I think people in HN (and in general) have to remember the central axes of evolution before digesting this kind of article. I've already seen comments like it's "odd that no species has ended up evolving a continuous maintenance system" and "sleep has a higher opportunity cost in humans" in this comments section.
This is a common, but poor framing of evolution. Remember: the only real rule with evolution is "did this evolutionary change mean they survived / reproduced more"? Evolution is not a local or global maxima solving function. I find this kind of attempt at interpreting selection common with engineers, programmers, etc.
This is a common, but poor framing of evolution. Remember: the only real rule with evolution is "did this evolutionary change mean they survived / reproduced more"? Evolution is not a local or global maxima solving function. I find this kind of attempt at interpreting selection common with engineers, programmers, etc.