3 ms·

I'm pretty sure elephants can communicate with each other and coordinate, at least to some degree. As do many social species. For me, a really interesting ques

I'm pretty sure elephants can communicate with each other and coordinate, at least to some degree. As do many social species. For me, a really interesting question is: why did humans evolve to build huge civilizations and spent so much energy on technology, when others species haven't? I've heard several podcasts, some claim it's because humans think (much more) about the future. Others say it's because we use counterfactual reasoning. Others again say it's because we think about the future. Yet others say it's our curiosity, that seem to be much more pronounced than in other species. None of these really convinced me. I kinda think that if we didn't encroach on other species' ecosystems and waited just a few million (or a few tens of million) years, some other species might develop and dominate similar to how humans do now. Of course, that's not really practical, so now I wonder if there could be a way to simulate that.

crazygringo 3y ago
> why did humans evolve to build huge civilizations and spent so much energy on technology, when others species haven't? In a nutshell -- because humans invented agriculture, which led to ballooning human populations, and then the agriculture at scale required to sustain those populations required centralized laws and control (e.g. enforcing legal contracts around shared irrigation) which is a civilization. And agriculture is so valuable that civilizations use the economic surplus to invent weapons to invade other civilizations, so we jump from food tech to warfare tech. But agriculture seems to be the main factor. Of course you can go further back and ask why humans invented agriculture where other animals haven't, and it's probably some combination of opposable thumbs and the social intelligence we developed to live in tribes etc. Elephants might have tremendous social intelligence but they don't seem to have the physical dexterity to hoe a field. (There might also be something about physical size, where elephants are too big, so they eat too much relative to what agriculture could produce through their physical output.)
toast0 3y ago
Toxoplasmosis forces us to work for cats. Developing society allows us to better care for cats. QED.
moi2388 3y ago
Farming. Before that we accomplished jack shit.
OJFord 3y ago
The set of species that could conceivably do anything remotely similar/recognisable as such is basically primates. Within which there's no non-debunked evidence of intelligence/learning on anything like the same level - and they even benefit from the existence of us studying & trying to train them. Another answer of course is 'they have, but they're extinct/superseded now' (others of the homo genus).
aaronblohowiak 3y ago
You may enjoy “the children of time” novel. It was a recommendation here on HN and I quite enjoyed it

crazygringo 3y ago

> why did humans evolve to build huge civilizations and spent so much energy on technology, when others species haven't? In a nutshell -- because humans invented agriculture, which led to ballooning human populations, and then the agriculture at scale required to sustain those populations required centralized laws and control (e.g. enforcing legal contracts around shared irrigation) which is a civilization. And agriculture is so valuable that civilizations use the economic surplus to invent weapons to invade other civilizations, so we jump from food tech to warfare tech. But agriculture seems to be the main factor. Of course you can go further back and ask why humans invented agriculture where other animals haven't, and it's probably some combination of opposable thumbs and the social intelligence we developed to live in tribes etc. Elephants might have tremendous social intelligence but they don't seem to have the physical dexterity to hoe a field. (There might also be something about physical size, where elephants are too big, so they eat too much relative to what agriculture could produce through their physical output.)

toast0 3y ago

Toxoplasmosis forces us to work for cats. Developing society allows us to better care for cats. QED.

moi2388 3y ago

Farming. Before that we accomplished jack shit.

OJFord 3y ago

The set of species that could conceivably do anything remotely similar/recognisable as such is basically primates. Within which there's no non-debunked evidence of intelligence/learning on anything like the same level - and they even benefit from the existence of us studying & trying to train them. Another answer of course is 'they have, but they're extinct/superseded now' (others of the homo genus).

aaronblohowiak 3y ago

You may enjoy “the children of time” novel. It was a recommendation here on HN and I quite enjoyed it