201–210 of 277 posts
430,000 years? Am I reading this headline correctly? (since the site seems to have fallen victim to the HN-hug-of-death). That seems wildly further back than I understood humans to have tools, or even homo sapiens to have existed. ETA: Today I learned I had a much much larger gap in knowledge than I thought I did. Thanks to everyone for the information and links!
What if the meaning / definition of ETA when used like this?
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We are far more subtle and targeted about it as a whole, possibly due to our social structures. As vapid as the movie (intentionally) is, "Mean Girls" does a really good break-down of things, and perhaps the main issue is that unlike some other animal groups, people don't always stop .
No. We simply engage in cost-benefit analysis, because we have limited resources. Entirely wiping out an enemy population can be incredibly risky as they'll try to also wipe you out in response. It consumes enormous resources as people on your own side get killed, your resources get used up, etc. It weakens your group making you more vulnerable to attack from third parties. Most of the time, it's just bad strategy. Y…
Which is why you either wipe out the whole population, or not at all.
If you have the type of enemy that holds a grudge across generations, that is.
Should be true for hominids. I have no theory for the wolves.
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No. We simply engage in cost-benefit analysis, because we have limited resources. Entirely wiping out an enemy population can be incredibly risky as they'll try to also wipe you out in response. It consumes enormous resources as people on your own side get killed, your resources get used up, etc. It weakens your group making you more vulnerable to attack from third parties. Most of the time, it's just bad strategy. Y…
> Entirely wiping out an enemy population can be incredibly risky as they'll try to also wipe you out in response Which is why you either wipe out the whole population, or not at all. If you have the type of enemy that holds a grudge across generations, that is. Should be true for hominids. I have no theory for the wolves.
Huh? Most of human history is battles here and there -- gain a little more land and stop, deter the enemy then stop, maybe conquer some people and rule them and extract some resources rather than kill them. Not total peace vs genocide. The idea of it being all-or-nothing is neither usually reality nor usually good strategy.
Ok, since I moved to the US from Europe a few years ago my perception of wood has changed a lot, especially for construction. Seeing this reinforces my view. Wood lasts for fucking ever under the proper conditions. Old construction in Europe often only had the beams made of wood, and I always thought that was orders of magnitude more durable than wooden houses, like thousands of years vs decades. I don’t think that’s…
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Perhaps it's always been burning, since the world's been turning?
In Utah it's 4:20PM
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It's not totally a "decision" on the part of the Americans to use a lot of wood in construction. It's just that America has tons of space, including space useful for growing Douglas Fir and Southern Yellow Pine, which then can be turned in to 2x4s and other construction lumber. Most of Europe long ago exhausted easily accessible natural forest resources, and where it's not densely populated tends to prefer using land…
While some lumber production happens in the United States, most lumber is imported from Canada. That's because while the USA does have good tracts of land on which lumber is grown, Canada has much, much more. This is why you see "Made in Canada" stamped on quite a lot of plywood and plenty of timer used in residential construction. The part that I don't quite know how to make sense of is why Canadian producers seem t…
Sandpaper requires specific grades of corundum; Ontario happens to have several notable large deposits of extremely fit-for-purpose corundum. The Canadian deposits were also a conveniently close source for what would become America's largest abrasives products producer, 3M, after its attempt to mine corundum in Minnesota failed (3M stands for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing company).
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We are far more subtle and targeted about it as a whole, possibly due to our social structures. As vapid as the movie (intentionally) is, "Mean Girls" does a really good break-down of things, and perhaps the main issue is that unlike some other animal groups, people don't always stop .
No. We simply engage in cost-benefit analysis, because we have limited resources. Entirely wiping out an enemy population can be incredibly risky as they'll try to also wipe you out in response. It consumes enormous resources as people on your own side get killed, your resources get used up, etc. It weakens your group making you more vulnerable to attack from third parties. Most of the time, it's just bad strategy. Y…
Mostly that there's a lot that goes on in society where a single person can't necessarily genocide a 'race' but a single person can certainly fuck up a single person of family's life over the long term intentionally and not care, even if doing so does not gain them any real advantage.
But hey if you want to look at 'bigger picture', 'societal' cruelty...
Reaching even further back than WW2, we may look at the Armenian Genocide and the circumstances.
> You don't need to invent instincts or tendencies or claim something is more subtle or targeted when the vastly simpler explanation is just that it's all just cost-benefit.
Part of the human condition used to be the idea that we had evolved beyond short term cost-benefit, however the last 15 years, might be proving you right.
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No, but I do think it more likely they got a more accurate world history class somewhere along the line. I was taught creationism thanks to the conservatism nature of my family and the area I grew up in. It took a long while to know and accept the world (and universe) is as old as it is.
I went through public elementary and high school. The amount of world history taught there is vanishingly small. Just for fun, ask some high schoolers who were the major combatants in WW2.
That is an example of poor teaching of historical facts. It's bad (especially in our current times when people have forgotten the perils of fascism), but it's different than what the GP describes, which sounds like the biblical literalist timeline of life on Earth (with creation happening only 6000 years ago).
That is not just poor education, but instead direct contradiction of widely understood knowledge that much of our modern world is built on.
To use your WW2 example, it's similar to explicitly teaching someone that the Holocaust didn't happen. Or in the scientific realm teaching that the earth is flat.