3 ms·

> Homo Erectus: 1 million B.C. to about 500,000 B.C. Can you imagine the period of sheer..uneventfulness? It's an indescribable unease for me, imagining a pla

> Homo Erectus: 1 million B.C. to about 500,000 B.C. Can you imagine the period of sheer..uneventfulness? It's an indescribable unease for me, imagining a planet where nothing really happens, just animals doing their thing... Even worse if you're a semi-sapient species, with just enough awareness to know that things could be better, but not seeing any improvement in your entire life.. I mean, imagine us staying basically the same for the next 50 years, with nothing really changing in human society, let alone a 100 years, let alone a 1000... > there were multiple species of humans in existence, of which only one survived If there were other sentient species on this planet co-existing with us, we probably killed them all.

kevml 7y ago
If someone traveled from 1200 AD to 1700 AD their lives would not be much different. The biggest change would be the New World. If someone traveled from 1919 to 2019 their mind would be blown.
- blisterpeanuts 7y ago
  and imagine traveling from 2019 to 2119. It will probably be almost unrecognizable to us. My daughter was born in 2004; she might live to 2119. Almost certainly, barring accidents, will live to see the 22nd Century. I only hope that she'll like it. There are so many dystopian predictions -- nanotech killers, evil AI, war.... I just pray that the world she and future generations inherit will be worth living in.
- gsich 7y ago
  >If someone traveled from 1919 to 2019 their mind would be blown. Yes, but not for long.
blisterpeanuts 7y ago
Absolutely, things moved at a glacial pace back then... literally... since the Pleistocene (2.5 million BC to 11,700 BC) encompassed several ice age pulses -- freezes and thaws, over tens of thousands of years. We're currently in the thawing period of the latest ice age, by the way. The ice ages, by the way, would have been quite intense. Over 1/3 of the Earth was covered by frozen ice caps, extending down past Britain to central Germany in Europe, and the Kansas region in the U.S. Imagine if the Arctic were that large. The habitable zones were commensurately smaller, the warm seasons were shorter, and oppressive winters were the norm. People anywhere near the ice caps would have had to adapt to the intense cold, both physiologically and technologically. If you didn't have fire and the means to hunt and take down large fur coated mammals on a regular basis, you died. It's amazing to think that Homo Erectus, the dominant hominid circa 1 million BC, had fire and tools. They were far less advanced than H. Sapiens and H. Neanderthalensis, had smaller brains and smaller physical stature, but would have been fearsomely strong and fast nonetheless. After half a million years, Erectus gave rise to more advanced species so some kind of change and adaptation was occurring, albeit slowly.
Razengan 7y ago
On the other hand, it also sounds like paradise, untainted by sentient wills.

kevml 7y ago

If someone traveled from 1200 AD to 1700 AD their lives would not be much different. The biggest change would be the New World. If someone traveled from 1919 to 2019 their mind would be blown.

blisterpeanuts 7y ago
and imagine traveling from 2019 to 2119. It will probably be almost unrecognizable to us. My daughter was born in 2004; she might live to 2119. Almost certainly, barring accidents, will live to see the 22nd Century. I only hope that she'll like it. There are so many dystopian predictions -- nanotech killers, evil AI, war.... I just pray that the world she and future generations inherit will be worth living in.
gsich 7y ago
>If someone traveled from 1919 to 2019 their mind would be blown. Yes, but not for long.

blisterpeanuts 7y ago

Absolutely, things moved at a glacial pace back then... literally... since the Pleistocene (2.5 million BC to 11,700 BC) encompassed several ice age pulses -- freezes and thaws, over tens of thousands of years. We're currently in the thawing period of the latest ice age, by the way. The ice ages, by the way, would have been quite intense. Over 1/3 of the Earth was covered by frozen ice caps, extending down past Britain to central Germany in Europe, and the Kansas region in the U.S. Imagine if the Arctic were that large. The habitable zones were commensurately smaller, the warm seasons were shorter, and oppressive winters were the norm. People anywhere near the ice caps would have had to adapt to the intense cold, both physiologically and technologically. If you didn't have fire and the means to hunt and take down large fur coated mammals on a regular basis, you died. It's amazing to think that Homo Erectus, the dominant hominid circa 1 million BC, had fire and tools. They were far less advanced than H. Sapiens and H. Neanderthalensis, had smaller brains and smaller physical stature, but would have been fearsomely strong and fast nonetheless. After half a million years, Erectus gave rise to more advanced species so some kind of change and adaptation was occurring, albeit slowly.

Razengan 7y ago

On the other hand, it also sounds like paradise, untainted by sentient wills.