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200k-year-old hand art found near a Tibetan hot spring

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Re: 200k-year-old hand art found near a Tibetan hot spring

#81

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

bspammer wrote: post #75
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the face of accelerating change, every moment feels like an inflection point, and the past always looks stagnant in comparison. Measured from the baseline of where things are now, the past was so different. Measured from the baseline of how quickly things change now, the past was so slow. The catch is that it’s true no matter when you say it from, so long as change is accelerating. Exponential growth is my favorit…

Sure if you look at it from a purely mathematical point of view, but we can anchor ourselves to something which is (relatively) constant - the human lifespan. We're one of the first generations to feel the effects of the exponential curve within our lifetimes.

If you plot anything exponential from t=T-60 years to t=T, it'll look just as dramatic now as ever. Try it. Plot Imagine you have some function like population or number of transistors per dollar or something that's exponential. You can model it as y(t) = a * b^(t+c). To look at how it feels when you look backwards, make it relative to what life is like today (aka divide by the "normal" value y(t) to get a function of how it seems looking backwards y(t)/y(T) = b^(t-T).

Let's make a variable for `years from now:` dt = t-T. If we look at the last 60 years, this is just plotting b^dt from dt=-60 to dt=0. It doesn't matter when you look at it from. The last sixty years of exponential growth always looks the same. It's just b^dt from dt=-60 to dt=0, which (being the exact same function) looks equally dramatic from any point.

tl;dr let's make it concrete and plot 1.1^t from 1960 to 2020, and then plot 1.1^t 1060 to 1120. They look exactly the same, even though each just spans a human life time:

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+1.1%5Et+from+t%3D...

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+1.1%5Et+from+t%3D...

Re: 200k-year-old hand art found near a Tibetan hot spring

#82

Post by bspammer »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #81
bspammer wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure if you look at it from a purely mathematical point of view, but we can anchor ourselves to something which is (relatively) constant - the human lifespan. We're one of the first generations to feel the effects of the exponential curve within our lifetimes.

If you plot anything exponential from t=T-60 years to t=T, it'll look just as dramatic now as ever. Try it. Plot Imagine you have some function like population or number of transistors per dollar or something that's exponential. You can model it as y(t) = a * b^(t+c). To look at how it feels when you look backwards, make it relative to what life is like today (aka divide by the "normal" value y(t) to get a function o…

I understand how exponential functions work. The graph looks the same relatively when you normalize the axes obviously. From the human perspective, the absolute delta over those 60 years is what matters. If society improved 0.001 "civilization points" it will feel very different to an individual than if it improved by by 1000 points.

A prehistoric hunter-gather saw basically zero technological change within their lifetime.

Re: 200k-year-old hand art found near a Tibetan hot spring

#83

Post by Aerroon »

willcipriano wrote: post #52
bspammer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, there is something special about this moment in time. We're in an insane inflection point of human development. For millions of years things stayed roughly the same. It's really only in the last 10,000 years that stuff has really kicked off, and the last 300 where human development has gone absolutely crazy. There's several existential threats that might destroy civilization over the next few hundred year…

> I disagree, there is something special about this moment in time. Your ancestors all felt the same way. So will your children.

I'm not so sure they felt that way. For the average person life was pretty stagnant before the industrial revolution. You lived roughly the same way that your parents did. You used the same tools and techniques in farming. You did mostly the same things socially. You dressed in roughly the same types of clothes (or at least clothing materials).

Historical estimates for GDP per capita put it around $2 per day in 2011 prices. And that stayed fairly constant - it doubled in maybe a thousand years, if at all. Compare that to today: US GDP per capita has nearly tripled in my lifetime.

Politically things might've been just as turbulent back then though. New overlords and all that would be more impactful back then than now.

Re: 200k-year-old hand art found near a Tibetan hot spring

#84

Post by throw_nbvc1234 »

willcipriano wrote: post #52
bspammer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, there is something special about this moment in time. We're in an insane inflection point of human development. For millions of years things stayed roughly the same. It's really only in the last 10,000 years that stuff has really kicked off, and the last 300 where human development has gone absolutely crazy. There's several existential threats that might destroy civilization over the next few hundred year…

> I disagree, there is something special about this moment in time. Your ancestors all felt the same way. So will your children.

What major technological advancements like space travel, internet, computers, cell phones do you think the typical person 2000 years ago actually saw and knew about?

The (lack of) inter-connectedness of the world would effect the way our ancestors felt about their moment in time.

Re: 200k-year-old hand art found near a Tibetan hot spring

#86

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

bspammer wrote: post #82
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you plot anything exponential from t=T-60 years to t=T, it'll look just as dramatic now as ever. Try it. Plot Imagine you have some function like population or number of transistors per dollar or something that's exponential. You can model it as y(t) = a * b^(t+c). To look at how it feels when you look backwards, make it relative to what life is like today (aka divide by the "normal" value y(t) to get a function o…

I understand how exponential functions work. The graph looks the same relatively when you normalize the axes obviously. From the human perspective, the absolute delta over those 60 years is what matters. If society improved 0.001 "civilization points" it will feel very different to an individual than if it improved by by 1000 points. A prehistoric hunter-gather saw basically zero technological change within their lif…

> From the human perspective, the absolute delta over those 60 years is what matters.

This is what we disagree on. From the human perspective, it's the relative delta that matters, because we look at yesterday's change relative to life today.

Re: 200k-year-old hand art found near a Tibetan hot spring

#87

Post by Aunche »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #62
bspammer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't really matter what my ancestors felt, it's blatently obvious that there's more going on right now, and faster than 10,000 years ago. Back then, you'd be lucky to see a single revolutionary invention in a lifetime. Now we're seeing them every decade, if not annually. I don't disagree that my descendents will be justified in feeling the same way, as long as the exponential curve keeps on going and civilizati…

Is this really true? If someone from 1950s America time-travelled to the present day, is there anything at all that they conceptually couldn't fathom? Maybe if you transported someone from 1950s China to present-day China, they would be more shocked, but a present day suburban home in 2021 is not all that markedly different than a 1950s home -- and neither is the workplace, the commute, the cars. Mostly replaced pape…

In the 1950's people technology was still relatively grounded in people's understanding. Any intelligent person in the 1950s could understand how an automobile or refrigerator worked if they wanted to. In present day, people treat technology as magic. It's easy enough to figure out how to use your iPhone to FaceTime someone on the other side of the world, but it's nearly impossible to truly understand how it's done.

Re: 200k-year-old hand art found near a Tibetan hot spring

#88

Post by bspammer »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #86
bspammer wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand how exponential functions work. The graph looks the same relatively when you normalize the axes obviously. From the human perspective, the absolute delta over those 60 years is what matters. If society improved 0.001 "civilization points" it will feel very different to an individual than if it improved by by 1000 points. A prehistoric hunter-gather saw basically zero technological change within their lif…

> From the human perspective, the absolute delta over those 60 years is what matters. This is what we disagree on. From the human perspective, it's the relative delta that matters, because we look at yesterday's change relative to life today.

But that isn't how humans notice exponential change...

We reside in a "level" of order of magnitude in time and space. Things that happen outside of that level, too big or too small, and we simply can't comprehend them. When something crosses from an order of magnitude below our level, to an order of magnitude above our level, that's when we can perceive it.

A block accelerating exponentially from 1e-10 m/s to the speed of light will look completely stationary until it reaches a level of order of magnitude that we can perceive, probably about 1e-5 m/s.

If I tell you I will give you an exponentially increasing amount of money by 1% every day, it matters a lot to you if I start you at 1e-200 dollars because you'll be dead before you earn a single cent. If you lived to 150, you’d be the richest person on the planet. The absolute amount matters because we are physical beings anchored to a particular order of magnitude that we care about.

Re: 200k-year-old hand art found near a Tibetan hot spring

#89

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

bspammer wrote: post #38
adriand wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really amazing. I find this sort of thing absolutely haunting. It's a vivid reminder that there is nothing particularly special about this moment in time: it's only special to us because we're living it. But their present moment was no less vital and immediate and real to them as this moment is to us. And yet, it happened so incredibly long ago! I had the same feeling when I encountered a beautiful statue of a woman…

I disagree, there is something special about this moment in time. We're in an insane inflection point of human development. For millions of years things stayed roughly the same. It's really only in the last 10,000 years that stuff has really kicked off, and the last 300 where human development has gone absolutely crazy. There's several existential threats that might destroy civilization over the next few hundred year…

https://www.cold-takes.com/this-cant-go-on/ has some interesting ideas that agree with you.

Re: 200k-year-old hand art found near a Tibetan hot spring

#90

Post by uniqueid »

neaden wrote: post #2

“These prints, however, are more carefully made and have a specific arrangement—think more along the lines like how a child presses their handprint into fresh cement.” A good reminder of the fact that for all that society has changed we as people haven't really.

Either that or we have changed enough that we are now capable of being creative, in terms of both art and theorizing about prehistory. Personally I think it's the latter.

If we were capable of appreciating art 200,000 years ago, we also must have been incredibly lazy. How could well over another 150,000 years pass before we left signs that we were improving our technology? It doesn't make any sense.

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