Science Memes

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this one goes out to the arts & humanities (mander.xyz)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[+] [email protected] -6 points 7 months ago (3 children)

This is some pretty weird and lowkey racist exposition on humanity.

Humankind isn't a single unified thing. Individual cultures have their own modes of subsistence and transportation that are unique to specific cultural needs.

It's not that it took 1 million years to "figure out" farming. It's that 1 specific culture of modern humans (biologically, humans as we conceive of ourselves today have existed for about 200,000 years, with close relatives existing for in the ballpark of 1M years) started practicing a specific mode of subsistence around 23,000 years ago. Specific groups of indigenous cultures remaining today still don't practice agriculture, because it's not actually advantageous in many ways -- stored foods are less nutritious, agriculture requires a fairly sedentary existence, it takes a shit load of time to cultivate and grow food (especially when compared to foraging and hunting), which leads to less leisure time.

Also where did you come up with the number 12,000 for "figuring out" the combustion engine? Genuinely curious. Like were we "working on it" for 12k years? I don't get it. But this isn't exactly a net positive and has come with some pretty disastrous consequences. I say this because you're proposing a linear path for "humanity" forward, when the reality is that humans are many things, and progress viewed in this way has a tendency toward racism or at least ethnocentrism.

But also yeah, the point of this meme is "artists are valuable."

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

This is some pretty weird and lowkey racist exposition on humanity.

Getting “racism” from that post is a REAL stretch. It’s not even weird, agriculture and mechanization are widely considered good things for humanity as a whole

Humankind isn't a single unified thing. Individual cultures have their own modes of subsistence and transportation that are unique to specific cultural needs.

ANY group of humans beyond the individual is purely just a social construct and classing humans into a single group is no less sensible than grouping people by culture, family, tribe, country etc.

It's not that it took 1 million years to "figure out" farming. It's that 1 specific culture of modern humans (biologically, humans as we conceive of ourselves today have existed for about 200,000 years, with close relatives existing for in the ballpark of 1M years) started practicing a specific mode of subsistence around 23,000 years ago. Specific groups of indigenous cultures remaining today still don't practice agriculture, because it's not actually advantageous in many ways -- stored foods are less nutritious, agriculture requires a fairly sedentary existence, it takes a shit load of time to cultivate and grow food (especially when compared to foraging and hunting), which leads to less leisure time.

Agriculture is certainly more efficient in terms of nutrition production for a given calorie cost. It’s also much more reliable. Arguing against agriculture as a good thing for humanity as a whole is the thing that’s weird.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I'm really not "arguing against agriculture," I'm pointing out that there are other modes of subsistence that humans still practice, and that that's perfectly valid. There are legitimate reasons why a culture would collectively reject agriculture.

But in point of fact, agriculture is not actually more efficient or reliable. Agriculture does allow for centralized city states in a way that foraging/hunting/fishing usually doesn't, with a notable exception of many indigenous groups on the western coast of turtle island.

A study positing that in fact, agriculturalists are not more productive and in fact are more prone to famine: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3917328/

But the main point I was trying to make is that different expressions of human culture still exist, and not all cultures have followed along the trajectory of the dominant culture. People tend to view colonialism, expansion and everything that means as inevitable, and I think that's a pretty big problem.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The first heat engines were fire pistons, which go back to prehistory, so 12k to 25k years sounds about right. The next application of steam to make things move happened about 450 BC, about 2.5k years ago. Although not a direct predecessor to the ICE, they all are heat engines.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Fire pistons are so damn cool. Yeah, that makes sense then.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

This kind of thinking is dangerous and will hinder planetary unification...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

All I'm trying to point out is that distinct cultures are worthy of respect and shouldn't be glossed over.

But be real with me: can you think of a single effort for "planetary unification" that wasn't a total nightmare? I sure can't.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

This attitude is what prevents us from unifying...smh