I didn’t read Sapiens, but if this book claim that homo sapiens is responsible for the disappearing of Neanderthals, you can close it. This idea was disproven by research long ago: when sapiens arrived in Europe, Neanderthals were already on the verge of disappearing.
Comment on We live in alien zoo
JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 19 hours agoIMO this is generally true, but not always. You look at the States, roughly mid-30’s to mid-70’s, and it really was a period of greatness for most folks, from top to bottom. (altho not so much for various minorities, which is a real mark of shame for the first modern democracy)
Anyway yeah, the “aliens” in question are simply us, doing all this to ourselves and the very home that birthed us dangerous, naked apes.
Just because I’m currently reading “Sapiens,” consider that we sprang up out of E. Africa ~70K yrs ago, and ~20K yrs later shared the planet with FIVE other human species. A mere ~20K yrs later, we and whatever other natural forces had eradicated all the others (including our closest relatives, Neanderthals). In terms of a ‘murder mystery,’ it doesn’t look all that great of a case for our innocence, haha. 😑
zloubida@sh.itjust.works 17 hours ago
JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 16 hours ago
Eh, I’m not sure it was DECISIVELY DISPROVEN. Because in science, we start with the idea that “we just don’t know,” then proceed carefully from there.
zloubida@sh.itjust.works 16 hours ago
Of course science evolves, but that shouldn’t be a reason for a vulgarization book to teach something else than the scientific consensus of the time.
yakko@feddit.uk 19 hours ago
We’re a nightmare for hominids and most species in general. Living on a knifes edge since primeval times. Now we’re cooking our planet and the worst people ever have nukes, so yeah.
We’re closer to a self inflicted doom than ever, but it’s hardly a new direction. Always on the brink of self destruction, but the only thing we can’t kill so far is ourselves. We’re everything Gwar laughed about being, but less honest.
JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 19 hours ago
I’m not really sure about that part. No doubt we’ve been self-warring for ages, but as long as there was new territory to expand in to, with new resources to be plundered and used, I doubt there was any real risk of a species self-destruction.
Really, I think it’s more like a problem of: 1) spreading across almost any place inhabitable across the planet, 2) laying claim to and using up all available resources in such demesne, polluting willy-nilly, and most especially 3) thinking that “the industrial age” (combined with capitalism) was some kind of genius formula for making sapiens ‘better than ever.’ Creating a global sapiens powder keg, if you will.
OTOH, when you look at a continent like N. America– if the natives hadn’t been fucked with over & over again by Euro colonists, I would guess they could have gone on for many tens of thousands of years just like they did, living perfectly authentic, interesting, meaningful lives without all the ‘advancement of technology’ shizzle.
Cue Jon Belushi exclamation…..