#red queen hypothesis

[jihnari]

to that one bookmark on my fic that just says "i think they should fight"; you’re a bro

[secretlifeofarabia]

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.“ Lewis Carroll

[daliwu]

Illustration for Nature Microbiology, on the HIV and PSGL-1, and the war as Red Queen hypothesis between them.

The Red Queen hypothesis is an evolutionary hypothesis which proposes that organisms must constantly adapt, evolve, and proliferate in order to survive while pitted against ever-evolving opposing organisms in a constantly changing environment, as well as to gain reproductive advantage. The HIV actively modulates the protein stability of host cells to optimize viral replication. This artwork presents P-selectingly-coprotein ligand 1 (PSGL-1) as an HIV-1 restriction factor downregulated by HIV-1 Vpu, which binds to PSGL-1 and induces its ubiquitination and degradation through the ubiquitin ligase SCFβ-TrCP2. PSGL-1is induced by interferon-γ in activated CD4+ T cells to inhibit HIV-1 reverse transcription and potently block viral infectivity by incorporating in progeny virions. PSGL-1 knockdown can significantly abolish the anti-HIV activity of interferon-γ in primary CD4+ T cells, and this process may compare to the Red Queen hypothesis — Like ying and yang mutually exchange, this switching itself is life’s beauty.

[the-ephemeral-ethereal]

Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!

from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll 

[jihnari]

am i the only one 

[a-golden-bear]

What is the Red Queen Hypothesis in Worldbuilding?

[nord-thoughts]

"In my kingdom, you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in the same place"

-The Red Queen

[welcometomy20s]

July 20, 2016

This thought is also a long waited follow-up to that YouTube thing. 

Red queen hypothesis is a dispiriting idea in evolution. It stems from Red Queen’s remarks in Alice’s Through the Looking-Glass, which goes “You have run as fast as you can, just to stay still.” The hypothesis states that you have to try the hardest you can in predator-prey relationships or the other side will get the better of you and you will be dead.

The sad thing is that any new arsenal in disposal have only a matter of moments before the other side has the technology, too. Therefore, you always have to innovate to fight the scourge of the beast.

“+” commenting structure would fix the structural problem of YouTube comments, but again, it’s a very easy for abuse and nasty comment would pop back up again, except those would be in nefarious intention, rather than... you know, trolling, in the ‘original’ fishing type of meaning, where you throw a lure and sweep to see if anyone bites.

I’m going to talk about comments for a second.

Comments, as originally presented, is an outdated system. It was created when there were no channel for discussion and recommendation that was fast enough to keep up with the internet, so the original bloggers and web designers created a textbox so that people coming could leave a comment and discuss stuff.

As the comments go, there are two different types. One functions like a forum, it’s there to discuss the subject above, OP is treated a seed for a flowering garden, whatever stink it might produces... to prevent that , it’s necessary to have gardeners. But the gardeners will eventually put the prizes to a market, where there is more varieties. These type of comments are best exemplified in Reddit and Metafilter, among other blog-like places.

The other type is a review-like comments, most exemplary would be those of Amazon or Goodreads. They are typically seen as comments, but indeed they fit the definition and they are presented with no regards for discussion, even though there are some. They are directly responding the topic, but never addresses it, because most of the time the OP is for a content that is not directly available on the site. The comments give the guideposts and help the author give pointers on the subject.

We all know that YouTube has the worst commenting system... but why? My hypothesis is that YouTube started off in the wrong foot. Where does YouTube comments serve? Is it a grounds for discussion on a video? Or a place in which the review said above? To me, it’s more clear that the second purpose was the intention. There’s no need to discussion in a video-sharing site... most people used the site to upload content, which could be embedded in other websites. No, like the other features present in video page, rating, recommended videos, comments were designed for reviews... except it makes no sense. Why would you read the comments when the video is playing right away? People could easily form their opinion and write their own two cents, but no one would read before embarking on a video. Ratings give a clearer and faster indication of the purported quality of a video.

But as YouTube slowly form itself as a social platform, more YouTubers started to use the comment as a grounds for discussion. For the last ten years, YouTube have shifting from review-based comments to discussion-based comments.

Of course, the two types are different beast and in the end we call attention to the specter that hangs in any discussion of forums or comments in general... Free Speech.

Refer to earlier description of discussion-based comments, where I described the forum as akin to a garden, and garden necessarily needs a gardener. The radical free speech activist then could be represented as an environmentalist, where they trash gardens so that all form of life could breathe... but that’s patently wrongheaded.

We need garden to feed ourselves and develop our understanding of the world. There’s somewhat of a nostalgia for these ‘environmentalist’ of the hunter-gather days. (There’s a reason the website is called We Hunted the Mammoth.) They conceive of the noble savage, where nature is the only decider of who lives and who dies.

To quote a nascent video game, the ‘environmentalist’ pontificate a ‘Kill or Be Killed’ outlook on the universe. To pontificate further, this pungent idea could be exacerbated by neoliberalism and the capitalist utopian ideal that we have been presented somewhat for the last four centuries. It’s a product of scientism, an unnecessary reduction of human beings into simple mathematical equations.

In this harsh reality, we comfort ourselves to the cliche story of love triumphing over hate. But remember that love conquers all plot is a cliche because it’s the story of human society. It’s where tangled evolutionary process created a breakthrough in empathy and cooperation. This is not something that happened in humans alone. Great Historic Rendezvous, evolution of single-cell organism into multi-cellular ones and even the invention of sex could be included in ways evolution favors cooperation.