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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting that the population was at its highest-ever record in 2015. And then at its lowest in 2020. Boom-and-bust dynamics are common in nature and I imagine it played a large part in the population nadir. (This is touched on in the paper.)

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Here’s a rabbit hole to go down on that theme - https://youtu.be/ovJcsL7vyrk

That’s my second favorite YouTube video. I love how it reveals some universal primitives are really complicated. The pattern in the video is as fundamental to the universe as circles are. Imagine how many other mind-boggling structures are ubiquitous but just outside our understanding.

I can not resist, what is your favorite video on YouTube?

It’s a very different video.

“Forgetting the Reusable Bags” - https://youtu.be/zULqF_sttJw

Just saw these guys live in SF.

Everything’s a drum! Everything’s a drum!

Hopefully AI can endlessly search for such things eventually.

I’ve thought the same. We could automate the Socratic Method. Have computers search for all of the little voids in science right between a bunch of other well proven theories.

It looks like this particular die-off was more severe than it otherwise would have been, due to unusually warm ocean temperatures and the resulting higher caloric need for the crabs. So the cycle is natural, but the extreme depth of this particular "trough" in the cycle seems like an abnormal event.

(cross-posted from another comment, but seems relevant here too)

Some people marvel at these as an example of how nature regulates itself. Mate if your thermostat did that you'd be frozen with a charred crust.

But this is how nature regulates itself? I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.

The point is that it's not very good regulation.

And yet it has led to billions of years of life… and you.

Boom and bust, massive growth and dieoffs… and mass extinctions are all part of the development that led to this point. You don’t get here without them.

The thing is, nature didn't evolve to regulate or find equilibriums, it evolved to seize opportunity on an individual level. It doesn't favor stability at all, a species with a new ability can drastically change the landscape instantaneously.

Yes, it's adequate, but it's not particularly good. As the ancestor said, if your thermostat had such swings, it'd be a horrible regulator.

Yes, Mother Nature has not accomplished anything of note.

Nobody:

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