21–30 of 214 posts
350,000 years of just chilling, picking berries, you die in identical technological and cultural environment as when you were born. Now we got to be around when God is made in a data center
What some otherwise intelligent people will convince themselves is God, anyway.
It's wild to think how long very human-like beings and modern humans existed before the technological revolution really took off. Hundreds of thousands of years of existing on the technological level of stone tools, spears, cloth made out of hides, and fire. Then at some unknown point probably in the last 100,000 years, the bow and arrow. Then about 12,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution, which probably unlock…
> Then about 12,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution, which probably unlocked much of the subsequent technological progress by enabling more food security and larger populations. It definitely did. Also note that agriculture was invented in multiple places over time. Unfortunately, the Native Americans did not invent it quickly enough, so they had far less time for technological development before Europeans arr…
I spent a year of high school in the Basque Country, and it always stuck out to me that a common feature of the Basques, especially the beefy ones, was incredibly caveman-like. I know this is not unique to this population, but I also always wondered if it correlated to the fact that it is one of the historic Neanderthal populations. I have a photo of a dude I used to play soccer with that looks like I put a Neanderth…
My Dad wrote an article about this 25 years ago or so: https://aoi.com.au/LB/LB705/ (How the Neanderthals became the Basques). He would really get a kick out of people reading it (he's 90 now). His website goes back to 96' and it shows.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Then about 12,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution, which probably unlocked much of the subsequent technological progress by enabling more food security and larger populations. It definitely did. Also note that agriculture was invented in multiple places over time. Unfortunately, the Native Americans did not invent it quickly enough, so they had far less time for technological development before Europeans arr…
> Unfortunately, the Native Americans did not invent it quickly enough This is false. Most native Americans throughout both continents— especially those in Mesoamerica—were powerful civilisations in their own right with plenty of agricultural history. What finished many of them off was a lack of resistance to smallpox, which was brought over by the first explorers/colonists.
IIRC, there was a massive plague in North America a decade or so before Columbus arrived.
I spent a year of high school in the Basque Country, and it always stuck out to me that a common feature of the Basques, especially the beefy ones, was incredibly caveman-like. I know this is not unique to this population, but I also always wondered if it correlated to the fact that it is one of the historic Neanderthal populations. I have a photo of a dude I used to play soccer with that looks like I put a Neanderth…
My Dad wrote an article about this 25 years ago or so: https://aoi.com.au/LB/LB705/ (How the Neanderthals became the Basques). He would really get a kick out of people reading it (he's 90 now). His website goes back to 96' and it shows.
> Harmful mutations can accumulate through inbreeding. Yet somehow Neanderthals managed to survive across most of Eurasia for nearly 400,000 years It is also true that inbreeding for extended periods weeds out both dominant and recessive bad genes very effectively. As long as at least one good or not-so bad alternative is maintained. So not as surprising that small groups can last a long time, once they reach a thres…
I wouldn't single out the concern new diseases if the population is small. Most diseases co-evolve intra-population. The lethal ones are the ones that suffer a mutation and are suddenly able to be passed to a different 'species'. So, if they already survived on a 'knife's edge', immune variety is of comparatively low concern (but still existential) on the list of things that can end your species (climate change, comp…
And the impact of events where any individuals die to a new variant, is amplified for a small population. The risks of highly correlated vulnerabilities are on top of that.
Variants of the flu continue to quietly emerge and kill people today. Despite all our regular exposures to their constant churn and weather shielded environments.
But you are certainly right that the cross-overs are incomparably worse. And diversity becomes species extinction protection at that level.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Basque Country also has an interesting language which doesn't seem related to other European languages. Basque language (or Euskara). Seems as though it could have been an enclave of neanderthals who eventually integrated with humans.
This is a much-discussed topic. All we know of the Basque language is that it is pre-Indo-European. The last time I looked in to this, the consensus was that it was most likely a version of otherwise-extinct ancient Celtic. Now that doesn’t mean that the Basques don’t have a potentially outsized Neanderthal genetic influence, but the odds of their language being so ancient as to pre-exist modern humans entirely is un…
We can tell how much neanderthal ancestry someone has, more or less. Basque people have no more than others. Despite their odd language, they are much like other Europeans genetically: a similar mix of European hunter gatherers, Anatolian farmers and the bronze age invaders which we believe brought the IE languages to Europe.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Then about 12,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution, which probably unlocked much of the subsequent technological progress by enabling more food security and larger populations. It definitely did. Also note that agriculture was invented in multiple places over time. Unfortunately, the Native Americans did not invent it quickly enough, so they had far less time for technological development before Europeans arr…
> Unfortunately, the Native Americans did not invent it quickly enough This is false. Most native Americans throughout both continents— especially those in Mesoamerica—were powerful civilisations in their own right with plenty of agricultural history. What finished many of them off was a lack of resistance to smallpox, which was brought over by the first explorers/colonists.
I'm no expert in the matter, but from what I've read it seems to me that the Mesoamerican civilizations in 1492 were probably at about the military level that the Eurasian civilizations had already reached in the first millenium BC.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a much-discussed topic. All we know of the Basque language is that it is pre-Indo-European. The last time I looked in to this, the consensus was that it was most likely a version of otherwise-extinct ancient Celtic. Now that doesn’t mean that the Basques don’t have a potentially outsized Neanderthal genetic influence, but the odds of their language being so ancient as to pre-exist modern humans entirely is un…
If it has any relation to Celtic languages, then it's Indo-European by definition. We can tell how much neanderthal ancestry someone has, more or less. Basque people have no more than others. Despite their odd language, they are much like other Europeans genetically: a similar mix of European hunter gatherers, Anatolian farmers and the bronze age invaders which we believe brought the IE languages to Europe.
This is what vibe-commenting from memory gets me.
350,000 years of just chilling, picking berries, you die in identical technological and cultural environment as when you were born. Now we got to be around when God is made in a data center