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This guys' videos are amazing. If anything should convince you that humans are a uniquely terrifying species it's these videos. Walking into the forest with not

by bane 11y ago

This guys' videos are amazing. If anything should convince you that humans are a uniquely terrifying species it's these videos. Walking into the forest with nothing more on that a pair of shorts and a brain, he makes fire, tools, building supplies, ceramics, and entire living structures. The technology he produces by himself is almost on par with many pre-industrial revolution societies where metals (even though they had them) were too expensive to waste on building shelters. For example, if he designed things a little differently, this would pretty much be what the average Korean, now one of the most technologically sophisticated civilizations in the world, lived in up until the late 20th century [1]: tiled roofs, wooden framed houses (they interlocked with notches instead of twine), raised floors with underfloor heating (still copied in modern apartments), earth packed exterior walls. If he had time to pulp wood and make paper he could do interior finishing, and the addition of maybe 1 or 2 precision metal tools he could square off wood work even better and maybe even produce nicer floors. In many civilizations, metal cookware was simply seen as more durable alternatives to ceramic cookware and even followed similar design motifs [2], it can sometimes be difficult to tell from far away if something is a bronze or ceramic pot they often look so similar [3] Pre-industrial revolution, human-scale technology can get pretty impressive, humans managed to settle an entire planet and all of its climates with not much more than the product of their hands, some ideas and a little patience -- basically what this guy has done. If aliens were to kidnap a thousand pre-Industrial Revolution random humans from around Earth and dump them off on a suitable, but empty world. They'd have it all colonized and populated in probably 10,000-20,000 years. That's not even geologic timescale. Terrifying. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanok https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanok 2 - https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=ancient%20chinese%20ceramic%20bronze&tbs=imgo:1 https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=ancient%20chinese%2... 3 - http://www.users.qwest.net/~rjbphx/BigPicture/PotteryGild.JPG http://www.users.qwest.net/~rjbphx/BigPicture/PotteryGild.JP...

Vespasian 11y ago
I absolutely agree with your assessment that this shows the real terrifying gifts of the human brain. What we have to consider when comparing this work to pre-industrial societies, is that he had not to concern himself with getting enough food for the next day. The tremendous powers of the brain can only be unlocked once the body gets sufficient nutrition.
- bane 11y ago
  Yeah, absolutely. Even with unlimited food at his disposal, it still took 5-6 months to do this. It gets easier with more humans, because some of them can specialize in exchange for the energy gathered by other specialists (hunters, farmers, etc.). You can have a guy specialize in nothing but cutting wood, or in nothing but making tiles. Get enough humans together and you develop enough spare capacity to dedicate a few percent of your population to mine for ore and now you get metals, which give you even more spare capacity over short-lived stone and wood tools and the technological ball rolls on and on picking up more and more speed.
  - pauletienney 11y ago
    Elon Musk and his teams estimate that 1 million people on Mars would be enough to be earth-independant.
    - Someone 11y ago
      At what level of industrialization? I find it hard to believe that, for example, one can build a 20nm chip fab with a million people, keep a fleet of emergency helicopters operational (you would need only a few, and that makes it harder to do) or launch a set of GPS satellites.
    - cryoshon 11y ago
      I'd estimate less. Either way, the main problem is hauling all those people and all that shit from here to there. 6 months is a long space journey.
      - tim333 11y ago
        By the time we get to Mars we'll have pretty good robots. It's much easier to support them which is why they are trundling Mars as we speak and humans are decades off. It'd probably be a handful of people and a lot of robots.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
logfromblammo 11y ago
The thing that terrifies me is that the law in many industrialized countries would consider the structure that he built to be unfit for human habitation, due to multiple severe building code violations. 100 years ago, it would have been an acceptable dwelling, or even desirable. Thanks to the pace of progress, in just 50 years, houses built to today's standards might be considered too primitive for human habitation. And you have to wonder what is going to be invented before then that will make us look at the homes we are living in right now and think, "How did I ever live in such a backwards, primitive building?" We might not even realize the importance of it right away. If you think about an indoor flushing toilet, it doesn't seem all that remarkable, but now every residence needs to have at least one. Grid power wiring isn't all that glamorous, but every home has it. The thing that changes everything might be boring at first glance. And that's terrifying. A human can see a device with the power to change the entire world and still say, "meh." And also aliens would probably need to kidnap at least 10000 in order to maintain a stable breeding population. Otherwise, the humans would have to establish some pretty strict rules against monogamy and inbreeding, and the aliens would have to carefully select a very diverse group to begin with.
- kragen 11y ago
  That's not progress; that's addiction to luxury and oppression. That's the opposite of progress.
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    A 30-story apartment building is not practical without indoor plumbing, structural steel, and grid power. The tallest dwellings prior to those maxed out at around 5 stories. What qualifies as progress is a matter of opinion, but generally speaking, denser cities produce more rapid technological innovation. I have no way of knowing whether the new mystery tech would make dwellings taller, or cheaper, or more environmentally friendly, or more mobile, or more self-sufficient, or better workspaces. It's the sort of thing that is only obvious in hindsight. It may already be invented, but does not yet have a practical and economical application. Whatever it is, it might require a cartel enforcer to mandate it in order to yield greater benefit for the society as a whole. You're not being oppressed when the city forces you to give up your well and septic system and connect to the municipal water and sewer. In theory, you're achieving greater gains through (enforced) cooperation with your neighbors. In practice, you may be oppressed by official corruption in such a way that it wipes that common benefit out. And luxury is relative. The poorest person in the U.S. can have a better defecation experience in a public park toilet than the richest king in the world could have had on his private, hand-carved night-stool 500 years ago. One day soon, it might be considered luxury to crap in a hole in the dirt... on Mars--as the alternative would be to do it in a pressurized closet, into a machine that recycles the water out of it and turns the rest into agricultural compost.
WalterBright 11y ago
The first US intercontinental railroad was built with muscle. The only exceptions were blasting powder was used in the tunnels, and supplies were brought up by train. The digging, grading, and road bed construction were done by hand with pick and shovel.
Gravityloss 11y ago
There are probably lots of settler novels, but I found Vilhelm Moberg's books the most captivating things I've ever read. They are largely based on some Swedish settlers' diaries from the 1800s in northern USA. Bootstrapping from very modest means, but in a very rich land (climate, soil, water, forest etc). It took a while to reach equivalent standard of living compared to the Southern Sweden they left. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emigrants_%28novels%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emigrants_%28novels%29
cryoshon 11y ago
10,000 years is only 500 generations. Consider that we usually have reliable ties from the present going back 4-6 generations (our great grandparents, assuming everyone must age to be older than 20 before reproducing) and you realize that we're privy to a shocking 1% view of human civilization timewise. Amazing! My grandparents grew up without running water, as did everyone before them.
- wlesieutre 11y ago
  With some exceptions, like well off Ancient Romans.
  - iswim 11y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso

by bane 11y ago

Vespasian 11y ago

I absolutely agree with your assessment that this shows the real terrifying gifts of the human brain. What we have to consider when comparing this work to pre-industrial societies, is that he had not to concern himself with getting enough food for the next day. The tremendous powers of the brain can only be unlocked once the body gets sufficient nutrition.

bane 11y ago
Yeah, absolutely. Even with unlimited food at his disposal, it still took 5-6 months to do this. It gets easier with more humans, because some of them can specialize in exchange for the energy gathered by other specialists (hunters, farmers, etc.). You can have a guy specialize in nothing but cutting wood, or in nothing but making tiles. Get enough humans together and you develop enough spare capacity to dedicate a few percent of your population to mine for ore and now you get metals, which give you even more spare capacity over short-lived stone and wood tools and the technological ball rolls on and on picking up more and more speed.
- pauletienney 11y ago
  Elon Musk and his teams estimate that 1 million people on Mars would be enough to be earth-independant.
  - Someone 11y ago
    At what level of industrialization? I find it hard to believe that, for example, one can build a 20nm chip fab with a million people, keep a fleet of emergency helicopters operational (you would need only a few, and that makes it harder to do) or launch a set of GPS satellites.
  - cryoshon 11y ago
    I'd estimate less. Either way, the main problem is hauling all those people and all that shit from here to there. 6 months is a long space journey.
    - tim333 11y ago
      By the time we get to Mars we'll have pretty good robots. It's much easier to support them which is why they are trundling Mars as we speak and humans are decades off. It'd probably be a handful of people and a lot of robots.
sliverstorm 11y ago

logfromblammo 11y ago

The thing that terrifies me is that the law in many industrialized countries would consider the structure that he built to be unfit for human habitation, due to multiple severe building code violations. 100 years ago, it would have been an acceptable dwelling, or even desirable. Thanks to the pace of progress, in just 50 years, houses built to today's standards might be considered too primitive for human habitation. And you have to wonder what is going to be invented before then that will make us look at the homes we are living in right now and think, "How did I ever live in such a backwards, primitive building?" We might not even realize the importance of it right away. If you think about an indoor flushing toilet, it doesn't seem all that remarkable, but now every residence needs to have at least one. Grid power wiring isn't all that glamorous, but every home has it. The thing that changes everything might be boring at first glance. And that's terrifying. A human can see a device with the power to change the entire world and still say, "meh." And also aliens would probably need to kidnap at least 10000 in order to maintain a stable breeding population. Otherwise, the humans would have to establish some pretty strict rules against monogamy and inbreeding, and the aliens would have to carefully select a very diverse group to begin with.

kragen 11y ago
That's not progress; that's addiction to luxury and oppression. That's the opposite of progress.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  A 30-story apartment building is not practical without indoor plumbing, structural steel, and grid power. The tallest dwellings prior to those maxed out at around 5 stories. What qualifies as progress is a matter of opinion, but generally speaking, denser cities produce more rapid technological innovation. I have no way of knowing whether the new mystery tech would make dwellings taller, or cheaper, or more environmentally friendly, or more mobile, or more self-sufficient, or better workspaces. It's the sort of thing that is only obvious in hindsight. It may already be invented, but does not yet have a practical and economical application. Whatever it is, it might require a cartel enforcer to mandate it in order to yield greater benefit for the society as a whole. You're not being oppressed when the city forces you to give up your well and septic system and connect to the municipal water and sewer. In theory, you're achieving greater gains through (enforced) cooperation with your neighbors. In practice, you may be oppressed by official corruption in such a way that it wipes that common benefit out. And luxury is relative. The poorest person in the U.S. can have a better defecation experience in a public park toilet than the richest king in the world could have had on his private, hand-carved night-stool 500 years ago. One day soon, it might be considered luxury to crap in a hole in the dirt... on Mars--as the alternative would be to do it in a pressurized closet, into a machine that recycles the water out of it and turns the rest into agricultural compost.

WalterBright 11y ago

The first US intercontinental railroad was built with muscle. The only exceptions were blasting powder was used in the tunnels, and supplies were brought up by train. The digging, grading, and road bed construction were done by hand with pick and shovel.

Gravityloss 11y ago

There are probably lots of settler novels, but I found Vilhelm Moberg's books the most captivating things I've ever read. They are largely based on some Swedish settlers' diaries from the 1800s in northern USA. Bootstrapping from very modest means, but in a very rich land (climate, soil, water, forest etc). It took a while to reach equivalent standard of living compared to the Southern Sweden they left. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emigrants_%28novels%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emigrants_%28novels%29

cryoshon 11y ago

10,000 years is only 500 generations. Consider that we usually have reliable ties from the present going back 4-6 generations (our great grandparents, assuming everyone must age to be older than 20 before reproducing) and you realize that we're privy to a shocking 1% view of human civilization timewise. Amazing! My grandparents grew up without running water, as did everyone before them.

wlesieutre 11y ago
With some exceptions, like well off Ancient Romans.
- iswim 11y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso