• 5 Posts
  • 649 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 19th, 2023

help-circle




  • I think this is mostly correct.

    I think what you mean is that each chromosome has two paired arms that contain alternate versions of functionally the same content. It’s like if you had two cookbooks by different authors that had the same chapters and dishes, but different content. The two versions aren’t in the two strands of DNA, they’re in the two arms of each chromosome.

    The problem is that during reproduction, each parent randomly contributes one of the two chromosome halves. When each sperm and each egg is made, there’s a 50-50 chance that it gets arm 1 or arm 2 from each chromosome.

    If you were to engage in this exercise (which is tagged “selfcest” if you’re looking for erotic stories about this stuff), you’d encounter the same problem with incestual reproduction: unless the sperm and egg were prepared in a lab or using magic to ensure that each arm of each chromosome went into a different sex cell, you’d inevitably have cases where the sperm and egg both received their chromosome from the same arm.

    You have genes from your mom and your dad. But in some regions of this offspring’s genome they’d receive two copies of genes from your mom and no copy of your dad’s, or vice-versa. And we rely on having two different copies as backups. This is why interbreeding produces birth defects and lower fitness: either parent can have a handful of bad genes, but if the other one has a good copy it’s often no biggie. But if you get two copies of the bad ones and no good copy (which is more likely if you marry your cousin or boink your clone) then you have problems.

    To summarize, you wouldn’t faithfully duplicate yourself, you’d duplicate most of yourself.

    So – assuming the offspring was viable – you’d kind of get a lower quality clone: the offspring would probably look almost like a twin of the original, but they might have worse eyesight. They might be stockier or lankier. They might have thin, anemic blood. They might have oilier skin and hair, or dryer, itchier skin and hair.


  • It depends where you live.

    I honestly feel bad for the doomers in these kinds of comment sections who feel confused and aimless, like nothing is happening. I live in Oakland, California, and it’s clear to me that my community is not waiting around.

    If you’re feeling adrift, let me know where you live and I’ll make suggestions. This sense of idleness is situational, and you can get involved in planning a revolution is you know where to look.


  • I read the article expecting the same thing, but it said that Microsoft, Nvidia, and Palantir recently released a big statement warning the US not to restrict open models.

    Which is weird. I don’t believe for a minute that you and I are on the same side as those jackals, but I guess they are not as dumb as I expected on this particular day (be sure to check again tomorrow, though).

    This whole thing is stupid and I want this bubble to burst. I don’t look forward to the economic consequences for people like my parents who live on retirement savings, but lord, this whole economic system is just totally cooked and it can’t go on like this.





  • I can speak from experience here, because this actually happened to me!

    My partner (born female) and I married in our late 20s. He was already casually gender non-confirming before we married, and I described myself as hetero-flexible. His transition was rather gradual, with no strict coming-out event, but it was something we discussed openly. After he began presenting as male on work settings, I began identifying myself as bisexual.

    It worked out very well. As the person above noted, you can really call yourself whatever. If you wanted to, you could identify as straight with an exception made for a single person. Although I would advise against it, as your partner might take some offense, and it confuses people if you identify in a way that conflicts with your long term partnership. Most co-workers assume I’m gay because I’m married to a man, and I don’t bother to correct them.

    Sometimes it comes up, because my husband and I have a biological son together, which isn’t a secret. Sometimes when taking about him and genetics, it leads me to explaining all of this. But as you can see, it’s unusual, but not that hard to explain.