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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3176 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 30, 2022

Welcome to the final regular thread of 2022!

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Chimps and gorillas possess a large amount of muscle. Just look up "hairless chimp" - they're positively ripped. This is despite (as far as I know) a low protein diet and not engaging in large amounts of resistance training. I have a vague notion this is partially due to myostatin, although I'm sure there are other factors. My questions, will CRISPR eventually be able to make us as naturally ripped as chimps, will it be legal/accepted, and if it does become legal/accepted - how strong will the elitist culture be (I actually worked for these gains, you're just a filthy gene-modder)?

My suspicion is that the ven diagram of the kind of people who want to genetically modify their kids, and the kind who want to use it to make them look like Ahnold, is two circles.

Why?

While I expect that if human genetic modification becomes mainstream there will be a ‘male athlete package’ which is reasonably popular, that package will probably optimize for running speed, endurance, hand-eye coordination, and possibly height, and be much less popular than a ‘good behavior and slightly above average intelligence’ package. It’s not clear to me that there’s much demand from people to have power lifter sons in the same way many people strongly want to parent valedictorians or football quarterbacks.

More generally, we can probably assume that if human genetic modification is ever legal, it’ll be adopted earlier and more completely by the sort of progressive grey tribe elements who are less interested in physical characteristics to begin with.

One of the problems of our human body is that we need to afford the energetic needs of our massive brain, which is why we have dialed down basically everything else in our bodies when compared to great apes.

Evolution designed us to be nerds, not ,(ape-level) jocks.

Artificial fertilizers and industry would make the theoretical meathead civ possible, though.

It's a cycle n'est pas? Bigger brains and smaller (genetic) muscles enabled us to develop civilization from the Sahara to the Arctic, where chimps could never leave Africa. In turn we've adapted so well we can go back to meathead monkey.

Eh, not exactly. First human species in Eurasia were neanderthales, who were vastly stronger if bones are any indication.

There's a rare genetic condition that results in massively increased muscle development. One of the downsides is apparently a proportionally-massive increase in appetite.

Gorilla eat something like 60 lbs of food a day. That's only a little under 15% of their body weight. I suspect maybe competitive eaters might hit that level in competitions.

But that's 60lbs of shoots and leaves. How much would that be in hot dogs?

Using bamboo shoots, 24 kg (60 lbs) has the same amount of protean as about 30 beef hot dogs.

Does it ? I remember checking out bamboo shoot can out of curiosity and discovering the nutritional value was.. zero. That can was pure cellulose.

For a human, yes. Gorillas can digest cellulose because of gut bacteria.

Is there any protein in cellulose, though ?

Strictly speaking: no. But their gut bacteria can feed on cellulose and other nutrients and produce protein from it.

https://medium.com/@westwise/how-does-a-gorilla-get-so-strong-75c68edd3c26

Gorillas, cows, etc all digest cellulose. The bacteria in their guts turn that into protein that they absorb. So they eat a pile of practically protein free grass or leafs and get a big dose of protein made from it for them.

Gorillas, cows, etc all digest cellulose. The bacteria in their guts turn that into protein that they absorb.

Um, how can that be? Protein contains nitrogen, and cellulose, being a carbohydrate, doesn't.

Maybe that's why adult male gorillas eat around 15% of their body weight in food per day. Some quantity of leafs has the necessary nutrients for an ape to thrive.

...has any fitness influencer started hyping Gorilla fecal transplants yet?

https://i.redd.it/a598vk3vg7n91.png

There's that guy from /fit/ who claims to eat ape chow. Not quite an influencer. And not quite digesting cellulose. But /fit/ is trying to get gorilla strength.

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