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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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Depends on how you define "modern human". Given that I look at most of Homo erectus and go "human: modern", I tend to disagree. (We consistently sell them, H. ergaster and H, heidelbergensis very, very short by shoving walls between us all — when, I don't see "species" but "races" — of Erectus.)
Also, how you define the age of any given species. Some ants and spiders don't appear to have changed much over a couple of billion years, for example.
Yup.
edited 24th Jun '16 6:45:30 AM by Euodiachloris
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The major fallout of Brexit isn't likely to hit until after the US elections, but right in time for midterm elections, so that won't be a problem.
the point was there is a damn good reason for the doomsday clock to be as close to midnight as it is. As far as average species age, that can be interpreted optimistically as well, in the same fashion as the more general doomsday argument if we assume the eventual replacement of modern humankind by its posthuman descendants, which is the likely outcome if human civilization manages to survive the next few centuries.
edited 24th Jun '16 6:49:46 AM by CaptainCapsase
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Anatomically modern humans have existed for approximately 200,000 years, but behaviorally, the mutations that give us the ability to be culturally modern — specifically, complex language and abstract thinking — arose ~70,000 years ago. (reference)
It's only been in the last 300 years or so that we've become an industrial society capable of altering our environment on a massive scale; this coincided with a cultural shift away from basic subsistence to, essentially, wealth-seeking behavior. Our brains haven't quite caught up to this in an evolutionary sense, so we are still ruled by fear of the unknown and the other.
Unions of nations are designed to dispel those fears by bringing more and more people into our mental "tribes". The fewer "others" exist, the less motivation we have to abandon our social contract and go murder people. Ergo, any movement that is based on fomenting fear of "others" is a regression to a more primitive cultural state and should be suspect on that basis alone, never mind whether their politics are based on any kind of facts (they rarely are).
If the forces of nationalism win in Europe, we're looking at such a regression, but over an entire continent and in the face of one of the most powerful economic alliances in history. The outcomes of Leave votes, being driven by bad economics as well as by tribalism and fear, will be uniformly negative for the nations that choose them, leading to increased anger, which the ruling parties will direct outward to avoid being blamed. The march to conflict will be as historically inevitable as it will be (apparently) surprising to the people who are elected to lead these nations.
(And yes, I have argued for Greece to leave the Eurozone, but that's a different situation, and I never suggested they should leave the EU.)
edited 24th Jun '16 7:05:16 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I dispute that. Mainly because some of the "behaviours" people go on about turn out to consistently date back to a lot older all the time. Language: constantly gets shifted backwards. Abstract symbolic thought: ditto.
Most of the very early signs of "modern" behaviour probably haven't survived. Thanks to being made of skin, wood, bone and found in very unlikely places to allow preservation (seriously: rainforests and savannahs suck when it comes to monument preservation). Betcha archaic Erectus was tattooing and scarring skin decoratively before working out the technology to make pretty beads out of really hard stuff came along. Betcha.
Also betcha that various natural dyes could fetch a pretty... amount of marrowbone. Or whatever.
Why, yes: I do dispute that video, thank you. I, for one, think they make the mistake of taking what little evidence there remains from deep time (and, it is very little) as the basis. When that has constantly shifted, as more evidence comes to light. I'm not expecting that trend to stop any time soon... mainly because said evidence tends to get found when people start to look at what is there in a new light, rather than finding something totally new. It's amazing how many anthropological screw-ups get identified, later.
After all, when I was growing up, everybody knew Neanderthals weren't really human-human, but a much lesser cousin who couldn't talk properly, thanks to the lack of a correctly positioned hyoid bone, as well as other such "facts" (all disproven since). And, other such guff. Going by fire-use is making the mistake of assuming technology/ culture = cognitive baseline. It takes long while to make a lot of small discoveries that add up... during which they can get forgotten. Until you learn to make poetry... or write.
edited 24th Jun '16 7:29:49 AM by Euodiachloris
Dispute what, the facts in the video? That's really outside the scope of this topic, but go argue with them, not with me. Humans have been tool-users for 2 million years, but it wasn't until 70K or so ago that our language and thinking abilities evolved to the point where we could build upon all of our past knowledge to systematically improve our future prospects rather than luck our way into new ideas.
edited 24th Jun '16 7:09:48 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Clinton and...sigh...Sanders weigh in on the Brexit
. Leave it to Sanders to use it as proof that "the global economy isn't working for everyone" and taking yet another opportunity to rail about jobs moving to China.
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Free trade by its very nature is something corporations would like to avoid, since, while they get the benefit of cheap labor, they also have to compete meaningfully with foreign companies, among other facets of free trade that tend to weaken big business. That's why pretty much every recent free trade agree has had a massive set of pro-corporate stipulations included in them. NAFTA still managed to be a net benefit to the economy in spite of that, but the trade deal under discussion now goes much further.
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Which is why Brexit is hopefully a wakeup call to the EU.
edited 24th Jun '16 10:18:17 AM by CaptainCapsase
"Trump says Brexit a model for his campaign" - http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0ZA1EC
Should this be where I say "That about says it all, right there"?
edited 24th Jun '16 10:33:58 AM by sgamer82
Yeah the wake up call is that popularism and referendums are not a toy. Cameron played with fire and the entire UK is now paying the price.
As for the EU as an institution, it needs to go on a charm offensive, the areas that the EU helped the moot are the ones that voted to give it the boot.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranFuck that noise. Texans have been trying to secede since before Texas was a state.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Euod: Modern humans have existed tor around 200,000 years. That's pretty close to the average life expectancy of a species. Civilization has existed for a tiny fraction of that, about 6,000 years, and it's only been during the past 50 years that we developed technology capable of destroying civilization, during which there were dozens of close call ls which arose from little more than paranoia. The worrying radio silence of the cosmos doesn't bode well for be longevity of intelligent life either, and, in a debate on the subject with Carl Sagan, Ernst Mayr argued that intelligence is, in a matter of speaking, a lethal mutation; the more intelligent a species is, the less numerous (and thus less successful in biological terms) it tends to be; that only stopped applying to humans after the industrial revolution, a drop in an ocean compared to our history as a species.
There is very good reason to be worried about the future of human civilization; the question whether or not we are mature enough as a species to use technology responsibly will be answered one way or another in the 21st and 22nd centuries.
edited 24th Jun '16 6:37:17 AM by CaptainCapsase