4 ms·

It seems like more and more we are learning just how smart we were in the deep past

venomsnake 12y ago
I got that memo the first time I saw the pyramids. The engineers were technologically inferior, but new their craft and were smart.
- agumonkey 12y ago
  Here goes our technofetishistic era.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  And knew their craft to the extent that is rarely seen today. When you only have few poor tools with which you work your whole life, and want to do big things, you end up knowing those tools as well as methods from inside out. Depth vs. breadth.
  - marcosdumay 12y ago
    It was probably also rare to see it back them. We have examples of what, a few dozen of those super engineers in a timespan of several centuries.
    - venomsnake 12y ago
      You need to match a genius with resources. And ... with the amount of bloodshed - we don't know what is lost.
  - oneweekwonder 12y ago
    Friend recently shared a short story with me, THE ROAD NOT TAKEN - Harry Turtledove[1] and what you said reminded me of it. [1]: http://pastebin.com/aJQfubrK http://pastebin.com/aJQfubrK
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      I read that story, it's amazing; one of my favourite short stories ever. Which reminded me of another related story, Superiority, by Arthur C. Clarke[0]. From what I heard, it's actually a required reading at Westpoint. [0] - http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html
rowanseymour 12y ago
I've read a couple of good books recently (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari being my favourite) which make a convincing case for human evolution having mostly finished sometime around 100,000 - 50,000BCE when we homo sapiens started migrating out of Africa. It's pretty amazing to think that there were human beings walking around back then who were at least as mentally developed, if not more, than we are today.
- Torn 12y ago
  What makes you think they might have been more mentally developed?
  - kefka 12y ago
    Because of modern amenities, people that would have died off due to reasons of low intellect now survive. I was watching Star Trek TOS last night, and noticed the vocabulary of the actors is significantly larger than current crop of TV shows. I'd wager that people are getting dumber, and the ad/television networks are catering to this absence of education. I wonder how I would go about proving that? Perhaps find a script archive and process for average age of learning words, and average each year up?
    - leoedin 12y ago
      Most people who died in childhood in the past died because of diseases that had absolutely nothing to do with intellect - typhoid, tuberculosis, cholera, diptheria etc. Surely in an age of widespread literacy and limited manual labour, those with low intellect today are faced with a far harder struggle than those in the past. Only a few hundred years ago the vast majority of humans were engaged in farming and manual labour - not particularly demanding of intelligence. Even if your theory (that those of low intellect used to die off at a far greater rate than those of high intellect) had any basis in fact, it strikes me as remarkable that it would take less than 50 years (perhaps 2 generations) for the effect to be so pronounced that television producers were forced to reduce script vocabulary. You'd think that a crisis of this magnitude would at least be noticed. Perhaps (and I only guess here) the reason the lexicon of television might have fallen is less to do with a reduction of the audience's intelligence and more to do with the slow realisation of television producers that simpler, less wordy television shows have greater mass appeal. Television used to be a near-monopoly serving the establishment. It's now incredibly competitive driven entirely by ratings. Evolution works over periods far, far greater than single generations. If you're proposing that society has seen a significant fall in average vocabulary over a generation, rather than simply blaming people getting "dumber", perhaps you should look at how your education system is failing.
protomyth 12y ago
Given the surprise a lot of people have learning their were pre-columbian trade routes from the Arctic to South America, I am not sure we really teach much in the way of history.
- goatforce5 12y ago
  There was regular trade between Australia and Indonesia from the 1500's onwards, well before the Europeans turned up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makassan_contact_with_Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makassan_contact_with_Australia

I got that memo the first time I saw the pyramids. The engineers were technologically inferior, but new their craft and were smart.

agumonkey 12y ago
Here goes our technofetishistic era.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
And knew their craft to the extent that is rarely seen today. When you only have few poor tools with which you work your whole life, and want to do big things, you end up knowing those tools as well as methods from inside out. Depth vs. breadth.
- marcosdumay 12y ago
  It was probably also rare to see it back them. We have examples of what, a few dozen of those super engineers in a timespan of several centuries.
  - venomsnake 12y ago
    You need to match a genius with resources. And ... with the amount of bloodshed - we don't know what is lost.
- oneweekwonder 12y ago
  Friend recently shared a short story with me, THE ROAD NOT TAKEN - Harry Turtledove[1] and what you said reminded me of it. [1]: http://pastebin.com/aJQfubrK http://pastebin.com/aJQfubrK
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    I read that story, it's amazing; one of my favourite short stories ever. Which reminded me of another related story, Superiority, by Arthur C. Clarke[0]. From what I heard, it's actually a required reading at Westpoint. [0] - http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html

rowanseymour 12y ago

I've read a couple of good books recently (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari being my favourite) which make a convincing case for human evolution having mostly finished sometime around 100,000 - 50,000BCE when we homo sapiens started migrating out of Africa. It's pretty amazing to think that there were human beings walking around back then who were at least as mentally developed, if not more, than we are today.

Torn 12y ago
What makes you think they might have been more mentally developed?
- kefka 12y ago
  Because of modern amenities, people that would have died off due to reasons of low intellect now survive. I was watching Star Trek TOS last night, and noticed the vocabulary of the actors is significantly larger than current crop of TV shows. I'd wager that people are getting dumber, and the ad/television networks are catering to this absence of education. I wonder how I would go about proving that? Perhaps find a script archive and process for average age of learning words, and average each year up?
  - leoedin 12y ago
    Most people who died in childhood in the past died because of diseases that had absolutely nothing to do with intellect - typhoid, tuberculosis, cholera, diptheria etc. Surely in an age of widespread literacy and limited manual labour, those with low intellect today are faced with a far harder struggle than those in the past. Only a few hundred years ago the vast majority of humans were engaged in farming and manual labour - not particularly demanding of intelligence. Even if your theory (that those of low intellect used to die off at a far greater rate than those of high intellect) had any basis in fact, it strikes me as remarkable that it would take less than 50 years (perhaps 2 generations) for the effect to be so pronounced that television producers were forced to reduce script vocabulary. You'd think that a crisis of this magnitude would at least be noticed. Perhaps (and I only guess here) the reason the lexicon of television might have fallen is less to do with a reduction of the audience's intelligence and more to do with the slow realisation of television producers that simpler, less wordy television shows have greater mass appeal. Television used to be a near-monopoly serving the establishment. It's now incredibly competitive driven entirely by ratings. Evolution works over periods far, far greater than single generations. If you're proposing that society has seen a significant fall in average vocabulary over a generation, rather than simply blaming people getting "dumber", perhaps you should look at how your education system is failing.

protomyth 12y ago

Given the surprise a lot of people have learning their were pre-columbian trade routes from the Arctic to South America, I am not sure we really teach much in the way of history.

goatforce5 12y ago
There was regular trade between Australia and Indonesia from the 1500's onwards, well before the Europeans turned up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makassan_contact_with_Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makassan_contact_with_Australia