Danger: Humans

[Old Man]

We know his weakness!

[L. Marcus]

Quick! Reverse the AC!

[Lawnmower Boy]

Actually, our ancestors had great difficulties modifying or changing hunting ranges. Once we went all in for stone tools, back in the day of Homo ergaster, ranges were defined by exploitable resources of tool stone, as well as climate and ecosystem. For a very long time, associated with the Acheulean industry, that i s, from 1.76 million years B.P. to roughly 100,000 BP, stone hand tools were made by individuals of limited manual dexterity by striking flakes from cores of suitable stone. This produced undifferentiated cutting tools with edges of perhaps 20cm. Apart from these key implements, the exhausted cores were used as very large oval handaxes and cleavers. There is debate, and much ingenious speculation, about these prevalent but seemingly little used tools or "tools."

 

Because this technique was crude, and depended heavily on stone suitability, human activities centred on frequent returns to suitable stone outcrops; and new ranges could only be established by "colonising" new ranges by the prior discovery of suitable outcroppings. For rapid colonisation of new ranges, for example the settlement of North America, a vastly more sophisticated stonemaking technique, identified archaeologically as "Mode 4," compared with the Acheulean era's Mode 2, was required. It is notably characterised by microliths and ground edges, and allows for curation (maintaining tools to extend their range), and the use of a wider range of lilthic resources.

 

With curation and expedient and skillful exploitation of makeshift resources, our Upper Paleolithic ancestors exploded past a whole series of geological boundaries to become a truly global species. Prior to that, we couldn't even follow the herds into the Americas! And it is all because of tools, tools, tools, tools. The making and use of artefacts, including clothing, is at the core of what we are. The archaeology of our tools (again, I'm arguably being a guy here in focussing on "tools," as there is arguably a gender divide implicit in focussing on stone tools to the exclusion of admittedly less perishable clothing) very strongly suggests that our technique has made us what we are.

 

I cannot stress this enough: "persistence hunting" is at best a goofy digression. At the end of the day, I tend to take a very dim view of it. Yes, it works fine in a given case. Turtles are a hugely productive food source, and you can run them down easily! At the other end of the spectrum, you may very well be able to run down a male antelope in the full bloom of his rack. So, yes, sure: if a particular animal gives good results from a short chase, or disproportionate results from a long one, then chase it. Chasing is fun! Many people have, over the years, discovered the delight of the runner's high while chasing. Nothing matches that exhilerating moment on the trail when it seems like they can run forever.

 

Well, nothing except any of the other common symptoms of mania.* Dancing naked on your roof is fun when you're in that kind of mood, too. Er, or so I'm told. Forgive me for being blunt, the discovery that running is fun is all too often a symptom that you're entering the manic phase of a bipolar episode. Or, God forbid, that you're simulating it with coke or meth. (Stimulants are fun, too: I'm writing this on a caffeine buzz. Cardiac arrest, not so much.) Understand this: crazy people will tell you, and tell you, about how much they love to run, and how everyone should run, and run, and run, and some anthropologists will believe them, and it'll be convincing and persuasive until suddenly you find yourself talking about another contemporary in their mid-forties who suddenly keeled over from a heart attack in spite of being "incredibly healthy, thin and fit, running miles every day."  

 

So, in other words, running is healthy: chasing an antelope while you're doing it can be a constructive way of turning exercise into productive activity. Enjoying it, beyond a certain point, is an indication that you might want to rethink your prescription. You only have to run with a dog for a while to realise that your body is giving you a very clear signal: Oh, hey, dude, this is far enough. Dogs are actual persistent hunters. They love to run, and suffer from being deprived of a chance to do it. Humans, again, not so much: That pain in your side and your feet? That's nature's way of telling you that you need to rethink your hunting/evasion/travelling strategy. That it's time to think about applying your existing techniques, or learning a new one. Car, Bike, bow, canoe, dog, camouflage, gun: there are a million ways of using your brain and your technique to make a living. 

 

Another thing that's in the world is the dismissal and neglect of techique. Back when Dilbert was still funny and original, I remember the Pointy-Haired Boss saying, "Everyone else's job but mine is easy." It's a pretty persistent idea: it goes into managing --if you have no idea how hard it is, you can always blame your subordinates for failing to implement your vision,  and it tends to creep into history, where we decide that all past people must have been pretty dumb. "Hey, why didn't those cavemen just build themselves a fusion reactor and use it to power a meson gun? Bam! Pre-roasted antelope!" It gets a little . . . weird . . . when we start using it to take on airs vis-a-vis prehistoric predators and Alpha Centaurans. It strikes me that the safest approach there is to start out over-estimating any dire wolves and little green people, and work our way up to an earned sense of superiority. If you're going to go that route at all. Self-congratulation does not impress me as a survival technique in general, I've got to say.

 

*Note that I'm not dissing jogging. Just gently suggesting that it works best as exercise for the young, the crazy, and the perhaps over-medicated. There's a reason us middle-aged people tend to rave on about cross-country skiking, kayaks and bikes.  

[Lawnmower Boy]

Er. You'd think that at 51 I'd have learned not to start comments with "Actually." 

 

If you couldn't tell from the above, I've had personal, family experiences with excessive exercise --the kind of excessive (for example) running that I suspect is behind some of the cultishness that surrounds long distance running. Especially the kind that just sounds like someone in a manic state. So I should probably apologise to everyone who is legitimately convinced by the persistence hunting thing, and go work out my issues in private. 

[bigdamnhero]

One of the things pointed out is that Humans can still operate at peak efficiency during the heat of the day; most animals cannot. 3 Hours in high heat at maximum performance is merely a reason for us to drink more water, and is nearly fatal to just about everything else.

True, tho again that would be a fairly minor advantage if it wasn't for our ability to also bring water with us.

 

There's a reason us middle-aged people tend to rave on about cross-country skiking, kayaks and bikes.  

In my case, there are 2 reasons: my back and my knees. I used to love running and genuinely miss it. But you're not wrong about there being a cultish element among long distance runners.

[Nolgroth]

*Note that I'm not dissing jogging. Just gently suggesting that it works best as exercise for the young, the crazy, and the perhaps over-medicated. There's a reason us middle-aged people tend to rave on about cross-country skiking, kayaks and bikes.  

 

And here I was going to say that I like long car rides.

 

Personally, I prefer walking to running, biking, kayaking and let's not even talk about skiing. I can literally walk for about 4-6 hours without a break. Being somewhat tall, I tend to stride that out and can cover a fair distance in that time. Walking lets me see things that driving or some other speedier exercise does not allow. Plus my packed lunch is usually not in too much disarray when I do stop to eat it.

[Ninja-Bear]

On a more serious note, Scientific American several months back had an article laying out evidence that early humans spent an extended period living as shellfish-gatherers along the South African coast. In addition to the physical evidence, the author noted that this well explains humans' peculiar hypersociality and territoriality: Not many animals gather in large cooperative groups, which war on other large cooperative groups.

 

From an economic standpoint, human intragroup loyalty and intergroup hostility makes no sense if you're chasing antelope on the plains of Africa. You don't need dozens or hundreds of people working together to chase antelope; you don't declare that a patch of ground is yours, and nobody else's; you don't stand and fight to the last man to hold onto what is yours, or attack relentlessly to take what another group has. There are always more antelope, and they move.

 

Territorial and group loyalty only makes economic sense -- in the fundamental economy of obtaining food -- if the food source is immobile, and not only large enough to be worth protecting, it's large enough to require a cooperative group to patrol against poachers. And, conversely, large enough to make poaching attractive. A few thousand years of civilization have enabled us to form larger groups, but the primordial instincts remain strong.

 

So how might this affect human relations with aliens? It might be easier to get along with aliens who look less human. If the aliens look too human, they might trigger our instincts of defense and aggression against other tribes.

 

(We also might have trouble understanding aliens that achieved sapience under different ecological/economical conditions, such as a species that really did get its start chasing antelope. The underlying social assumptions and habits of thought might be quite different.)

 

Dean Shomshak

Sounds interesting except it sounds flawed. There aee many animal groups that have a territory and their prey move. Animals fight for dominance all the time.

[FrankL]

No one's mentioned Poul Anderson's The High Crusade yet. A ship full of aliens tries to take over a medieval town, the local Lord and the townsfolk assume they aliens are some sort of demons and attack in a religious frenzy. Turns out the aliens' force fields don't work so good against wood arrows and metal swords, and they haven't actually done any hand-to-hand fighting in generations. They wind up taking the ship from one alien world to another, adding alien tech to their own, and defeating bigger and better armies because everyone keeps underestimating the damn humans in their silly metal coats.

 

That's one of the better examples I've seen of "humans as space orcs." Generally the trope only works if the aliens are really stupid and pathetic, which tends to limit the drama quotient. Or in the hands of lesser writers, the aliens just get improbably stupid - like the aliens in Signs who can travel across light years but can't get out of a locked pantry, and forgot to wear any sort of protective clothing even tho they're allergic to water and our planet has kindof a lot of the stuff...

 

(Adding High Crusade to my reading list)

 

I enjoyed a similar setup in Ranks of Bronze (David Drake) and Foreign Legions (various authors working in the RoB universe). My favorite of the bunch was by David Weber, he expanded his story of 14th century Englishmen being abducted into the novel The Excalibur Alternative.

 

In the RoB universe, the aliens have a treaty stating which levels of tech can be used against unaligned planets. If the planet you are looking to conquer doesn't have gunpowder, you can't attack with guns, lasers, etc. Hand-to-hand weapons only. The treaty drafters thought this would stop some of the aggressive species because none of the aliens wanted to give up their advantage in weapons. There was a forced peace state of nonwar in the galaxy for centuries. Then one of the species went and abducted a group of primitives to work as mercenaries for them. Payment was "you get to live" and "any injury we can fix, except brain or spine trauma." Those primitives were a Roman legion, and the abductors' territory spread. But the Romans just wanted to go home.

 

In TEA, another species finally figures out where the first species got their primitives and abducts their own. These Englishmen eventually overthrow their captors, too. But they don't return to Earth. They start forming alliances with "protected" and unaligned worlds to overthrow the Galactic Federation.

[Christopher]

the interviewer brought up sexual selection. The biologist noted that sexual selection features tend to gender-specific (his example was how only the male cardinal has bright red plumage), and both men and women have chins. 

Men and Women also both still have the basic tissues behind breasts:

"Both females and males develop breasts from the same embryological tissues. At puberty, estrogens, in conjunction with growth hormone, cause breast development. Males do not develop pronounced or physiologically matured breasts because their bodies produce lower levels of estrogens and higher levels of androgens, namely testosterone, which suppress the effects of estrogens in developing breast tissue."

 

A lot of the male & female body is similar until a later stage of (embryonal) development. Or even up into puberty.

The difference is of course that breasts are mostly tissues. While chins are mostly bones. Adapting bone structures takes much more effort then not developing certain fat deposits. Wich also explains how some males manage to get breasts too - not fully functional ones, but the basic shape is there.

 

Our physiological development might just be lagging behind a bit.

 

What if other species view war as diplomacy? "We attack new species to see how they respond. If they unite and resist, even if ineffectually, we cease hostilities and establish diplomatic ties. If they capitulate quickly, we either subjugate them or we don't bother establishing relations."

I thoung about somethign like this in a Superheroic games. Aliens establish mining in the asteroid belt, asuming humanity to not be "far enough" to pose any danger to them. Then superhumans find them, some missconceptions, some fights.

And afterwards they establish diplomacy based on the idea "wait, you ARE a interplanetary species after all? Then you are at least worth talking too".

 

Extrapolating from our one-planet-sample-size, it seems logical to me that alien evolution would result in technologically-advanced species who are selected for tool use, intelligence, and ability to work collaboratively, rather than physical toughness or natural weaponry. Tho obviously this will vary with environment: what seems bad-ass to us, might be barely enough to survive on Deathworld. But either way, by the time you get to space travel, your tech weapons are likely to be so far advanced of whatever nature gave you as to make it largely irrelevant. To put it in game terms, how much do I care that species X has 1/2d6K claws when I'm carrying a 3d6K blaster, or even a 1d6K sword? Let alone a spaceship with a 9d6K beam weapon. Other than the occasional unarmed arena death-match with a Gorn, it's just not going to be that important most of the time.

I too think tool use and crafting is what sets us appart from other species on our planet. The one constant with alien life in sci-fi is that they can do tool use, or tool use by extension.

 

- There was a movie once with alien cats whose collars were Telepathic Universal Transaltors and Telekinetic devices. Not sure if any explanation was ever given.

- In Star Drive 2 we got the Cordrazne/Owlwok combo:

"The Cordrazine are immobile, vain molluscs who use mind-control pheremones to enslave other species. They are native to Cordon Ot in the Cordon system.

The Owlwoks are an avian race native to Cordon Ot. As the first race enslaved by the Cordrazine, they form the workforce on Cordrazine planets."

- There are several movies/episodes of series where aliens use superior mental powers to controll a tool using population, but are pretty helpless themself.

 

I think with tool use it is: "If once you choose this path, forever will it dominate your evolution".

 

We figured out we are pretty good endurancing walkers after all. That does not prevent us from trying to develop power armors/exeoskeletons. Tools wich allow us to lift heavier, carry more and be more endurancing walkers.

 

And nobody seems to really doubt that with Cybertechnology we will start replacing body parts with cyberware just because it is better - even if the meat version is perfectly fine and performing well.

 

 

True, tho again that would be a fairly minor advantage if it wasn't for our ability to also bring water with us.

 

In my case, there are 2 reasons: my back and my knees. I used to love running and genuinely miss it. But you're not wrong about there being a cultish element among long distance runners.

You have to consider that latest with 30 you are way outside what the human species was selected for.

With no real medicine and dependance on hunting our food our life expectancy was a lot lower then it is now. And it just keeps increasing.

 

Early life performance used to be much more important back when selection took place. I think for most parts evolution has not caught up with the changes we made in the last 2 million years, much less the last 100 years. We are basically working with a body that was never designed to life as long as it does.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Men and Women also both still have the basic tissues behind breasts:

"Both females and males develop breasts from the same embryological tissues. At puberty, estrogens, in conjunction with growth hormone, cause breast development. Males do not develop pronounced or physiologically matured breasts because their bodies produce lower levels of estrogens and higher levels of androgens, namely testosterone, which suppress the effects of estrogens in developing breast tissue."

 

A lot of the male & female body is similar until a later stage of (embryonal) development. Or even up into puberty.

The difference is of course that breasts are mostly tissues. While chins are mostly bones. Adapting bone structures takes much more effort then not developing certain fat deposits. Wich also explains how some males manage to get breasts too - not fully functional ones, but the basic shape is there.

 

Our physiological development might just be lagging behind a bit.

 

I thoung about somethign like this in a Superheroic games. Aliens establish mining in the asteroid belt, asuming humanity to not be "far enough" to pose any danger to them. Then superhumans find them, some missconceptions, some fights.

And afterwards they establish diplomacy based on the idea "wait, you ARE a interplanetary species after all? Then you are at least worth talking too".

 

I too think tool use and crafting is what sets us appart from other species on our planet. The one constant with alien life in sci-fi is that they can do tool use, or tool use by extension.

 

- There was a movie once with alien cats whose collars were Telepathic Universal Transaltors and Telekinetic devices. Not sure if any explanation was ever given.

- In Star Drive 2 we got the Cordrazne/Owlwok combo:

"The Cordrazine are immobile, vain molluscs who use mind-control pheremones to enslave other species. They are native to Cordon Ot in the Cordon system.

The Owlwoks are an avian race native to Cordon Ot. As the first race enslaved by the Cordrazine, they form the workforce on Cordrazine planets."

- There are several movies/episodes of series where aliens use superior mental powers to controll a tool using population, but are pretty helpless themself.

 

I think with tool use it is: "If once you choose this path, forever will it dominate your evolution".

 

We figured out we are pretty good endurancing walkers after all. That does not prevent us from trying to develop power armors/exeoskeletons. Tools wich allow us to lift heavier, carry more and be more endurancing walkers.

 

And nobody seems to really doubt that with Cybertechnology we will start replacing body parts with cyberware just because it is better - even if the meat version is perfectly fine and performing well.

 

 

You have to consider that latest with 30 you are way outside what the human species was selected for.

With no real medicine and dependance on hunting our food our life expectancy was a lot lower then it is now. And it just keeps increasing.

 

Early life performance used to be much more important back when selection took place. I think for most parts evolution has not caught up with the changes we made in the last 2 million years, much less the last 100 years. We are basically working with a body that was never designed to life as long as it does.

Human life expectancy at birth is historicallly low. Male life expectancy at maturity was 64 from the beginning of reliable records up to the late Nineteenth Century and past. Female life expectancy is lower, but it has been persuasively argued that grandmothers are a key evolutionary development, as otherwise, why menopause?

[Christopher]

Human life expectancy at birth is historicallly low. Male life expectancy at maturity was 64 from the beginning of reliable records up to the late Nineteenth Century and past. Female life expectancy is lower, but it has been persuasively argued that grandmothers are a key evolutionary development, as otherwise, why menopause?

Wikipedia has this to say:

"In the Western world, the typical age of menopause (last period from natural causes) is between 40 and 61^[23] and the average age for last period is 51 years.^[24] The average age of natural menopause in Australia is 51.7 years.^[25] In India and the Philippines, the median age of natural menopause is considerably earlier, at 44 years.^[26]"

 

On a related topic, clothing, shame and small families:

I always asumed shame was a cultural development that just got out of hand. But I read something that sugests otherwise:

As child mortality drops it is more beneficial to spend a lot time/child raising a few children, then little time/child on a big family. Those extra children were only there for Redundancy purposes. Shame and the wearing of clothing is a "turn off" to makng more children when you already got a few*.

 

I also never heard of any hunter species out-reproducing it's prey. A pack is more likely to split up then overtax it's resources. The whole concept of young males leaving the pack to find thier own seems to work into that.

All in all it appears all hunter species have a natural protection against reproducing too much. Wich would result in them wiping out thier prey and thus themself.

And I consider the humans a hunter species.**

 

We got a unique position to check some theories: We got numbers from anything between 1st and 3rd world countries.

In a way 1st world countries are very succesfull. But they also start to face overaging of the population and fewer children being born every year.

In turn in 3rd world countries childbirth is still based on a "the more we have, the more likely 1-2 will get through" mechanic.

It is a bit surprising that in 2nd to 3rd world countries menopause starts earlier - I would have guessed later for them. It might be mostly due to more wear and worse living conditions. The menopause could simply be there because no further pregnancy would be viable and might endanger the already existing children (by danger of taking out the mother).

 

 

*As usual our brain development is lagging behind with the times.

Contraception has not yet fully integrated into our subconscious as it is fairly new. Thus we might see a reduction in shame the next few generations as it becomes unessesary.

 

 

**Actually, do prey species have such a protection? Afaik hunting was only implemented because we wiped out the natural predators, resulting in excesive growth of prey populations.

Our Sci Fi stories always imply we will be attacked by another hunter species. Because that is what "another hunter with advantage would do". Indeed what we humans did to ourself.

But what if the hunters developed towards natural equilibrium, while a prey species (who lack any such protection) would be the most expansionistic force? One of the most destructive species in Star Trek are the Tribbles, a prey species.

[pinecone]

Wikipedia has this to say:

"In the Western world, the typical age of menopause (last period from natural causes) is between 40 and 61^[23] and the average age for last period is 51 years.^[24] The average age of natural menopause in Australia is 51.7 years.^[25] In India and the Philippines, the median age of natural menopause is considerably earlier, at 44 years.^[26]"

 

On a related topic, clothing, shame and small families:

I always asumed shame was a cultural development that just got out of hand. But I read something that sugests otherwise:

As child mortality drops it is more beneficial to spend a lot time/child raising a few children, then little time/child on a big family. Those extra children were only there for Redundancy purposes. Shame and the wearing of clothing is a "turn off" to makng more children when you already got a few*.

 

I also never heard of any hunter species out-reproducing it's prey. A pack is more likely to split up then overtax it's resources. The whole concept of young males leaving the pack to find thier own seems to work into that.

All in all it appears all hunter species have a natural protection against reproducing too much. Wich would result in them wiping out thier prey and thus themself.

And I consider the humans a hunter species.**

 

We got a unique position to check some theories: We got numbers from anything between 1st and 3rd world countries.

In a way 1st world countries are very succesfull. But they also start to face overaging of the population and fewer children being born every year.

In turn in 3rd world countries childbirth is still based on a "the more we have, the more likely 1-2 will get through" mechanic.

It is a bit surprising that in 2nd to 3rd world countries menopause starts earlier - I would have guessed later for them. It might be mostly due to more wear and worse living conditions. The menopause could simply be there because no further pregnancy would be viable and might endanger the already existing children (by danger of taking out the mother).

 

 

*As usual our brain development is lagging behind with the times.

Contraception has not yet fully integrated into our subconscious as it is fairly new. Thus we might see a reduction in shame the next few generations as it becomes unessesary.

 

 

**Actually, do prey species have such a protection? Afaik hunting was only implemented because we wiped out the natural predators, resulting in excesive growth of prey populations.

Our Sci Fi stories always imply we will be attacked by another hunter species. Because that is what "another hunter with advantage would do". Indeed what we humans did to ourself.

But what if the hunters developed towards natural equilibrium, while a prey species (who lack any such protection) would be the most expansionistic force? One of the most destructive species in Star Trek are the Tribbles, a prey species.

One possable "story of our evolution" would be that humans are a prey species that learned how to kill preditors a little too well. Thus most surviving preditors tend to fear humans, but by eliminating predation, we opened a pandora's box, as other prey animals out competed us for food, so we adopted predation as a new survival strategy.

[bigdamnhero]

In a way 1st world countries are very succesfull. But they also start to face overaging of the population and fewer children being born every year.

Falling birth rates in developed countries has lagged significantly behind declining child mortality rates, and in some cases has been a seriously uphill fight requiring government promotion or outright restrictions (ie China). So I'm not sure how much we can credit evolution for that particular adaptation.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Falling birth rates in developed countries has lagged significantly behind declining child mortality rates, and in some cases has been a seriously uphill fight requiring government promotion or outright restrictions (ie China). So I'm not sure how much we can credit evolution for that particular adaptation.

 

Eh. The birth rates in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and South Koreas are all well within the same range as that of the People's Republic. For all the ink spilled on the One Child Family Policy, it seems as though it was working with the cultural tides, and not against it. The lag between decline in child mortality and decllining birth rate is certainly significant --we've had this thing called the "world population explosion" as a result; but if we haven't moved into the realm of population decline, we will by the end of the next century --three human generations, at most.

 

Also, put me down as being a bit skeptical that clothes have some kind of sex-reducing functionality. It seems a bit naive about how fashion works.

[bigdamnhero]

I agree re the questionable effectiveness of the whole One Child policy. I'm just saying I think declining birth rates seem to be a humans-affecting-our-environment thing more than an environment-affecting-us-humans thing. Tho granted those are not mutually exclusive.

[Christopher]

One possable "story of our evolution" would be that humans are a prey species that learned how to kill preditors a little too well. Thus most surviving preditors tend to fear humans, but by eliminating predation, we opened a pandora's box, as other prey animals out competed us for food, so we adopted predation as a new survival strategy.

It is know that chimps do eat flesh too, so we got the omnivorous part from them.

They are not exactly hunters (thier bodies are not designed for it), but they are known to have annoyed lone predators out of thier kills, so they could get some flesh.

 

Eating flesh might have made (thier and our) higher intelligence possible, as eating plants is quite inefficient:

https://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/do-apes-eat-meat/

 

Falling birth rates in developed countries has lagged significantly behind declining child mortality rates, and in some cases has been a seriously uphill fight requiring government promotion or outright restrictions (ie China). So I'm not sure how much we can credit evolution for that particular adaptation.

China might be a bad (or good) example, because it effectively belongs into multiple worlds:

Thier cities are like 1st world countries no doubt.

But there are still a lot of rural areas, where people are subsitence farmers as they used to be 100 years ago. They are certainly developing away from that.

 

I am also not sure every change is evolution. Evolution normally takes long times, not a few generations. What I talk about is adaption:

There is evidence of short term Adaption in other species. For example some migratory birds are show to be able loose thier migration instinct (due to global warming) in as little as 50 years (only a bunch of generations, not hundreds):

http://www.wired.com/2010/04/migration-adaptation/ (wired.com requires turning off addblockers or registering to read it all)

It appears they never lost thier ability to "just stay home" out of thier genome. We have to see if other species start migrating.

 

We also know they will be able to adapt to something as minor as the magnetic field flipping, wich should in theory utterly wreck thier migration. But they already survived thousands of them.

 

As to the birthrate/child mortality ratio:

We manage to change our circumstances as a species faster then any biological mechanisms could catch up with, even an adaptation. This is compounded by our already long generationnal pattern. I don't know of many animal species that need 1.5-2 decades to become fertile.

 

I am certain it will catch up, but we might have to jumpstart it a bit.

China's 1, 1.5* and 2 child policies seem to be directed at jumpstarting this adaptation/social change. Making the jump from rural to urban & industrial life for so many people in such a short time could have been disaterous for the population number without that rule around.

 

*A second child is allowed if one parent was a only child

 

Also, put me down as being a bit skeptical that clothes have some kind of sex-reducing functionality. It seems a bit naive about how fashion works.

Not exactly clothing itself. Shame.

Sure there are sexy clothings. But you know what actually makes them sexy? The person in them having the self esteem and self certainty to wear them. Being shy in whatever you wear and do is makes you unatractive, being not shy makes you atractive.

 

"Theiss Titliation Theory" says: "The sexiness of an outfit is directly proportional to the possibility that a vital piece of it might fall off."

I would add: "But only if the person wearing it shows no fear/shame of a possible clothing malfunction while wearing it." During filming that is kind of easy, because they can just cut out/scenery censor any accidents.

 

I realised that when I saw a young women with a face scar. It was dominating one side of her face, but she did not even try to hide it. She wore her hair in a bun so nothing was covered up (despite her being able too hide at least half of it) and she did not seem to be bothered about it in her interactions with others.

The natural instinct with face scars is to hide them, distract from them. But her lack of shame - her certainty in showing it - made her more atractive then the women around her.

[bigdamnhero]

I am also not sure every change is evolution. Evolution normally takes long times, not a few generations. What I talk about is adaption:

Important distinction, I agree.

 

China might be a bad (or good) example, because it effectively belongs into multiple worlds:

Thier cities are like 1st world countries no doubt.

But there are still a lot of rural areas, where people are subsitence farmers as they used to be 100 years ago. They are certainly developing away from that.

Also a good point. Tho I suspect the driving factor is less about urban-vs-rural than it is about access to modern healthcare - tho granted the latter often correlates with urban living.

[bigdamnhero]

FYI, I was listening to a podcast earlier and picked up a couple factoids today that made me think about our discussion on "endurance hunting:"

1. Bipedal walking requires significantly fewer calories than quadrupedal walking, so we have a huge advantage right there. In fact the author believes walking upright was what allowed our ancestors to evolve larger/smarter brains, because we suddenly had extra calories to spare. (Brains require a lot of energy per mass.)
2. Because cooking our food frees up more calories, we don't have to spend as much of our day gathering/eating/etc food. The example given was that gorillas spent 8-9 hours out of every day just trying to get enough calories to survive.

So basically the animals we're chasing are not only burning proportionally more calories than we are, we're also cutting into the time they have available to get more calories. And that's before you count in agriculture and the ability to carry food & water with us.

[Christopher]

FYI, I was listening to a podcast earlier and picked up a couple factoids today that made me think about our discussion on "endurance hunting:"

1. Bipedal walking requires significantly fewer calories than quadrupedal walking, so we have a huge advantage right there. In fact the author believes walking upright was what allowed our ancestors to evolve larger/smarter brains, because we suddenly had extra calories to spare. (Brains require a lot of energy per mass.)
2. Because cooking our food frees up more calories, we don't have to spend as much of our day gathering/eating/etc food. The example given was that gorillas spent 8-9 hours out of every day just trying to get enough calories to survive.

So basically the animals we're chasing are not only burning proportionally more calories than we are, we're also cutting into the time they have available to get more calories. And that's before you count in agriculture and the ability to carry food & water with us.

That gives me some intersting thoughts.

Apes actually were the first ones to use 2-limbed longrange motion - using thier arms to swing along branches and lianes.

2 limbed locomotion promotes intelligence.

Not only from calories point, but also from the point of motoric complexity. It is a lot harder to keep balance with only 2 limbs. Doubly so when the medium you move along is as unstable as branches and lianes (so you need to be able to gauge danger and stability quickly).

 

They were also the first to develop manipulatory hands (as a result of using arms to swing).

Hands once again promote intelligence. Tool use allows a species to far exceed thier natural limitations.

 

I asume bipedal locomotion has disadvantages in sprinting over 4 limbed. But with tools or the save haven of trees throw in, we do not need to sprint as much.

 

 

Farming/Ranching appears to be a natural instict that some animals are known to develop instinctively:

http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2016/06/13/0794-raccoon-facts

[Cancer]

That gives me some intersting thoughts.

Apes actually were the first ones to use 2-limbed longrange motion - ...

No; that distinction goes to the bipedal dinosaurs (which survived as birds), a hundred million years or two earlier.

 

The celebrated raptor pack hunters were clearly pretty intelligent and almost certainly social, but they didn't develop use of fire.

[Lucius]

No; that distinction goes to the bipedal dinosaurs (which survived as birds), a hundred million years or two earlier.

 

The celebrated raptor pack hunters were clearly pretty intelligent and almost certainly social, but they didn't develop use of fire.

Who did develop the use of fire?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary wants to ask about the other three elements

[Christopher]

No; that distinction goes to the bipedal dinosaurs (which survived as birds), a hundred million years or two earlier.

 

The celebrated raptor pack hunters were clearly pretty intelligent and almost certainly social, but they didn't develop use of fire.

Maybe the corelation si more Endurance Hunting breeds intelligence?

Pack maneuvers (and thus social interaction) and endurance hunting corellate. It is a lot easier to do in a pack.

If I rememeber right, Dolphins are pack hunters, highly social and vexingly intelligent for thier ecological niche. Could it being enduring swimmers/divers like whals but much smaler makes them able to archieve that?

 

Birds seem to be the only exception where it comes to social hunting.

But then again they have to be build ultra-leightweight wich is bound to have negative effects on intelligence viability. Having the skies "mostly to themself" also gives them superior suprise strike abilities.*

 

*Actually why does everyone think the Snake is like a D&D Rogue?

The Snake usually warns you before it strikes unless it is hunting.

The birds however are just waiting for a opening to strike at you from the open sky, a direction you can not defend against.

 

Who did develop the use of fire?

Humans.

 

While we do not have natural fire powers of any sort, we did develop manipulator limbs. Wich allows us to control and use fire perfectly fine, propably better then any animal with the ability. We learned to control it so well, we do not even need a endothermic reaction anymore - just waste heat from superheated metal is far enough.

 

Anything we learned to control using our hands is effectively a part of us humans as much as the claw and beak is part of a bird.

Saying without tools the "humans would be defenseless" is as useless as saying "without gills, the shark would drown" - duh! That is why each one developed the respective ability!

[bigdamnhero]

Maybe the corelation si more Endurance Hunting breeds intelligence?

I doubt it. "Endurance hunting" is only possible if you're able to carry food and water with you, so by definition it must follow the development of tool use, rather than preceding it. Personally I'm still skeptical that endurance hunting has ever been anything more than a sport or the occasional one-off; the cost of calories expended relative to the calories captured is still far too low to make it an effective survival strategy. And in evolutionary terms it's all about calorie efficiency.

 

The correlation as I understand it is that because walking upright burns fewer calories, more calories can be diverted to brain development (tho the author was clear that this is still somewhat speculative). Walking upright also means you can carry tools in your hands. And once we started cooking our food, we had to spend significantly less time chasing calories, and could spend more time on things like developing better tools, art, social organization, and sharing cat pictures.

 

Being able to walk a long ways does mean you can greatly expand your hunting area, which is a huge advantage. So yes endurance matters, but not in an "I'm going to follow this gazelle for three days until it collapses" kind of way.

[pinecone]

I doubt it. "Endurance hunting" is only possible if you're able to carry food and water with you, so by definition it must follow the development of tool use, rather than preceding it. Personally I'm still skeptical that endurance hunting has ever been anything more than a sport or the occasional one-off; the cost of calories expended relative to the calories captured is still far too low to make it an effective survival strategy. And in evolutionary terms it's all about calorie efficiency.

 

The correlation as I understand it is that because walking upright burns fewer calories, more calories can be diverted to brain development (tho the author was clear that this is still somewhat speculative). Walking upright also means you can carry tools in your hands. And once we started cooking our food, we had to spend significantly less time chasing calories, and could spend more time on things like developing better tools, art, social organization, and sharing cat pictures.

 

Being able to walk a long ways does mean you can greatly expand your hunting area, which is a huge advantage. So yes endurance matters, but not in an "I'm going to follow this gazelle for three days until it collapses" kind of way.

Just jumping in a bit Cursorial hunting Is a "thing"...I saw a documentary on Kalahari tribesmen using it. 4 dudes got an antelope, in open terrain in a Hour or so. (!) Antelope can run super fast, but not for long. Basicly one fellow ran at it yelling "I'm going to eat you!" and chased it a while, driving it towards another hunter...etc The Antelope went into thermal shock, and was just standing there shaking, one hunter just shoved it over, and stabbed it in the neck. None of the hunters were even winded. They explained they only kill something so big for parties and the like.

 

Very impressive.

[womble]

I doubt it. "Endurance hunting" is only possible if you're able to carry food and water with you, so by definition it must follow the development of tool use, rather than preceding it. Personally I'm still skeptical that endurance hunting has ever been anything more than a sport or the occasional one-off; the cost of calories expended relative to the calories captured is still far too low to make it an effective survival strategy. And in evolutionary terms it's all about calorie efficiency.

The calories in one ungulate that weighs in at twice a human's body mass far exceed the calories that would be expended by a solo hunter running it down and spearing it when it collapses from exhaustion. Or even 4 hunters working as a team for an hour to drive the thing to physiological collapse.

 

It's still not as calorie-efficient, as driving an entire herd off a cliff, or trapping, or any number of other hunting strategies, but you wouldn't endurance hunt "small" prey and arguing that the return would not compensate for the expenditure is shaky ground.