History of humankind

[doodle]

Fascinating course on coursera.org: The History of Humankind. One video series a week. It would be fascinating to discuss some of the things from the course lectures here.

Im learning a ton and getting a great amount of perspective on the story of homo sapiens. First series of lectures gives a fascinating account of the genus "homo" which included at one time many species of humans all living simultaneously which with the exception of us today, have all become extinct (possibly due to us destroying them). The lecture then starts delving into the effects that being bipedal and having a large brain had on the formation of tribes and socities and the process of socialization.

Anyways, great stuff here that really provides an abundance of perspective to our present situation on this planet..

Sign up for free course here: https://www.coursera.org/course/humankind

[Pointedstick]

Great find, doodle. I've signed up and begun watching the first lecture.

[doodle]

Second lecture is up...it is regarding the cognitive revolution which initiated the historical period about 70,000 years ago. Up until this cognitive revolution (which led to a expansion in our brains capacity to create, imagine, plan etc.), there wasn't all that much to distinguish man from other animals. It was during the era of the cognitive revolution that Homo Sapiens started to spread out of East Africa to the continents of Europe and Asia and eventually on to Australia and the Americas.

I will also post a brief synopsis of the first lecture this week just to help to cement the information into my head.

[doodle]

Thanks for reviving the thread! I've just finished lesson 6, but I'll go back and review and comment on  some of what you wrote. The first lecture is pretty fascinating.

[doodle]

* Even moreso, humans ability to utilize fictive language, i.e. describe things that do not actually exist, provided the ability to organize people on a far larger scale.

This fictive language is really a double edged sword. On the one hand it allows us to bond larger groups of people together and organize society on a much larger scale, both of which account for our dominance as a species. Lacking this fictive language (and the ability to gossip), humans would still find themselves roaming around in small packs and eating somewhere in the middle of the food chain.

So fictive language (or the ability to apply imagined concepts to reality) is a great advantage, yet most of our present struggles and violence as a species is because of conflicting fictive concepts between different groups. Most wars today are not fought over resources, but over ideas, concepts, ideologies and beliefs...in the cold war, the economic concepts of capitalism and communism nearly ended the world on more than one occasion.

What I see in present day man, and particularly among libertarians on this board, is a deep internal struggle between the individual and the collective. Our biological nature drives us towards wanting individualistic freedom, yet our present day reality makes survival dependent on 7 billion people getting along and working harmoniously. Unlike ants and bees who are biologically adapted to cooperation in large groups, humans must coaxed into such a living arrangement based on shared stories and beliefs.

Unlike in Japan or Korea, where you have a long collectivist cultural history...in the United States a lot of people are chafing up against this one for all, and all for one "hive" trend. I ultimately think this breaks in one of two ways....either we get comfortable with collectivism and move forward on the present super technology wave, or we fracture into smaller groups and return to simpler lifestyles. It's amazing to think that in less than 10,000 years our species has gone from basic rock implements to landing men on the moon using essentially the same DNA makeup.

[jacob_h]

This probably NSFW blog post entirely changed my view on early humans: http://chaosandpain.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... dence.html

Early hominids that existed 2M+ years ago may have been in the middle of the food chain.  But, by the time you get humans, whether Cro-Magnon or Neanderthal, you're dealing with apex predators who seem to be driven by an insatiable desire for more BBQ and are credited with the extinction of the cave bear and the megafauna die-off in general.

[doodle]

This probably NSFW blog post entirely changed my view on early humans: http://chaosandpain.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... dence.html

Early hominids that existed 2M+ years ago may have been in the middle of the food chain.  But, by the time you get humans, whether Cro-Magnon or Neanderthal, you're dealing with apex predators who seem to be driven by an insatiable desire for more BBQ and are credited with the extinction of the cave bear and the megafauna die-off in general.

Yes, the lecturer talks about this. Modern humans he says are easily the single most deadly and destructive species that has ever existed on earth. Our spread around the world after the cognitive revolution 70,000 years ago led to the extinction of about 50 percent of all large land mammals. The oceans were long immune from mans destructive behavior, but our modern technology today is allowing us to now overwhelm that ecosystem as well.