The Sloppification of Peptides

(henryaj.substack.com)

50 points | by henryaj 3 hours ago

5 comments

  • aweb 23 minutes ago
    "Anyone who’s not been living under a rock knows that we’re in full peptide mania."

    No, they don't, it's a very Silicon Valley specific thing and I never heard about them here in France. People need to stop thinking their experience generalizes by default

    • inigyou 4 minutes ago
      One of America's biggest exports is culture - but primarily in English. I bet the UK knows it.
  • elliotec 1 hour ago
    A robots.txt explicitly allowing LLMs has nothing to do with whether it was made for humans or not and is generally the right move assuming you want your site picked up and recommended by AI tools. No different than allowing search engine crawlers to pick it up and the authors focus on that is bizarre when the rest of the evidence is so stark.
    • xyzelement 45 minutes ago
      His point is that the goal of this site is to skew the knowledge of future models, to which this is a relevant point (though.i agree not smoking gun alone)
  • bamboozled 1 hour ago
    But, what actually are the benefits of all this peptide ingestion ? Does it replace, Good Food, Sleep and an exercise ?
    • zemvpferreira 51 minutes ago
      Ozempic and Mounjaro are peptides. They are a silver bullet for obesity and orders of magnitude more effective than anything up to a gastric band surgery. Insulin is a peptide and keeps some 50 million people alive globally. You could go on and on.

      The real question is: Should you be putting novel, poorly researched and dubiously manufactured substances (which happen to be peptides) in your body via injection? To that I say, to each their own but I'll wait for the pharma industry to catch up. I'm not that bored.

      • mint5 34 minutes ago
        My take on the peptides craze is it’s like random people started injected insulin because they have a hazy idea of it being helpful for something or other based on the word on the street but they aren’t sure about dose and also can’t be sure what they’re injecting is actually insulin or uncontaminated. They also aren’t diabetic.
        • Legend2440 22 minutes ago
          Most peptides don't seem nearly as dangerous as insulin, luckily. Injecting insulin without medical supervision is a good way to give yourself hypoglycemia and die - blood sugar regulation is not something you want to mess with!

          People don't seem to be regularly dying from peptides, at least not now.

    • victorbjorklund 49 minutes ago
      Clearly they have effects. Heck insulin is a peptide. And pretty sure it has a benefit for those with diabetes. Dismissing peptides outright is just as silly as thinking peptides are the solution to everything
      • Legend2440 32 minutes ago
        You also wouldn't want to randomly inject yourself with insulin outside of medical supervision, because it can kill you pretty quick.

        Injecting poorly-studied grey market peptides seems like a bad idea.

      • timcobb 18 minutes ago
        How is insulin a peptide? Insulin is a giant folded protein
        • Ekaros 12 minutes ago
          Seems like it is very much on the edge of categories thus fits both. And it really is not a giant as proteins go and instead is on smaller end.
    • fl0id 1 hour ago
      You can feel like you have control of your life and body, without doing anything about sleep, exercise or food. If you like that control.
      • bamboozled 1 hour ago
        I guess "feeling like", sounds like a placebo.

        From what I've read there is some real risks associated with using them. Sounds a bit like the marketing of steroids in the 70s.

        • victorbjorklund 49 minutes ago
          Insulin is a peptide. Not sure if it is really a placebo when a diabetic needs insulin.
          • inigyou 3 minutes ago
            Peptides aren't all insulin.
    • TFNA 1 hour ago
      I have seen so much talk of Bay Area "peptide parties", so at least there is some social benefit?
      • bamboozled 1 hour ago
        I'm not sure I'd agree that a "bay area peptide party" has any real, useful social benefit. Sounds like hell.