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The feeling I get when I hear of these things is a kind of longing to see and feel their life for a while. Not that I want to live their lifestyle, because it w

The feeling I get when I hear of these things is a kind of longing to see and feel their life for a while. Not that I want to live their lifestyle, because it would be hard; but there's just something about the paleolithic time that feels like an almost eternal substratum to the human existence that was then lost. The way people lived for a couple hundred thousand years, a tradition broken only in the last few millennia. Take stone tool making -- an art that goes back beyond our species, to the homo genus itself, as a universal hominid skill. Now mostly lost to us. That's kind of sad.

farnsworth 4y ago
So many societal issues can be explained by the fact that the conditions that we're living in now are so different than the conditions under which we evolved for hundreds of thousands of years. And also the fact that we were naturally selected for survival, not happiness. Civilization is all about denying your nature in order to build a better way of life based on stacks of technology. This isn't a bad thing, I would also rather live in a modern society, it's just really confusing unless you work out the ways in which your brain is not actually suited for it and how to cope with this.
riskable 4y ago
> Take stone tool making -- an art that goes back beyond our species, to the homo genus itself, as a universal hominid skill. Now mostly lost to us. That's kind of sad. It's not sad! We have much better ways to make tools these days. It's like lamenting the lost art of (incredibly tediously) drawing out circuit boards or drafting blueprints by hand. Will people of the future be sad about having lost the art of finding things to do while a progressive JPEG (porn) loaded over a dialup connection?
- nyolfen 4y ago
  i don't think what is sad about 'losing' this is the straightforward utility of creating stone tools, but rather no longer possessing this article of culture which was previously shared by all humans for all time, something that connected them and their experiences, their understanding of the world and a point of reference for their sense of meaning -- learning to fashion a handaxe from your father, sister etc was probably something that literally all humans shared memories of. we are utterly alienated from them in many ways, hardly the same species
  - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
    Exactly this. Consider the "hand axe" -- a multipurpose stone tool made contiguously by basically almost all bipedal hominids (if not more) for a million and a half (or more!) years. Homo erectus, neanderthals, sapiens, etc. Then abruptly lost around the Paleolithic to Neolithic transition really. Apart from a few anthropologists who've studied to try to recreate the technique. It essentially "defined" what it is to be human for over a million years, and we can't do it anymore. I'm not saying it's a useful skill, only that this is a piece of cultural memory lost and that's kind of sad. It's not like hand-etching circuit boards, which is nothing more than a transitory technique to accomplish a goal until we found a new way. Stone tool making (and language) is what distinguished us from every other species on the planet, and was one of the central activities that people did with their time for hours on end, and is probably one of the key things that got us to "sharpen" our problem-solving brains and develop the other skills we rely on now.
ldhough 4y ago
If you have a bit of outside space flintknapping is a fairly accessible and very fun hobby, there are good YouTube tutorials and websites that sell the rocks and tools you need (other rocks, antler, leather, optionally copper). I recommend starting with obsidian or dacite, they are much easier than flint and chert. I wear glasses but if you don't I would also get safety glasses and optionally safety gloves. You will cut yourself if you don't but they're almost all very clean cuts that heal fast.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  Thanks. I've definitely thought about it, and watched a few youtube videos. My wife took an anthro degree, and one of her professors was adept in it.
ericmcer 4y ago
Yeah it would have been hard but man looking at the night sky with no light pollution and no clue what you were looking at would be a pretty deep spiritual experience

farnsworth 4y ago

So many societal issues can be explained by the fact that the conditions that we're living in now are so different than the conditions under which we evolved for hundreds of thousands of years. And also the fact that we were naturally selected for survival, not happiness. Civilization is all about denying your nature in order to build a better way of life based on stacks of technology. This isn't a bad thing, I would also rather live in a modern society, it's just really confusing unless you work out the ways in which your brain is not actually suited for it and how to cope with this.

riskable 4y ago

> Take stone tool making -- an art that goes back beyond our species, to the homo genus itself, as a universal hominid skill. Now mostly lost to us. That's kind of sad. It's not sad! We have much better ways to make tools these days. It's like lamenting the lost art of (incredibly tediously) drawing out circuit boards or drafting blueprints by hand. Will people of the future be sad about having lost the art of finding things to do while a progressive JPEG (porn) loaded over a dialup connection?

nyolfen 4y ago
i don't think what is sad about 'losing' this is the straightforward utility of creating stone tools, but rather no longer possessing this article of culture which was previously shared by all humans for all time, something that connected them and their experiences, their understanding of the world and a point of reference for their sense of meaning -- learning to fashion a handaxe from your father, sister etc was probably something that literally all humans shared memories of. we are utterly alienated from them in many ways, hardly the same species
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  Exactly this. Consider the "hand axe" -- a multipurpose stone tool made contiguously by basically almost all bipedal hominids (if not more) for a million and a half (or more!) years. Homo erectus, neanderthals, sapiens, etc. Then abruptly lost around the Paleolithic to Neolithic transition really. Apart from a few anthropologists who've studied to try to recreate the technique. It essentially "defined" what it is to be human for over a million years, and we can't do it anymore. I'm not saying it's a useful skill, only that this is a piece of cultural memory lost and that's kind of sad. It's not like hand-etching circuit boards, which is nothing more than a transitory technique to accomplish a goal until we found a new way. Stone tool making (and language) is what distinguished us from every other species on the planet, and was one of the central activities that people did with their time for hours on end, and is probably one of the key things that got us to "sharpen" our problem-solving brains and develop the other skills we rely on now.

ldhough 4y ago

If you have a bit of outside space flintknapping is a fairly accessible and very fun hobby, there are good YouTube tutorials and websites that sell the rocks and tools you need (other rocks, antler, leather, optionally copper). I recommend starting with obsidian or dacite, they are much easier than flint and chert. I wear glasses but if you don't I would also get safety glasses and optionally safety gloves. You will cut yourself if you don't but they're almost all very clean cuts that heal fast.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago
Thanks. I've definitely thought about it, and watched a few youtube videos. My wife took an anthro degree, and one of her professors was adept in it.

ericmcer 4y ago

Yeah it would have been hard but man looking at the night sky with no light pollution and no clue what you were looking at would be a pretty deep spiritual experience