Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's also Thomas Thwaites' "building a toaster... from scratch" project that goes into the details of how even an extremely simple appliance involves materials and processes that are effectively impossible for a single person to replicate (spoiler: he has to give up and "cheat" on some things).
Likewise, someone (I forgot who) who made a sandwich from scratch - growing wheat, pigs, cows, produce, the works.
Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago
211–220 of 274 posts
Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
The word human is commonly used for both modern humans and members of the entire genus Homo. Hominids is a more general superset that isn't strictly correct here. The term hominin is more appropriate in this context and what they actually use in the abstract. In my opinion though, "human" is the better word here for conveying the right mix of informality without implying the specific semantics of "Hominini sans Pan".
Is it? This is literally the first time Ive seen the word human applied to other hominids. I see many discussions about neanderthals and denisovians and so on. I have never seen them referred to as human.
If 500,000 years ago a hominid sits by the fire they lit and is working on sharpening a stone tool, would you say:
"someone / a person is sharpening a tool" or "it / a hominid is sharpening a tool"?
Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's culture, and it's known to exist among animals in a limited way. We don't really know what the upper bound for non humans is, because we don't know exactly what's being communicated by, for example, whale song.
I wonder whether we (as human) are merely the first species that managed to overcome initial barriers to developing culture and tech and thereby preventing any other species to do the same (for now). It feels like bipedalism, opposable thumbs and strong social behaviour and other factores were the perfect storm at the perfect time.
Chickens are bipedal. There are tree frogs with opposable thumbs. Elephants and cetaceans have strong social behavior. Other hominids have all these.
What other animals make fire? Cooked food was the game changer.
https://www.livescience.com/5946-chimps-master-step-controll...
Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago
#214You have to think that there were breakthroughs in communication technology — not just language in general but possibly also one individual who happened to be good at explaining things, either before or after language, who both taught more people, but also taught them how to teach — that led to step changes in technology.
I've read a lot of hypotheses about what could have happened.
Some say it was language.
Others say it was the development of consciousness, which came with an improved theory of mind.
Others say it was thinking in what-if/hypothetical scenarios.
Maybe they all developed in lockstep, somehow.
Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's culture, and it's known to exist among animals in a limited way. We don't really know what the upper bound for non humans is, because we don't know exactly what's being communicated by, for example, whale song.
I wonder whether we (as human) are merely the first species that managed to overcome initial barriers to developing culture and tech and thereby preventing any other species to do the same (for now). It feels like bipedalism, opposable thumbs and strong social behaviour and other factores were the perfect storm at the perfect time.
There’s a professor at St. Andrew’s, Kevin Lalland I think, who has done a lot of work on imitation. His theory is that that imitation is generally useful but without high enough copying fidelity culture won’t develop.
For example monkeys have been known to exhibit fashion trends (hanging a bit of grass out of their ear). But these trends fizzle out over time. Before more behaviors can be layered on top.
I think you’re right about those factors creating a good environment for this to happen and I bet they’re sufficient but not necessary. Too bad we don’t have another example :)
Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder whether we (as human) are merely the first species that managed to overcome initial barriers to developing culture and tech and thereby preventing any other species to do the same (for now). It feels like bipedalism, opposable thumbs and strong social behaviour and other factores were the perfect storm at the perfect time.
Chickens are bipedal. There are tree frogs with opposable thumbs. Elephants and cetaceans have strong social behavior. Other hominids have all these. What other animals make fire? Cooked food was the game changer. https://www.livescience.com/5946-chimps-master-step-controll...
Fire is rad but I don’t see how it explains modern civilization.
If most animals are operating on a calorie deficit and fixing this can lead to larger brains then why haven’t domesticated animals evolved towards our level of intelligence?
Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it? This is literally the first time Ive seen the word human applied to other hominids. I see many discussions about neanderthals and denisovians and so on. I have never seen them referred to as human.
If 500,000 years ago a hominid sits by the fire they lit and is working on sharpening a stone tool, would you say: "someone / a person is sharpening a tool" or "it / a hominid is sharpening a tool"?
I personally would call them a human, but this seems like a false equivalence unless you believe that personhood is something exclusive to humans. “Someone / a hominid” is perfectly valid and could at the same time be “someone / a person”.
Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago
#218News article says humans, but earliest human (homo sapiens) was around 300kya. The actual paper uses the word hominids rather than humans.
The word human is commonly used for both modern humans and members of the entire genus Homo. Hominids is a more general superset that isn't strictly correct here. The term hominin is more appropriate in this context and what they actually use in the abstract. In my opinion though, "human" is the better word here for conveying the right mix of informality without implying the specific semantics of "Hominini sans Pan".
Human === Homo sapien _sapien_. Homo Sapiens are a different thing
Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Other species have culture (behavioural traits/patterns and social organisation/cues that are communicated, not innately inherited via genes and development), and other species have tech (making intentional modifications to their environment, creating structures that better support their existence). What seems to be rare is the ability to use culture a medium to store and transmit tech.
It's that Noah Yuval Harari book, isn't it? What's separates humans is we can construct common fictions that we actually believe in, eg "my job is to maximize shareholder value" where both the corporation and the responsibilities towards it are made up but generally believed. There's of course a rather large elephant in this room, too, that decides a lot of things about our lives.
Harari’s book is awesome but I think he gets stuck too far up the hierarchy.
Trying to describe culture with stories feels like trying to describe biology with proteins. It gets us most of the way there but also adds a whole ton of complexity because it misses the fundamental nature of the system.
Humans are great at general and accurate imitation. This probably seeded a runaway evolutionary process, the result of which was tools, fire, and language.
Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
I imagined a small, red, dense foam ball actively being placed by a feminine hand with matching red nails and a fancy bracelet onto a white marble slab with olive green marbling. The slab is a couple inches thick and overhangs the cabinets below it. The point of view, like watching from my own eyes, is looking down at the counter with the ball being placed by the ephemeral hand as if they stood opposite me. What colo…
I’m curious, what kind of work do you do? Do your dreams have that kind of detail?
Software engineer, but I've also been a graphic designer, a photo editor, a fire and casualty insurance agent, a financial services advisor, a construction worker (very basic carpentry, electrical, plumbing, roofing, etc), and high school math teacher, all before being a software developer turned manager turned developer again. And, yeah, dreams have that much detail, but also the extra depth that comes in dreams like knowing intent, emotions, relative history, etc