I feel like this is obvious. Eventually dying of all the weird body failures doesn’t inhibit your ability to procreate, but if you cannot survive alcohol or other various poisons you’ll never make it to a fertile age.

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nofunsir 10 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

It's more than possible to make it to adulthood without ingesting a drop of alcohol, even if you're talking about fermented fruit. It's easy, in fact.

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nomel an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Picking the wrong berry from a bush isn't so difficult. Ask me how I know. And, for my second encounter, don't think because you see an animal eating it, it's safe!

	▲	colechristensen 24 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		And onions are mildly toxic to cats and dogs. There is a lot less shared responses as to what is toxic or edible across species. Basically every flavor compound in an herb or spice we eat is a poison directed at insects, microbes, or other creatures. (much less every medicinal or psychoactive compound found in nature)
	▲	cratermoon an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Did you know birds do not have receptors for capsaicin? They can eat any pepper and it doesn't affect them. So if you see a bird snacking on a pepper that's red or greenish-yellow, wrinkly, and has a pointy end, well ... watch out

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kypro an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

My guess is that this is half the story. It seems like there would be some advantage to some creatures of not aging, or having individuals who have significant longer life spans.

This is common in evolutionary algorithms anyway so it's notable we don't see it in nature, at least not in the form of extended lifespan perhaps measured by average lifetime heart beats. It's easy to imagine a world where nature might want to keep the alpha lion around longer than the others so it can have more offspring, for example.

	▲	colechristensen 18 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		>It seems like there would be some advantage to some creatures of not aging, or having individuals who have significant longer life spans. There is, if there were no advantage a whole lot more species would die immediately after reproduction like the octopus. Many simpler organisms are vaguely immortal. >It's easy to imagine a world where nature might want to keep the alpha lion around longer than the others so it can have more offspring, for example. The utility of genetic diversity puts a lot of pressure against this.