Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

assuming this is true, perhaps it's best to freeze sperm regularly with labels that way if you go off the deep end you can snapshot quite literally your best self? some possible times - right before college, right after college, after you meet someone you think you'd marry (but before you do), after marriage.

seems like a neat premise for a sci fi novella.



<thinks about activities during college> ehhhh I think before college would be highly preferable lol.

Though I've never had nor wanted kids in the first place anyway.


That'd be a great basis for a controlled experiment.


Nobel prize might be waiting for two sets of octomom same-egg offspring with compatible genders that join together to have n=8 firstborn children which are conceived at same date under the same conditions (no alcohol, no ongoing infections, etc.), and the pregnancy period is spent together.

It will definitely need 8 scientist relationships, a lot of energy and money.


I think trying to "tune" your kids in any way is asking to be disappointed. My three kids could not be more different and they all have the same mother, grew up in the same house, etc.

If "microRNA" profiles have any influence, I would wager it's very small.


> they all have the same mother, grew up in the same house, etc.

I’m pretty sure the first one didn’t have siblings, and the second only had one. Also their mother is not the same person after raising the first kid, or raising two.

Parenting never have reproducible conditions.


I have twins (a boy and a girl) and you could tell they have a completely different temperament about two weeks after birth.


I’m a twin - admittedly boy/girl, so already with some fundamental differences - and we are very, very different people. Always have been. Different interests, different ways of seeing the world, different attitudes to competition, sports, social relationships etc.

Now I’ve got 2 boys, and even at fairly young ages they were very different. I’d say by 6 months old the basics of their personalities were visible, and they haven’t changed vastly as they’ve grown.


The twins I have known are the same. I would assume it has something to do with a desire to differentiate themselves from one another, but they always seemed far more dissimilar in personality and affect than my siblings.


OTOH could be siblings tend to be more similar as the smaller ones try to copy the older ones (my son would dress up as a ballerina to play with his sister when he was little, my smaller brother would acquiesce to play chess with me just to spend time together etc).

I have given up trying to explain child development, there's just too many variables.


An adjacent point but despite ubiquitous birth order superstitions quality literature consensus seems to be that birth order is not a large driver of predictable differences. Example:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4655556/


Agree, those are some environmental differences. But any "microRNA" profile I might have contributed to the conception of each would be broadly similar. My life was pretty stable and levels of stress, diet, exercise, etc. were all about the same for all three.


There are even identical twins that have different behaviors, characters and make different decisions.


I agree with what you are saying but remember the twin scenario. Spoiler alert, the kids are nonetheless different.


Well that’s just

> No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man


On the other hand, you sometimes get identical twins who share every random tick and tendency and finish each others thoughts.


But your kids will likely not have your insights and experiences so “tuning” is another word for broadening their awareness.


That is precisely the wrong sort of conclusion to draw from this clickbaity article.


When expectations are bundled with trying, then yes disappointment is inevitable. Expectations are not a good reason to not try.


If my quicksave/quickload savescumming is to be observed, I’d be pining for that sperm from before I told the waitress “you too” wrt to her telling me to enjoy my meal.


> I told the waitress “you too” wrt to her telling me to enjoy my meal.

That's not too bad unless you are in a group and they make fun of you right away, but it's a fumble that you can fix and start a good play if you don't just get super nervous.

Laugh it off, ask her if it's not the first one, ask her to join, even if you know she's actually working and can't.

I've never done any improv, but it seems like something maybe everyone should do so we all can avoid awkward moments that stick for way longer than they should.


Nah just yell “switcheroo!” then grab her outfit and suddenly you're the waitress and she’s the diner with a meal to enjoy.


Is this a lucid dream?


> saves cumming


> savescumming

Savecumming?


Slang term for frequently reloading game state from recent save when a non-ideal outcome occurs. E.g. this method can be used to collect rare outcomes from a RNG-based game event.


Wait until these people find out what “scum” (as in scumbag) is a slang term for


Without the sci-fi, if you take people with 10 to 12 kids, you have great accidental, natural, objective experiments here.

You can study those kids and compare them to the reported lifestyle of the parents at the time before their conception.


> assuming this is true, perhaps it's best to freeze sperm regularly with labels that way if you go off the deep end you can snapshot quite literally your best self?

Then you'll probably have kids who resemble Wim Hof


Like restoring to a particular save point in a game after you've done something stupid.


> if you go off the deep end you can snapshot quite literally your best self

Or your worst, since the article also suggests that bad habits can be epigenetically useful to the offspring.

I would hold off reaching any conclusions from this clickbait.


Makes me wonder if that's some of the influence that different siblings get? The first born gets more ambition, the middle child chills, and the baby acts like a boomer.

jk.

Honestly, sounds like a great read!


There isn't any specific way that boomers behave.


Adding "jk" after a casual prejudiced insult to a demographic doesn't undo the prejudiced insult.


I'm insulting myself. I'm describing what is my family dynamic.


Insulting yourself might have been your intent, but what you wrote is just a general ageist insult. It's like you when you fail something, and you make a racist analogy. You might want to insult yourself, you might think you are insulting yourself, but you are just racist.


No, you're insulting boomers, and you just doubled down.


It was a self-deprecating joke which back-fired because nuance is lost on the internet. You got triggered, which is entirely human, but at this point, you're the one who is doubling down. Perhaps it's a good time to disconnect and enjoy some time with your family.


I didn't "down" in the first place, but "no you" is typical of your ilk. Your comment is dishonest denial of your ageist bigotry, an inability to take responsibility for your actions. And I don't take life advice from trolls, bigots, and the like.

I won't respond further.


I'm sorry you feel that way.


Which demographic was casually insulted here? The babies/third children?


We need to add birth order to federally protected categories lest the thirdies try something on us deserving firstborn.


Boomers. How can anyone not grasp that? It's as if the insult is like water to fish, so people don't even perceive it.


Given the number of comments complaining about that specific line, I'd say it's more like bait to fish. Retirement must be boring


Is calling someone boomer an insult in itself?

I get that saying “boomer ruined the world for all the generations afterwards” is an insult, but the word itself is now considered an insult?

Genuinely asking here; the constantly shifting landscape of what one is allowed to say when talking to US Americans is a bit hard for me to navigate and I currently only have online discourse as guidepost (which is like 1000% more toxic)


Your question is disingenuous, as the word "boomer" didn't appear isolated with no context. The statement was "the baby acts like a boomer", which clearly has a pejorative connotation--you yourself recognized this when you asked "Which demographic was casually insulted here? The babies/third children?" ... it's not even possible to think that babies are being insulted without thinking that saying they're like boomers is insulting. As I said, that seems to be an unquestioned assumption.

As I said elsewhere, there is no single way that boomers behave. Boomers are simply people born in the post-war boom, from 1946-1964, and they display a huge range of traits. Virtually all statements referring to boomers collectively that aren't purely statistical are pejorative--ageist bigotry.

> what one is allowed to say

This oft repeated nonsense is bad faith. You're allowed to say whatever you want, and people are allowed to respond.

I've said my piece and won't engage further.


How does “the baby acts like a boomer” have negative connotations? Sounds like you are personally offended that the word “boomer” exists and projecting here.

> you yourself recognized this when you asked "Which demographic was casually insulted here

I asked this because boomer was the only possible demographic in GPs post, not because I think the term boomer is pejorative in itself. Chilling and ambition are obviously not demographics but qualities.

> This oft repeated nonsense is bad faith. You're allowed to say whatever you want, and people are allowed to respond.

If you want to go there, this argument is bad faith as well… of course I can say anything, but you seem to be personally offended that the term boomer exists and I simply don’t understand why.

> all statements referring to boomers collectively that aren't purely statistical are pejorative

Is that true for every other age group, so for example is every statement that refers to “millennials” or “zoomers” automatically pejorative and ageist?


> Virtually all statements referring to boomers collectively that aren't purely statistical are pejorative--ageist bigotry.

It's not ageist to have complaints against a specific generation, not the one before, not the one after, with those complaints sticking to that generation as their age changes.

(Whether those complaints are right or wrong on a statistical level is a different issue.)


Fine, it's some other sort of stupid ignorant intellectually dishonest bigotry. (Most of the people who get attacked as boomers are actually in the generation before them.)

> Whether those complaints are right or wrong on a statistical level is a different issue.

Only because you have made it one. The word "ageist" was the least part of my comment (but there is in fact a strong ageist element to the pejorative use of the term, contrary to your mischaracterization of the realities of its use ... notably, the people who use it are younger, never older, and have not used it throughout time--they couldn't, as they weren't even born when boomers arrived on the scene and for decades afterwards).

I won't respond further.


:\ why are you pretending that you don't know how casual *-isms work.

In case you don't: "the baby acts like a boomer" is not insulting agaist third children, but it is casually ageist.

It is casually insulting, as in bringing a generally insulting framework into a different topic.


You're right, and it's bizarre and sad that people don't even know what you mean.


Please tell me you’re joking.


He was, see his comment from 1h before you posted.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: