: 12 years (shortest being the primary disease harbinger, the rat).
I could find this study from 2015 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4552653/ which says:
> At least 2 billion people globally eat insects in over 113 entomophageous countries though this habit is regarded negatively or as revolting by others [4–6]. More than 1900 species are consumed by local populations globally but insect consumption (entomophagy) shows an unequal distribution.
There's roughly 8 billion people on the globe. Between 2 billion to 8 billion, there's not much room left for exponential growth.
It’s similar to how unconscious is now commonly used to mean subconscious (i.e. not unconscious) and literally is commonly used to mean not literally.
It troubles me that our specific words are getting watered down by pop usage, like sharp tools being blunted. This is different than my usual prescriptivist screeching.
> Given the rate of mutation and transmission in bugs with natural gestation and migration, the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential without a similar dataset in other human food sources.
This is not a new phenomenon; I think we've been able to cope in the past by either clarifying precision by context or adopting new words with the precision we need until they get watered down as well.
> literally is commonly used to mean not literally
I realize at least one dictionary disagrees with me, but I think that's a mistaken analysis of the phenomena. Literally is quite frequently used as an intensifier even when the utterance is meant figuratively, but if it were left out the utterance would not be intended or interpreted as more literal.
I think what is happening is that "literally" is being used as hyperbole, much like any other bit of English can be. It doesn't mean "not literally" in the same way that when someone says "you left me waiting for days" we don't say "days sometimes means minutes" and fret about how anyone will ever measure time again; we rather say that people sometimes exaggerate. None of this, of course, should prevent you from objecting to this use of "literally" on stylistic grounds, or from objecting to individual confusing utterances of any sort.
Freud and Jung used the term unconscious (das Unbewusste) - it is probably not a recent trend.
Basically, just because the words are constructed the same, doesn't mean you can translate one direct part-by-part into the other.
For a similar example of the principle that logical structure doesn't translate naively one-for-one:
"Du darfst schlafen." <-> "You may sleep."
"Du musst schlafen." <-> "You must sleep."
"Du darfst nicht schlafen." <-> "You must not sleep."
"Du musst nicht schlafen." <-> "You may not sleep." [Though this last one is ambiguous in English.]
At 1 we are all dead as well right?
In practice: in order for exponential growth (or any growth) to happen, things must have been smaller in the past.
Do you want to argue that the risks were so much in the past?
Eating insects is probably about as dangerous as it was ten years ago or twenty years ago. Not all that much has changed, or has it?
If more people are eating insects than before that might increase risks. Are you suggesting that the growth in number of people who are eating insects has been or will be exponential?
Or are you suggesting that risks are growing (exponentially!) from other factors?
Mass production and consumption of insects is a recipe for disaster based on this research. The increased rate of mutation between insects and mammals is key driver for concern. Fruit flies are studied for genetic research due to observable rate of change and mutation is one of the key ingredients in catastrophic diseases.
At this point I have to wonder, do you have any vested interest in the insect as food industry? I see you have accumulated many points over a decade and YC is running a few horses in this race.
And we are discussing public health and possible pandemic initiators predicated on nascent scientific research here, no? Dismissal through obfuscation and fallacious intellectual undermining leveraging local social clout?
This very conversation stands as of evidence of exponential adoption of disease transmission from bug consumption due to online media growth on the subject.
I don't really see how this conversation is proving anything of the sort. (If it did, could we please talk about eating a healthy balanced diet, too? I'd like to see an exponential increase in adoption of that, just from talking about it.)
Now, how do natural habitats compare? And in those do these parasites affect the reproductive success?
Cook meat, make sure fruits and vegetables are not blighted, ferment dairy, various preservation methods from pickling to canning to smoking.
The list of methods is enormous.
We haven't been eating insects except in times of famine. We have not yet developed methods of dealing with it.
The ants and the scorpio are quite tasty IMO.
On the other hand, I know of places where their casual vegetables are dangerous because their hold traces of animals feces with pathogens but you couldn't tell when buying them.
And finally, I remember eating the best eggs ever from my mother old neighbourg for years. One day friends from the city come, and eating them, get sick. So there is a strong habit component.
The study on insects is interesting but more informations is needed to draw conclusions.
The startup Ynsect at the moment is targeting Fish Farming not human.
What would be the impact over many generations of that type of food ?
I’m scared of the “SuperBug” type of disease that would be resistant to antibiotics because it’s been dormant in us for too long...
If we want to know if insect consumption can be adopted, just looking at industrialized insect farms production given to city folks is going to give us a partial understanding of what's possible.
We need to know things like:
- are those parasites massively more presents in farms than in nature (it's the case for fishes) ?
- what's the probability of the parasites to infects the average consummer ? (We eat parasites all the time)
- if this probaility is high, can a population adapt over time so that this probability goes down ?
Etc
I'm in South Africa. I've never heard of the ants thing, but it is most definitely NOT NORMAL over here to eat those things; rich people may do it as a delicacy, like they would eat caviar, but it never was normal to eat insects over here.
"Indigenous Knowledge about Consumption of Edible Insects in South Africa"
>Edible insects are a nutritious diet and play an important role in people's livelihoods in rural areas.
Just how many rich people are out there in SA's rural areas?
> This might be the main reason why the consumption of insects is largely practiced in rural areas where high levels of unemployment and people with no formal education are found. In addition, people who are unemployed consume edible insects more because they have to do so to meet nutritional requirement needs.
Well, that actually explains why I have not seen or even heard of people eating insects in the 40-odd years that I've lived here: I'm not usually talking to unemployed people in rural areas who face famine without insects.
Unemployed rural people are still in the minority, and that still makes it 'not-normal'. The poor people and unemployed people I see in non-rural South Africa still don't eat insects.
Google for 'Hormigas culonas'.
The only reason it's not more common, is the price, they are quite expensive.
I lived and worked in Zambia for a while, and there — and possibly in many other countries in Africa — it was common to eat ants, grasshoppers, and caterpillars when they were in season. I never had the chance to taste the caterpillars — and it would probably have been a challenge for me — but the fried grasshoppers and ants were delicious.
The article at https://askentomologists.com/2015/02/09/why-dont-we-eat-bugs... suggests that eating insects is a “tropical” thing.
In my country for instance, people eat termites, crickets, caterpillars/larvae of rynchophorus, Augosoma centurus among others.
They are a considerable source of nutriments such as proteins and lipids.
It's not out of constrain that people have them in their diet, but it's part of their culinary culture.
Of course, as people get wealthier, new habits form, they are able to afford previously unattainable food, and surely they're will a shift in the diet, but eating insects will not be eliminated.
Literally a "What do you mean 'we' Tonto?" statement.
Here in one of the oldest continuously settled by the original arrivals outside of Africa parts of the world (Australia), foods such as the Witchetty grub and the Honey ant are nutrituous high food value, much sought after delicacies and not some kind of "only in a famine" fallback.