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There have been other animals with similar capacities, we just killed them all. Neanderthals couldn't develop any of the things you mentioned because humans st

There have been other animals with similar capacities, we just killed them all. Neanderthals couldn't develop any of the things you mentioned because humans stopped them. If we hadn't been here or if they had gained the upper hand during some pivotal moments then they might be wondering about their own exceptionalism today.

nkrisc 1y ago
We didn’t kill them all. Many people alive today have some small amount of Neanderthal ancestry. We don’t really k ow exactly what happened to them, likely a mix of killing them and assimilating them. And you can even broaden the original question to include our nearest relatives and it is still equally interesting, I believe.
- barbazoo 1y ago
  Most people outside of subsaharan Africa have Neanderthal DNA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_genetics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_genetics
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    It's also been suggested that nearly 1 in 10 men in Asia are descended from Genghis Kahn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_descent_from_Genghis_Khan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_descent_from_Genghis_K...
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  I'm not sure that it is still interesting. If we start to broaden the goalposts every time then the question just becomes one of "earth exceptionalism," right? And while I agree that it wasn't necessarily accurate to say we killed them, a shared ancestry doesn't imply any kind of harmony. Think of the hundreds of thousands to potentially millions of rapes estimated to have been committed by the soldiers occupying Germany (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_...)
  - nkrisc 1y ago
    I’m not suggesting broadening the goal posts beyond what I stated. As far as we know species like Neanderthals were very, very similar to us so it’s worth considering them as well unless we have a reason not to,
barbazoo 1y ago
While it’s a possibility, as far as I heard, we don’t know if Homo Sapiens killed them or why they went extinct.

nkrisc 1y ago

We didn’t kill them all. Many people alive today have some small amount of Neanderthal ancestry. We don’t really k ow exactly what happened to them, likely a mix of killing them and assimilating them. And you can even broaden the original question to include our nearest relatives and it is still equally interesting, I believe.

barbazoo 1y ago
Most people outside of subsaharan Africa have Neanderthal DNA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_genetics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_genetics
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  It's also been suggested that nearly 1 in 10 men in Asia are descended from Genghis Kahn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_descent_from_Genghis_Khan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_descent_from_Genghis_K...
AlecSchueler 1y ago
I'm not sure that it is still interesting. If we start to broaden the goalposts every time then the question just becomes one of "earth exceptionalism," right? And while I agree that it wasn't necessarily accurate to say we killed them, a shared ancestry doesn't imply any kind of harmony. Think of the hundreds of thousands to potentially millions of rapes estimated to have been committed by the soldiers occupying Germany (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_...)
- nkrisc 1y ago
  I’m not suggesting broadening the goal posts beyond what I stated. As far as we know species like Neanderthals were very, very similar to us so it’s worth considering them as well unless we have a reason not to,

barbazoo 1y ago

While it’s a possibility, as far as I heard, we don’t know if Homo Sapiens killed them or why they went extinct.