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This didn't address my favorite theory: that (some) kids are programmed to learn as much as they can about the nearby megafauna, and in this world the closest a

by ajkjk 7y ago

This didn't address my favorite theory: that (some) kids are programmed to learn as much as they can about the nearby megafauna, and in this world the closest approximation is these big garbage/fire/construction vehicles.

audiometry 7y ago
Would explain why most young kids go through a dinosaur phase too!
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- nerdponx 7y ago
  Or adults like me, upon learning about all the advancements in paleontology in the last 30 years. But that might be more "fascination with the unknown" than sheer size... which I guess is another human evolutionarily advantageous trait.
alperakgun 7y ago
yeah me & my son we have spent 3 years chasing garbage trucks, contruction vehicles and fairy tale giants, & dinosaurs. finally minecraft took over.
- anonytrary 7y ago
  To be fair, legos took over before Minecraft. Minecraft was basically a virtual manifestation of legos with some really clever role-playing and survival mechanics built in.
meddlepal 7y ago
I still think big construction and demolition equipment is cool as an adult.
- randomdata 7y ago
  I all honesty, I farm so I can play with the heavy equipment.
isolli 7y ago
There's also a similar theory to explain why boys are more interested in cars than girls (which my kids have proven convincingly, albeit with a low sample size): boys, as future hunters, are attracted to preys that move, hence, in the modern environment, to balls and cars.
- skavi 7y ago
  Are you perhaps discounting the societal influences pushing your kids towards their respective interests? If they view any amount of advertising or interact with other children who do, for example, they could already have ideas about what is "appropriate" for them to like.
  - gambiting 7y ago
    I also think there is a crazy push to say that no, boys/girls definitely don't like certain things naturally, it MUST be social conditioning, and if you even dare to suggest that there is any natural difference to how children develop you must be sexist/patriatrchist/etc etc. All I want to say is that there seems to be a stupid amount of aggression towards even the mere idea that statistically girls/boys might like something other than boys/girls do even if social conditioning were completely removed(which is a nonsensical idea in the first place, a child is a member of the society from the second they are born, they are not goldfish).
    - Drakim 7y ago
      I totally agree that insisting it MUST be social conditioning is close-minded and silly. We should be open minded about various possibilities in nature vs nurture. But on the other hand, lots of people have a tendency to think and say that certain things are "obviously true" based on what they are used to seeing in society, like that boys like cars and girls like dolls, and even start rationalizing it ("This is what is natural and right!") and even actively fight to maintain this "natural truth". They treat boys who like dolls and girls who like cars as deviants who need to be corrected. And that's bullshit, even if there is a natural inclination towards trends for genders, that doesn't mean that's "natural law" and we ought to make sure to maintain and protect it.
otabdeveloper4 7y ago
> kids are programmed No, kids aren't computers. It's an easy and facile analogy, because we work with computers all day, and are intimately familiar with them. That's precisely why the analogy is wrong.
- ajkjk 7y ago
  You didn't really argue the point at all.
- majewsky 7y ago
  Humans (like all animals) are obviously programmed in some way. Babies don't decide to start breathing or suck milk or poop, they're predetermined by their genetic code to do it. The only interesting question is which behavior is programmed and which isn't, not whether there is genetic programming at all.
anonytrary 7y ago
I have a different theory, but it's mostly a cheeky, incomplete one. I think infants start out not understanding conservation[0,1] and there is some programmed primitive instruction in humans to understand conservation. It would explain why modern physics exists, and would also explain why kids are obsessed with garbage trucks -- because where the hell does trash actually go? One you understand conservation enough to ask that question, it is inevitable to be obsessed with garbage trucks. [0] https://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Conservation https://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Conser... [1] Things that do not grow or shrink change over time, even if they're redistributed.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
goto11 7y ago
Such evolutionary just-so stories can be used to explain anything and there is no way to falsify them. However, just applying common sense: Wouldn't it be more beneficial for their survival if kids were programmed to stay away from megafauna? It might eat them or step on them.
- andromeduck 7y ago
  Presumably the parents have that covered.
  - goto11 7y ago
    So why are kids often afraid of big angry dogs? Surely the parents will protect them against any threat from big animals? Evopsych "just-so" stories are designed to explain a single fact or observation, so they may sound convincing until you look at the bigger picture.
- derefr 7y ago
  How do you know how to stay away from something if you don’t understand it? It’s big enough that it can come to you in the middle of you doing something else. Best to know what habits of its might make that happen. That, and the megafauna that have existed alongside humans have pretty much always been herbivorous mammals. Mammals seem to be universally capable of recognizing which members of another mammal species are children of that species, and are less wary around them, and tend to (for the herbivores) even be intentionally gentle toward them. Mothers of many mammalian species even choose to adopt and care for orphaned children of other mammalian species that don’t look particularly like their own species (and I’ve never heard of this happening with a non-human mammal mother adopting a non-mammal, or a non-mammal adopting anything, so AFAIK it seems to be mostly a “mammal thing.“) Of course, this same awareness of child-ness leads the carnivorous mammals to think of another species’ children as easy prey. I think humans do have an instinctual understanding of the difference between a herbivorous/“friendly”-looking species, and a carnivorous/“predator”-looking species, and human children do seem to have much less of a desire to attempt to wander up to lions or Tasmanian devils than they do to approach e.g. elephants or giraffes (or horses or cows, for that matter.) And even the kids that love dinosaurs certainly have very little compulsion to approach crocodiles, snakes, or birds of prey. They might think they’re cool—but there’s a component of fear to that admiration. Humans don’t seem to have any instincts to avoid approaching omnivorous megafauna, and that’s seemingly a hit-or-miss proposition, but maybe this is where the perception-of-child-ness thing comes most into play. An adult human definitely shouldn’t provoke a gorilla or a bear, because an adult human is a viable threat to them, one they feel they have to respond to; but a human child won’t be as easily read as a threat, and might just be ignored, the same way humans don’t really worry about gorilla infants or bear cubs getting near us. (That, and there just aren’t that many omnivorous megafauna, so maybe we don’t have any instincts about them.)
nix0n 7y ago
They get close to that theory, but from a zoo animal angle as opposed to local animals. "Add that to the fact that children frequently conceive of a vehicle as an enormous living creature—“It has lights and those look like eyes, so suddenly it’s got a face,” Toubes pointed out—and it’s almost no wonder that some kids look at garbage trucks like gigantic zoo animals visiting their home."

by ajkjk 7y ago

audiometry 7y ago

Would explain why most young kids go through a dinosaur phase too!

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
nerdponx 7y ago
Or adults like me, upon learning about all the advancements in paleontology in the last 30 years. But that might be more "fascination with the unknown" than sheer size... which I guess is another human evolutionarily advantageous trait.

alperakgun 7y ago

yeah me & my son we have spent 3 years chasing garbage trucks, contruction vehicles and fairy tale giants, & dinosaurs. finally minecraft took over.

anonytrary 7y ago
To be fair, legos took over before Minecraft. Minecraft was basically a virtual manifestation of legos with some really clever role-playing and survival mechanics built in.

meddlepal 7y ago

I still think big construction and demolition equipment is cool as an adult.

randomdata 7y ago
I all honesty, I farm so I can play with the heavy equipment.

isolli 7y ago

There's also a similar theory to explain why boys are more interested in cars than girls (which my kids have proven convincingly, albeit with a low sample size): boys, as future hunters, are attracted to preys that move, hence, in the modern environment, to balls and cars.

skavi 7y ago
Are you perhaps discounting the societal influences pushing your kids towards their respective interests? If they view any amount of advertising or interact with other children who do, for example, they could already have ideas about what is "appropriate" for them to like.
- gambiting 7y ago
  I also think there is a crazy push to say that no, boys/girls definitely don't like certain things naturally, it MUST be social conditioning, and if you even dare to suggest that there is any natural difference to how children develop you must be sexist/patriatrchist/etc etc. All I want to say is that there seems to be a stupid amount of aggression towards even the mere idea that statistically girls/boys might like something other than boys/girls do even if social conditioning were completely removed(which is a nonsensical idea in the first place, a child is a member of the society from the second they are born, they are not goldfish).
  - Drakim 7y ago
    I totally agree that insisting it MUST be social conditioning is close-minded and silly. We should be open minded about various possibilities in nature vs nurture. But on the other hand, lots of people have a tendency to think and say that certain things are "obviously true" based on what they are used to seeing in society, like that boys like cars and girls like dolls, and even start rationalizing it ("This is what is natural and right!") and even actively fight to maintain this "natural truth". They treat boys who like dolls and girls who like cars as deviants who need to be corrected. And that's bullshit, even if there is a natural inclination towards trends for genders, that doesn't mean that's "natural law" and we ought to make sure to maintain and protect it.

otabdeveloper4 7y ago

> kids are programmed No, kids aren't computers. It's an easy and facile analogy, because we work with computers all day, and are intimately familiar with them. That's precisely why the analogy is wrong.

ajkjk 7y ago
You didn't really argue the point at all.
majewsky 7y ago
Humans (like all animals) are obviously programmed in some way. Babies don't decide to start breathing or suck milk or poop, they're predetermined by their genetic code to do it. The only interesting question is which behavior is programmed and which isn't, not whether there is genetic programming at all.

anonytrary 7y ago

I have a different theory, but it's mostly a cheeky, incomplete one. I think infants start out not understanding conservation[0,1] and there is some programmed primitive instruction in humans to understand conservation. It would explain why modern physics exists, and would also explain why kids are obsessed with garbage trucks -- because where the hell does trash actually go? One you understand conservation enough to ask that question, it is inevitable to be obsessed with garbage trucks. [0] https://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Conservation https://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Conser... [1] Things that do not grow or shrink change over time, even if they're redistributed.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

goto11 7y ago

Such evolutionary just-so stories can be used to explain anything and there is no way to falsify them. However, just applying common sense: Wouldn't it be more beneficial for their survival if kids were programmed to stay away from megafauna? It might eat them or step on them.

andromeduck 7y ago
Presumably the parents have that covered.
- goto11 7y ago
  So why are kids often afraid of big angry dogs? Surely the parents will protect them against any threat from big animals? Evopsych "just-so" stories are designed to explain a single fact or observation, so they may sound convincing until you look at the bigger picture.
derefr 7y ago
How do you know how to stay away from something if you don’t understand it? It’s big enough that it can come to you in the middle of you doing something else. Best to know what habits of its might make that happen. That, and the megafauna that have existed alongside humans have pretty much always been herbivorous mammals. Mammals seem to be universally capable of recognizing which members of another mammal species are children of that species, and are less wary around them, and tend to (for the herbivores) even be intentionally gentle toward them. Mothers of many mammalian species even choose to adopt and care for orphaned children of other mammalian species that don’t look particularly like their own species (and I’ve never heard of this happening with a non-human mammal mother adopting a non-mammal, or a non-mammal adopting anything, so AFAIK it seems to be mostly a “mammal thing.“) Of course, this same awareness of child-ness leads the carnivorous mammals to think of another species’ children as easy prey. I think humans do have an instinctual understanding of the difference between a herbivorous/“friendly”-looking species, and a carnivorous/“predator”-looking species, and human children do seem to have much less of a desire to attempt to wander up to lions or Tasmanian devils than they do to approach e.g. elephants or giraffes (or horses or cows, for that matter.) And even the kids that love dinosaurs certainly have very little compulsion to approach crocodiles, snakes, or birds of prey. They might think they’re cool—but there’s a component of fear to that admiration. Humans don’t seem to have any instincts to avoid approaching omnivorous megafauna, and that’s seemingly a hit-or-miss proposition, but maybe this is where the perception-of-child-ness thing comes most into play. An adult human definitely shouldn’t provoke a gorilla or a bear, because an adult human is a viable threat to them, one they feel they have to respond to; but a human child won’t be as easily read as a threat, and might just be ignored, the same way humans don’t really worry about gorilla infants or bear cubs getting near us. (That, and there just aren’t that many omnivorous megafauna, so maybe we don’t have any instincts about them.)

nix0n 7y ago

They get close to that theory, but from a zoo animal angle as opposed to local animals. "Add that to the fact that children frequently conceive of a vehicle as an enormous living creature—“It has lights and those look like eyes, so suddenly it’s got a face,” Toubes pointed out—and it’s almost no wonder that some kids look at garbage trucks like gigantic zoo animals visiting their home."