History of Human Kind

Intro

Premise: humans rule the planet because they can cooperate in flexible manner in large numbers

Thoughts:

  • Do animals really lack imagination? Many animals can do complex task planning that requires to a certain extent imagination to predict future outcomes

Details:

  • due to imagination
  • chimpanzees and wolves can only cooperate inside their close circle (not with strangers)

Three main revolutions

Cognitive revolution

agricultural revolution

Scientific revolution: we no longer evolve just by natural processes but we close the loop using technology

Cognitive Revolution

Big Brain

Need to carry it around and protect it

requires eneregy

constantly looking for energy

reduce muscle mass

humans use 25% percent of the energy/ other apes use 8%

Standing upright

better viewing distance

hands are freed for many other new purposes

stress on the spines and skeleton

hips needs to be narrower: huge problem for women who need to give birth through a narrow canal while the heads of the babies became bigger

give birth earlier and earlier: it takes years for babies to catch up with other small animals like horse

this provided evolutionary pressure for strong social bonds like groups ect.

provides flexibility to adapt to the enviroment

Domestication of Fire

Cooking

burn a forest and collect food

Shaping of enviroment

first step toward becoming master's of universe: before they were using tools and had social structures but still remained marginal

weapons against large animals

you cannot pick wheat and potato without cooking

cooking kills germs and paracites

less chewing and digesting; chimpanzee spend 5 hrs to chew their food

less energy spend digesting transferred energy to brain

broke the link between the power of the animal and the size of the animal; humans with fire gained unlimited power with fire and choose when and where to start it; the fire's power is independent of the human size unlike the eagle for example

Homo Species

Interbreeding theory

same in asia with homo erectus

only pure sapiens are in africa

Replacement Theory

no sexual interest

incompatible species

sapiens interbred with neanderthals in the middle east and europe

more politically correct since there are no clear genetic differences

recent study showed middle eastern and europeans have 3-4% of neatherand DNA same for australia

not used to be on the top of the food chain so we behave accordingly as the low level creatures