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Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by pachico on Friday October 30, 2020 @01:55PM (#24944995)
Sometimes I wonder how things would be if we had more than one hominid species in the world and I get trapped in fascinating hypothesis of all sorts.

Then I remember how we treat animals in general and it makes me think we'd be destined to have a dominating species making all others miserable and I stop thinking those hypothesis are so fascinating.

Just thinking out loud.

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by lordnacho on Friday October 30, 2020 @02:11PM (#24945189)
Just because science says Denisovans are a subspecies of humans doesn't mean human societies would see it like that.

Women have only been allowed to vote for about 100 years. It's not that long ago that you could go to an advanced country where people could be bought and sold.

We are good at defining the boundary socially, rather than scientifically. Who knows, perhaps we'll also decide that eating animals is wrong sometime. Certainly, there's some hope in that violence has lessened over recent decades.

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by voldacar on Friday October 30, 2020 @02:41PM (#24945494)
> It's not that long ago that you could go to an advanced country where people could be bought and sold.

I believe this can be done in Libya today

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by riffraff on Friday October 30, 2020 @03:32PM (#24945983)
That is also true in most of Europe, but not legally, and lybia is not generally considered an advanced country.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by voldacar on Friday October 30, 2020 @04:13PM (#24946419)
>lybia is not generally considered an advanced country

true. Second world, maybe? And where in Europe would one go to buy a human?

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by BurningFrog on Friday October 30, 2020 @04:20PM (#24946488)
The Second World was the Soviet block.

But I understand what you mean.

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by riffraff on Sunday November 01, 2020 @05:22AM (#24958494)
third world, the second one was the soviet block (it was an alignment thing, not a poverty thing).

Human trafficking is the 3rd largest crime industry in the world, and to find slaves you just need to go wherever there are prostitutes in your area.

Yes, even when prostitution is legal, for example Germany is one of the main destinations in Europe.

EDIT: Some useful FAQ from the EU website on the matter are here https://ec.europa.eu/anti-trafficking/citizens-corner/traffi...

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by lowdose on Sunday November 01, 2020 @07:16AM (#24958942)
> third world, the second one was the soviet block (it was an alignment thing, not a poverty thing).

> Yeltsin, then 58, "roamed the aisles of Randall's nodding his head in amazement," wrote Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution."[0]

The difference between the first and second world was a objective distinction in prosperity experienced by inhabitants in the different systems.[0] The first world capital allocation was several orders of magnitude more efficient than the Soviet block.

[0] https://www.nhregister.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article...

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by riffraff on Monday November 02, 2020 @01:53AM (#24965351)
Sure, I leave in a former communist country, this isn't news to me.

But the expression "third world" arose to mean "neither NATO nor Warsaw pact" and only later started to mean "poor" because most of the countries in this group were. See wikipedia's references[0]. There were poorer countries in the communist block, and richer non-aligned ones.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World#Etymology

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by hutzlibu on Friday October 30, 2020 @07:37PM (#24947873)
Well, the status of quite some illegal immigrants, who owe the smugglers a lot, who need to work and who therefore cannot refuse a work and who cannot go to the police - is probably quite close to that of original slaves.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by infradig on Friday October 30, 2020 @06:15PM (#24947378)
Still can via adoption and surrogacy.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by lowestprimate on Friday October 30, 2020 @03:13PM (#24945772)
Some women voted 100 years ago. Not all women. As an example US born Japanese Americans got to vote in 1952
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by wolco2 on Friday October 30, 2020 @04:09PM (#24946386)
Just Japanese women or all Japanese?
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by edgyquant on Friday October 30, 2020 @10:15PM (#24948637)
They aren’t talking about Japanese women but Japanese Americans in general. There point is just because women got to vote doesn’t mean they were allowed to. Furthermore a big reason women got to vote, initially, is that married men thought they were getting an extra vote out of the deal (luckily women are individuals and that wasn’t the case.)
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by ChrisMarshallNY on Friday October 30, 2020 @02:40PM (#24945480)
> perhaps we'll also decide that eating animals is wrong sometime.

At some point, there's the very real possibility that vat-grown meat may become a main staple.

It sounds a bit icky, but think about it: We could have flavors and textures of meat that were never available in nature (and maybe also some horrific mistakes). It's entirely possible that we could have "top-shelf vat" brands that sell for more than farm-raised.

Of course, the biomass to create the foodstuff needs to come from somewhere...Soylent Green?

I wonder how this would affect some vegetarians.

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by pachico on Friday October 30, 2020 @02:48PM (#24945565)
Well, they still start from real animal cells, from what I understand. As a vegan, I'd have that dilemma. If I was an utilitarian, I'd probably justify it more clearly.

In the meanwhile, I'm quite happy with vegetable based "meat". It was definitely harder to be vegan 10 years ago (social interaction somehow demands a certain diet), and especially here in Spain. Now it's really easy and confinement makes it easier too.

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by uhtred on Friday October 30, 2020 @03:39PM (#24946083)
As far as I am aware they don't need to harm the origin animal when they take the cell, and they only need to do it once at the start and can then reproduce the cells from the lab grown meat. But I could be very wrong. I am perfectly happy with plant based "meat" myself, too. By the way, I had a really hard time finding vegan food in Spain (outside of Barcelona) when I visited. Out of desperation I tried to get a veggie burger in McDonald's (I know not vegan, I was desperate) and they didn't have one! Barcelona however was awesome for vegan food.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by pachico on Friday October 30, 2020 @03:50PM (#24946204)
I understand your pain finding vegan food outside from Barcelona (where I live, btw). Even in Madrid is not that easy, despite being the capital and biggest city. I'm sure not harming is better than harming, I agree. Nevertheless, they are used as tools. I know this might sound like a tree hugger, hippy argument but, would anyone like to be in that situation against their will when it's really not necessary? That's my moral dilemma :)
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by raattgift on Saturday October 31, 2020 @06:42AM (#24950351)
Related to this interesting thread, especially your point about utilitarian thinking:

"one of the most important cell lines in medical research"

"Lacks was the unwitting source of these cells"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by uhtred on Friday October 30, 2020 @04:28PM (#24946567)
Not at all, I completely agree. I personally wont be eating lab meat, partly for that reason and partly because I don't feel like I need to. At this point real meat, even if lab grown, would probably seem to disgusting to me.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by pachico on Friday October 30, 2020 @06:08PM (#24947333)
That's a question I do to myself. Can I detach a flavour from what it used to mean? When I think about it rationally I come to the conclusion that I should be able to enjoy a flavour, any flavour, if it carries no harm. But we both know there's also an emotional component, which I might share too. It's an interesting topic I don't think I have yet reached a conclusion about.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by dahfizz on Friday October 30, 2020 @03:12PM (#24945764)
What's the vegan reason to not eat lab grown meat? No animal was harmed or even involved in the production of the meat. It's morally equivalent to greenhouse grown plants IMO.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by kitotik on Friday October 30, 2020 @03:37PM (#24946059)
Not the op, but not all vegans have animal cruelty as their primary concern. Many do it for health reasons and avoid ingesting animal proteins in general, regardless of how they were produced.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by pachico on Friday October 30, 2020 @03:53PM (#24946236)
Take in consideration that being vegan is considered something that goes beyond diet. It takes you to decide on pretty much anything you buy or consume (it took me some time, for instance, finding a strap for my 6 strings bass guitar that wasn't made out of leather). (Btw, do you call it strap or did I just make that out?)
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by MaximumYComb on Friday October 30, 2020 @06:25PM (#24947453)
I'd argue that the majority of vegans do it, at least partially, for animal reasons. I started to see how it would affect health but quickly enjoyed the peace I felt from not harming animals
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by uhtred on Friday October 30, 2020 @04:33PM (#24946611)
Sorry to nitpick, but if someone chooses to not eat animal products for a reason other than animal welfare, they are not vegan, but rather "eating plant based" or whatever they want to call it. Being vegan is more than about what you eat, it's trying to live in a way that reduces as much as possible the cruelty to other animals from one's own lifestyle. e.g. don't eat animal products, don't wear animal products, don't use products tested on animals.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by pachico on Friday October 30, 2020 @07:26PM (#24947816)
Yes, that's correct.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by pachico on Friday October 30, 2020 @03:37PM (#24946060)
It's where those initial cells were taken from, that's all. It's not that labs create cells from scratch but rather they efficiently reproduce then. It would demand a constant source of reliable cells from animals, from what I understand. Now, personally, do I think this is better than the current situation? Probably yes, but it's an utilitarian reasoning, which tends to justify the misery of few for the wellbeing of many.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by PopsiclePete on Friday October 30, 2020 @05:11PM (#24946940)
Ok, but... a few cells? You're shedding hundreds of millions of cells daily if not hourly? It's not like you're feeling pain, right?
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by pachico on Friday October 30, 2020 @06:03PM (#24947310)
It's not any cell and this is what I mean by utilitarian thinking, my friend :)
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by davidgay on Friday October 30, 2020 @11:00PM (#24948817)
So by this logic, blood transfusions are cannibalism.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by pachico on Saturday October 31, 2020 @02:21AM (#24949519)
The key is the consent.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by BelleOfTheBall on Friday October 30, 2020 @10:37PM (#24948715)
If it was produced initially from an animal, there's still harm done, although I'd argue it's infinitely small compared to what it achieves. There's also the fact that many vegan people try not to purchase vegan products if they come from a "non-vegan company". So if a meat producer also starts peddling tofu, vegans will buy from a different brand simply so they don't line the pockets of the meat or dairy industry. With the way things are going, I'd imagine the first to achieve lab-grown top-quality meat would be an agricultural/farm corporation, which wouldn't sit well with many vegans.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by pachico on Friday October 30, 2020 @02:42PM (#24945501)
Well, I guess that's a hope outside the timescale of individual lives, after hundreds of thousands of years of preventing individuals from florishing. I understand your point but somehow it sounds like a romantic idea only. Nevertheless, I hope you are right. :)
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by darkerside on Friday October 30, 2020 @10:11PM (#24948619)
Great apes can behave in ways that are stunningly similar to humans
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by moultano on Friday October 30, 2020 @03:12PM (#24945759)
The fact that humans interbred with them likely means we would just think of them as another kind of slightly different looking people.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by in3d on Friday October 30, 2020 @08:08PM (#24947997)
It's possible that their speech abilities were different from modern humans. If that's the case, it would be more than just looking differently.

"We show that genes associated with face and vocal tract anatomy went through particularly extensive methylation changes." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15020-6

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by msla on Friday October 30, 2020 @02:08PM (#24945149)
I think it would be an unstable situation unless the hominid species were somehow incompatible enough to prevent cross-breeding; otherwise, what would happen is what evidently did happen, which is that all of the hominids cross-bred and produced a single remaining phenotype.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by wh1t3n01s3 on Friday October 30, 2020 @02:45PM (#24945534)
I personally think Homo Sapiens killed to extinction all the other ‘human’ species, and the megafauna as well. (That’s sad, I know)
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by sildur on Saturday October 31, 2020 @02:01AM (#24949445)
Given that modern humans carry Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA (and who knows how many other subspecies DNA), I prefer to think we humped them to extinction.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by tejtm on Friday October 30, 2020 @03:05PM (#24945699)
And we don't even stop there. Never minding the flashy war/genocide aspects, we self-select mono cropping to a detrimental degree to our species genetic diversity.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by tomjakubowski on Friday October 30, 2020 @04:56PM (#24946816)
What's the connection between monocropping for agriculture and human genetic diversity?
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by tejtm on Saturday October 31, 2020 @12:32PM (#24952784)
humans self selecting for a lack of genetic diversity (as we do) creates a monocrop of humans with all the susceptibility that entails.

Perhaps a real geneticist will chime in, but I seem to recall we can find more genetic diversity within a family of another species say chimps or dogs than we do across the entire human species. We thought our lack of diversity was due to some "bottleneck" event where the global human population dropped to around 10K. But then we sequenced neanderthal and had to re adjust that to many repeated bottle necks each decreasing the chance of being it being a correct hyposisis as just one bottleneck is unproven. A different explanation is there were no global bottlenecks just the multitude of day to day local choices we have been making for a long time. (don't date the people from the other side of the river... they wear funny hats)

From a CS perceptive I would describe it as too much DFS not enough BFS which matters because backtracking means we go extinct.

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by minikites on Friday October 30, 2020 @02:13PM (#24945216)
Humans don't need a species difference to dominate other groups and make them miserable, we're perfectly capable of selecting some other difference to create an "other".
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by colechristensen on Friday October 30, 2020 @03:50PM (#24946196)
Much of the history of the west’s treatment of africans was essentially justified by classifying them as lower forms of human.

Romans did it to northern european “barbarians”, Europe and colonies did it do african and native american “savages”

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by mistrial9 on Friday October 30, 2020 @04:18PM (#24946470)
although well-meaning, I believe this is a shallow and Anglo-centric interpretation of history. Slaving was practiced across the world, and is generally regarded as "barbaric" because, well, it is. BUT the "West" did NOT make African Slavery.. Its incomplete to say that, and points fingers at modern people in the USA. I cannot start to give examples without a complete treatment due to the seriously toxic nature of this subject. But since I personally am descended from people in the USA that opposed slavery for the last 300 years AT LEAST, in EVERY FORM, I am sensitive, and strongly opposed, to a "guilt by association" on this topic.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by AlotOfReading on Friday October 30, 2020 @04:39PM (#24946669)
I agree that discussions on this topic are generally toxic, but nothing in the GP directly assigned blame.

It's more or less widely accepted in broader society that European colonialism laid the foundation for much of the modern world and many historians agree it was in turn partially justified by the "subeuropean-ness" of colonized peoples. I can easily show you papers published in the last decade continuing to justify historic colonialism as bringing civilization. There's an excellent (though dated) book on this called "Machines as the Measure of Men", which I often recommend to other people in tech.

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by colechristensen on Friday October 30, 2020 @05:04PM (#24946877)
What are you talking about, and how does it relate at all to what you are replying to? I didn't even use the word slavery , and I was talking about Rome and cultural attitudes of Europeans and their colonists.

Then you go on about your 300 years of complete family opposition to slavery in the US which has only existed for 244 of those years... and you're speaking for ... eh thousands to tens of thousands of people? Calm down.

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by wolco2 on Friday October 30, 2020 @04:18PM (#24946461)
And African's did it to other tribes. Who do you think sold the west the slaves in the first place. Tribes in central Africa would be sold through western African countries.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by pachico on Friday October 30, 2020 @06:46PM (#24947575)
And not only Africans: pre-Columbian civilizations did that to each other too. You don't become an empire just by handshakes and agreements.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by colechristensen on Friday October 30, 2020 @05:06PM (#24946893)
Again weird slavery denial responding to a comment that doesn't mention slavery.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by pachico on Friday October 30, 2020 @02:38PM (#24945467)
True, absolutely.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by xenospn on Friday October 30, 2020 @02:12PM (#24945201)
This is basically the plot of the time machine. One of my favorite books!
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by alanbernstein on Friday October 30, 2020 @04:35PM (#24946629)
Similar, Robert J Sawyer's Neanderthal Parallax trilogy.
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by eesmith on Friday October 30, 2020 @05:08PM (#24946911)
Or Turtledove's "A Different Flesh" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Different_Flesh

> a collection of alternate history short stories by American writer Harry Turtledove set in a world in which Homo erectus and various megafauna survived in the Americas instead of Native Americans or any other human cultures.

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by minikites on Friday October 30, 2020 @02:13PM (#24945220)
Or "Planet of the Apes"
Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by disown on Friday October 30, 2020 @06:26PM (#24947456)
> Sometimes I wonder how things would be if we had more than one hominid species in the world and I get trapped in fascinating hypothesis of all sorts.

What fascinating hypothesis? Why not spell it out rather being so coy? Well we have different races of people. Why not work off that? It's not like we lack diversity amongst human.

> Then I remember how we treat animals in general

Oh I see now. It gets exhausting and boring to see everything twisted for the vegan agenda. You should see how we treat plants. Now that's horrifying.

> it makes me think we'd be destined to have a dominating species making all others miserable

99.99% of animals killed on earth aren't killed by humans. Each day more animals are killed in nature than are killed by humans in a century. Most animals are made "miserable" by non-humans. I doubt you're losing sleep over that since you can't win virtue signaling points that way.

> Just thinking out loud.

We get it.

Re:Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau by pachico on Friday October 30, 2020 @07:13PM (#24947741)
I'm sorry your chose to pursue this as a personal attack and with such intensity but, nevertheless, and for the sake of those reading this with less animosity, allow me to reply.

It strikes me as fascinating how societies would evolve and behave when different species could have and exchange different narratives. This a something not new, that has been exploited more than once in science fiction, precisely because the diversity between humans is not enough (many would argue that there are not human races) or simply not enough to be a scenario for picturing vastly different realities, or a playground for a different role playing.

I won't reply to unfortunate comments about plants but allow me to tell you that not only vegans agree on many of the the things that have been said regarding the domination of a species above others. And yes, even among vegans there are debates about wellbeing/misfortunes of animals cause by other animals. As many other topics concerning ethics, it's open and, although science has helped much to set a path, much there is still to discuss. By discuss, however, I mean tolerant and well-intentioned exchange of thought, not cheap attempts of mocking perspectives you don't share.