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> There must've been a lot of intellectually frustrated people. This is funny. As if they were just hanging around with the luxury to want to be challenged. T

> There must've been a lot of intellectually frustrated people. This is funny. As if they were just hanging around with the luxury to want to be challenged. They didn't live very long, their lives were harsh, they were probably banging out kids at an unbelievable rate. There's something just fantastically out of touch about your statement here. Very silver platter. Even now, there are much more intelligent people than you or I with no time or resources for intellectual pursuits, and following that, no particular drive either. If you're hungry and your living conditions are risky, you probably don't care about lacanian this or knot topography that. Much too busy.

throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
You make a good point that too many current humans have the same problem, or lack motivation, but the silver platter/out of touch barb wasn't necessary. > banging out kids at an unbelievable rate That's not actually helpful. Some stats would be good. I did a quick search for number of offspring for the yanomami but found nothing.
- lolc 7y ago
  I remember this little theory where in some ancient cultures children would be weaned around age six and the mothers would only become fertile again after that. I'm not sure how established the mechanicas are, but the theory says that hormonal pathways where breastfeeding causes infertility are activated by scant nutrition. It sounds like an effective way to adjust births to the available resources.
  - throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
    I've heard the breastfeeding thing. Quick search gets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breastfeeding_and_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breastfeeding_and_fertility The nutrition thing is an added twist I've not heard of but sounds very plausible.
    - zxcmx 7y ago
      Breastfeeding does reduce odds of conception but it doesn't really last more than a year. Plenty of people get pregnant while breastfeeding. I dunno, original poster mentioned scant nutrition being a condition for an extended effect so mayyyybe, seems like it would not be very hard to study today.
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
I recall a study of 'primitive' people of the Amazon, vs the 'modern' Japanese farmer. The primitives spend 3-4 hours a day foraging, and the rest at leisure. The farmer spent 10-hour days with 4 or 5 holidays per year. And lived in simple wooden huts as well. Depending on the environment, ancient people's lives didn't have to be nasty, brutish and short. Leave that to the modern overcrowded slum.
- theelous3 7y ago
  I see what you're saying, but if the logic held all the way through, and you believe the previous commentor's claims about intellectually frustrated people, then the obvious result would be that those people were doing things like taking on ethics, math, religion, and science in concrete ways. I'm not an archeologist or anthropologist, but I don't recall any particular advancements in anything really, from that era. Better huts. Minor improvements in tools. Where were the windmills? Why didn't they come up with gearing for mechanical leverage? Long term structures and joinery? I get that we have a lot of intellectual force multipliers now, so the achievement of a few propagates and impacts more than similar intellectual leaps in the, past, but given the kind of advancements we know one person is capable of making, there was remarkably little progress during all of this supposed leisure time.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    'Soft' civilizations that didn't work in stone are nearly completely lost. Nobody going to find a knotted rope representing algebra or combinatorics lessons, or going to understand what it was without written instructions?
    - theelous3 6y ago
      I about to be a little pedantic so forgive this link but: https://phys.org/news/2016-07-rope-years.amp https://phys.org/news/2016-07-rope-years.amp More on point, if all of these intellectuals were hanging out in the amazon, bored, why didn't they come up with long term data storage like clay tablets and writing? Why didn't they write their combinatorics proofs in stone? I know you're not really saying they had combinatorics, but a few millennia of frustrated brain boxes should leave some kind of legacy, especially in the totally physical space they lived and worked in.
emaz1ng 7y ago
That comment was tilting me so much but then i read this. Thanks for not making me lose karma. People are so fucking oblivious. Let's not even talk about how they teach you this stuff in primary scool.

throwaway_pdp09 7y ago

You make a good point that too many current humans have the same problem, or lack motivation, but the silver platter/out of touch barb wasn't necessary. > banging out kids at an unbelievable rate That's not actually helpful. Some stats would be good. I did a quick search for number of offspring for the yanomami but found nothing.

lolc 7y ago
I remember this little theory where in some ancient cultures children would be weaned around age six and the mothers would only become fertile again after that. I'm not sure how established the mechanicas are, but the theory says that hormonal pathways where breastfeeding causes infertility are activated by scant nutrition. It sounds like an effective way to adjust births to the available resources.
- throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
  I've heard the breastfeeding thing. Quick search gets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breastfeeding_and_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breastfeeding_and_fertility The nutrition thing is an added twist I've not heard of but sounds very plausible.
  - zxcmx 7y ago
    Breastfeeding does reduce odds of conception but it doesn't really last more than a year. Plenty of people get pregnant while breastfeeding. I dunno, original poster mentioned scant nutrition being a condition for an extended effect so mayyyybe, seems like it would not be very hard to study today.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago

I recall a study of 'primitive' people of the Amazon, vs the 'modern' Japanese farmer. The primitives spend 3-4 hours a day foraging, and the rest at leisure. The farmer spent 10-hour days with 4 or 5 holidays per year. And lived in simple wooden huts as well. Depending on the environment, ancient people's lives didn't have to be nasty, brutish and short. Leave that to the modern overcrowded slum.

theelous3 7y ago
I see what you're saying, but if the logic held all the way through, and you believe the previous commentor's claims about intellectually frustrated people, then the obvious result would be that those people were doing things like taking on ethics, math, religion, and science in concrete ways. I'm not an archeologist or anthropologist, but I don't recall any particular advancements in anything really, from that era. Better huts. Minor improvements in tools. Where were the windmills? Why didn't they come up with gearing for mechanical leverage? Long term structures and joinery? I get that we have a lot of intellectual force multipliers now, so the achievement of a few propagates and impacts more than similar intellectual leaps in the, past, but given the kind of advancements we know one person is capable of making, there was remarkably little progress during all of this supposed leisure time.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  'Soft' civilizations that didn't work in stone are nearly completely lost. Nobody going to find a knotted rope representing algebra or combinatorics lessons, or going to understand what it was without written instructions?
  - theelous3 6y ago
    I about to be a little pedantic so forgive this link but: https://phys.org/news/2016-07-rope-years.amp https://phys.org/news/2016-07-rope-years.amp More on point, if all of these intellectuals were hanging out in the amazon, bored, why didn't they come up with long term data storage like clay tablets and writing? Why didn't they write their combinatorics proofs in stone? I know you're not really saying they had combinatorics, but a few millennia of frustrated brain boxes should leave some kind of legacy, especially in the totally physical space they lived and worked in.

emaz1ng 7y ago

That comment was tilting me so much but then i read this. Thanks for not making me lose karma. People are so fucking oblivious. Let's not even talk about how they teach you this stuff in primary scool.