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Re:What Made Early Humans Smart by csomar on Saturday July 03, 2021 @11:11AM (#27722101)
The human body does not, really, support your idea. The human brain is big but not the biggest (either by size or ratio) and the human body (tall hands and tall legs) is made for running, walking, traveling and not thinking.

Birds (Eagles) are much better at targeting animals, and they are the projectile. And our sight compares really badly to other hunting animals.

My guess is agriculture is what selectively picked humans with long-term thinking (strategizing) and ultimately led to civilizations. (all civilizations started with agriculture around a river)

> This also give us apathy and self-awareness, and ultimately, the consciousness, and it catalyze our social structure, because collaboration makes hunting much more efficient. This motivates our ancestors to evolve as a group.

Social structure is not unique to humans. Other animals have it and have complex ones too (like birds who mate for life!). Some animals are self-aware and might be even conscious.

Re:What Made Early Humans Smart by AlotOfReading on Saturday July 03, 2021 @11:32AM (#27722276)
> My guess is agriculture is what selectively picked humans with long-term thinking (strategizing) and ultimately led to civilizations. (all civilizations started with agriculture around a river)

Foragers are the vast majority of human history and they're just as capable of weighing long-term risks as you or I. It would also be incorrect to say that all agriculture originated around river valleys. Mexico and New Guinea are both counterexamples.

Re:What Made Early Humans Smart by csomar on Saturday July 03, 2021 @12:49PM (#27722939)
New Guinea is an island, definitively not a river but the sea is rich in resources; kinda of a different regime. For Mexico, I thought they had lots of water (assuming you mean Tenochtitlan). The city was literally floating in water.
Re:What Made Early Humans Smart by AlotOfReading on Saturday July 03, 2021 @01:26PM (#27723228)
All agriculture happens in places with water. That's sort of a necessary prerequisite. In Mexico we're really talking about Oaxaca and especially the highlands in early agriculture. In New Guinea, the whole island is a swampy tropical rainforest. Neither of these are compatible with the hydraulic hypothesis though.
Re:What Made Early Humans Smart by imbnwa on Saturday July 03, 2021 @02:42PM (#27723782)
Also Southern Florida's indigeneous people's aquaculture
Re:What Made Early Humans Smart by bobbylarrybobby on Saturday July 03, 2021 @12:11PM (#27722626)
It’s a little cheap to say eagles are the projectile, as they can continuously update their trajectory until the moment they grab their prey. Humans have to get it right right at the moment the projectile leaves their hand; they can’t correct as the projectile flies.
Re:What Made Early Humans Smart by Retric on Saturday July 03, 2021 @01:22PM (#27723204)
A Peregrine falcon in a 200 MPH dive assuming ~0.05 second reflexes is completely unable to do anything to correct their flight path within the next ~15 feet.

Throwing accurately might seem complex, but chimps have been recorded throwing rocks at targets and once the basics are down being slightly better at throwing probably doesn’t add much difficulty.

Re:What Made Early Humans Smart by xyzzyz on Saturday July 03, 2021 @01:26PM (#27723237)
And why exactly would you assume 0.05s reflexes? Why don’t you assume, say, 0.01s instead?
Re:What Made Early Humans Smart by Retric on Saturday July 03, 2021 @01:49PM (#27723415)
Fastest recorded visual reaction time in any animal was 0.015s (15ms) for a tiny fly to sudden bright light. The general rule is it increases with the physical distance a signal needs to travel across an animals nervous system and the complexity of what’s being responded to.

So, while I don’t have exact measurements on hand ~50ms is good enough for an internet comment.

Re:What Made Early Humans Smart by pfdietz on Saturday July 03, 2021 @04:36PM (#27724689)
Accurate human throwing requires a timing accuracy of 1 ms.
Re:What Made Early Humans Smart by Retric on Saturday July 03, 2021 @05:08PM (#27724942)
Precision of 1ms not timing of 1ms. It’s just like taking a step you can chose when to start but you need to synchronize motions after that point to maintain an efficient stride.

In the end that kind of precision is extremely easy for nervous systems as the lag just gets built in. Which is how hummingbird hearts can do 21 beats per second with different timings between each of the 4 chambers at sub 1ms precision.

Re:What Made Early Humans Smart by elliekelly on Saturday July 03, 2021 @12:50PM (#27722954)
> is made for running, walking, traveling and not thinking

I think most runners, walkers, hikers, and travelers would say they do quite a lot of thinking while they’re moving.

Re:What Made Early Humans Smart by imbnwa on Saturday July 03, 2021 @02:43PM (#27723789)
Nietzsche has entered the chat: "No great idea has ever been conceived while sitting"