We’ve reached the point where every random thought a person can have is now a meme.
this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025
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I have several different ailments that would have killed me a hundred years ago.
Natural selection is how humans developed the capability to invent optometry in the first place
One problem with secondary education's skittishness around spending too much time on evolution, is this widespread misunderstanding about the nature of "survival of the fittest" which paints nature as a cut-throat bloodthirsty beast that punishes physical weakness in individuals.
The entire history of evolution, right down to single-cell organisms, is the history of co-operation and symbiosis; OOP would have been just fine because the tendency of any group of animals to protect their weaker members who benefit the group in other ways, is not at all rare.
Yes! Evolution has never operated on individuals, it's right there in the title of the book "On the Origin of Species".
Before the invention of books, short sightedness was far less common. So let's blame Gutenberg.
you can't possibly know that
There are studies showing that short sightedness is caused by focusing on close objects for extended periods of time. They’ve done numerous studies over decades on the increasing cause of it in children and it essentially boils down to the fact that the eye (when viewing close objects) can’t “unblur” the background (everything that is right behind the close thing you’re looking at). Your eye continues to try to do so. This continual struggle actually reshapes your eye, causing myopia, so your eye literally becomes egg shaped. Notably, the rates drastically increased when kids started doing more “near work” (homework) and spending less time outside.
So yes, we do know that.
Here’s a transcript of a podcast that discusses it, with linked citations at the parts it’s discussed at. https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRMWnsM8thCF5giSiABkfCFUCxLzjM8PSby1V1Etn4jTavVpcuAwR0wjVhpZ2gLYK3QJUNzRYoiU9_p/pub
It's not fair!
Without spending 8-12+ hours a day staring at a screen, I probably wouldn't have needed glasses.
Far as we know currently, looking/staring at screens does not cause permanent damage to your vision.
Screen time is no worse than book time or sewing time or Wolfenstein time.
Concentrating reduces your blink rate. Reduced blinking dries out your eyes. That's the main detrimental effects.
I've been looking at screens for decades and I still have perfect vision
Yeah of course because the notion that observing something would damage your eyes is insane. It's like saying that looking at trees can damage your eyes because they're very big, madness.
And indoor plumbing!
Ya, hard pass on traveling back in time. The past smells like shit.
I was thinking of just going back to the '80s with a shotgun and a list.
Along similar lines, I think about this for any post apocalyptic scenario that disrupts supply lines. Even if things are okay in terms of food, I regularly take medication that one would presume would be hard to get without modern society. In that situation, if I broke or even scratched my glasses, it seems very unlikely I would find functional replacements. I'm not physically disabled, but I am very limited, so in any real conflict I would lose. Quickly.
In prehistory or any future environment like that, I wouldn't last long.
In most of prehistory (and still some parts of the world today), you'd have a tribe/society that would choose to help you and look after you.. Fuck, even herds of bovines do this to some extent.. It's kind of shit that we're letting the rich stop that from happening.
Yep we have evidence in the paleolithic of individuals without teeth living for several years after they lost them. That means their community was chewing their food for them. Which is crazy to think about.
Not to mention there is also evidence of severely disabled people, typically from injuries, surviving full lives. These individuals mobility would have been very limited, but people jus took care of them. Because that's what you did.
That last part would be of the biggest impact to me. I've had two major bone breakages in my life - my arm when I was seven, my ankle when I was thirty-four. Even over that time period, the treatment seemed to improve a great deal, though neither ever fully healed, which is why my mobility is limited even now. Even putting aside things like infections, I can't imagine getting a broken bone treated without painkillers and hope I never have to. Resetting a dislocated shoulder without was bad enough.
Also though, when I broke my ankle I was alone in the snow. If cell phones weren't a thing, I'm not sure I would even have been able to get treatment and it's possible that exposure could have made things much much worse.
Fortunately, I had my cell phone and we weren't in prehistory, so things went significantly better than they could have. Now I just have to worry about the future.
Infections were a big killer before antibiotics. We have vaccination these days because of the horrible things that used to happen without them. Just having clean warm water and soap readily available was a luxury back then.
And yet some missininformed people think vaccines are evil.
The reason for widespread short-sightedness is unknown but the best study I read showed that kids playing indoor sports have significantly worse vision compared to the same outdoor sports.
My theory is because we look up close frequently, our eyes become adjusted to it. As a very near sighted person I can tell you, I see much better very close (a few inches from my eyes) than someone with 20/20, like magnification. Try it. I also used a screen probably 8 hours a day even since early childhood (lol, 90s parents).
We are really well adapted for pre-history and there's evidence we were happier and healthier back then (murder/rape was common, though). "Sapiens" covers this fantastically in general.
That magnification effect is why I don't want lasik, it's like my little superpower.
Plus the whole eyeball surgery thing.
It's the smell of burning eyeball for me.
Back when I first had to get glasses I had been spending as much time outside as I possibly could. It's just something genetic and has nothing to do with how you look at things. The reason our ancestors survived it was we lived in tribes and helped each other out.
laughs in natural 20/15 vision, but quickly devolves into an asthmatic coughing fit and starts looking for his inhaler
Nope. I'm farsighted. I can see a predator a mile away, just might eat a rock instead of food if I don't bother to feel it first
Don't even need to take of my glases.
I would just straight die if i had to sleep a night outside where all the bugs and spiders live.
And then I realize I would have most likely died during birth anyway..
Absolutely, yes.
Can we make this happen for all the science-denying idiots out there? Let's start with RFK.
Fair, but cavemen in our time keep falling for cults.
My, aren't you a big kitty!...
my eyes are pretty shitty but I went 3 years without correction once when I didn't have insurance and I did ok. Being born really premature would have taken me out pretty quick though.
Not often but ..yea
Every day, he-he
Natural selection? It relates on your thoughts taking off other stuff at night.