I have been thinking about pre 3200 bce humanity for 5 hours at this point and my brain hurts.

[NerimaShinjuku]

They weren't stupid, per se, but no valid reason to invent. As I said, you don't invent new technologies when you are with your circle, even inside jokes form over time and they are not written to explain. Youeither know, or don't. What you do is like a type 3 civilization saying we are　stupid, at our current level. We aren't. Sure we did not invent something better or will take lots of times until reach type 3, maybe another tens of thousands or more, but it just means we are simply at our best. I just want to remind thjt Internet didn't become something like this overnight, it took half a century at best, and even with all the technology we are still coming up with new stuff. Don't take what we use right now for granted. I think.

Counterpoint: They DID invent writing in that 150,000 years because it would have been nearly impossible not to. The only surviving evidence is from 52 kya, but you know what’s easier to write on than cave walls? Trees. Mud, sand. Outdoor rocks with plenty of light and community access, but also exposed to the elements. In other words, all places where evidence would disappear over thousands of years. A whole writing system could have sprung up, vanished when the tribe died out, and the evidence vanished within a thousand years. Probably many times over.

Look, I’m not saying I’m right and you’re wrong. The evidence says you’re right and I know I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about. But I cannot FATHOM these people sitting around for 150,000 years without figuring out writing.

 

[jecroisenlasuperioritedubel]

Counterpoint: They DID invent writing in that 150,000 years because it would have been nearly impossible not to. The only surviving evidence is from 52 kya, but you know what’s easier to write on than cave walls? Trees. Mud, sand. Outdoor rocks with plenty of light and community access, but also exposed to the elements. In other words, all places where evidence would disappear over thousands of years. A whole writing system could have sprung up, vanished when the tribe died out, and the evidence vanished within a thousand years. Probably many times over.

Look, I’m not saying I’m right and you’re wrong. The evidence says you’re right and I know I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about. But I cannot FATHOM these people sitting around for 150,000 years without figuring out writing.

From our pov, writing seems really basic. Yes. But think about it, to represent individual sounds with individual symbols , aka alphabets, we needed to wait until bce 2000 or 3000. Our invention rate accelerated exponentially after industrial revolution. What you say is you can not fathom why medieval people couldn't make sand think, i.e. create CPUs, as a gross over-simplification.

And 52kya evidence proto-writing is more akin to mnemonic techniques with heavy context usage. If I want to give you a metaphor think this:


-for each finger it means something and your friends applied on.
-10 fingers, with 3 knuckles each. 28 knuckles at total.
-The ways you can attach strings to these knuckles represent
SUM[k=0 to 28] (C(28, k) * C((28 - k) + k - 1, k))
possibilities, accounting for every potential combination and arrangement. " What does that mean? " you may ask, it means 3,824,345,300,380,220 combinations with indistinguishable strings only.
-this is a way to tell something without saying it specifically, but relies on heavy usage of context and time.
-sure, you can write too, but you are practical. Why also come up with something that transcends alphabet when you have this or regular latin alphabet.


My point stands on the fact that humans, in interpersonal relationships, don't write stuff. You have a ring for marriage. It is a kind of proto-writing too. You can do tattoos maybe?

In short, don't think retrospectively. We know what to do when we look back. If it was that easy we would be writing this convo via type 3 civilization technology. I think.

 

[WanderingWanderer]

Humans don't have inherent want to seek " god ".

True, but humans, at least the small ones, are curious. You paint a bleak picture of adults being completely rational, and yet there's a bunch of adults who still believe lies they were told by their parents. Adults were once children too. It isnt hard to believe that as a child, they asked "why are things this way?" "Why does rain fall and hail pester?" and their parents started answering with myths. Myths, that became culture. Culture, that became common sense, truth. "Daddy, why cant I go to the forest alone?" "Ohoho, have you never heard of the colossal snake that eats wandering wanderers?"

is the rats thing a 1984 reference?

I like this thread

 

[jecroisenlasuperioritedubel]

True, but humans, at least the small ones, are curious. You paint a bleak picture of adults being completely rational, and yet there's a bunch of adults who still believe lies they were told by their parents. Adults were once children too. It isnt hard to believe that as a child, they asked "why are things this way?" "Why does rain fall and hail pester?" and their parents started answering with myths. Myths, that became culture. Culture, that became common sense, truth. "Daddy, why cant I go to the forest alone?" "Ohoho, have you never heard of the colossal snake that eats wandering wanderers?"

is the rats thing a 1984 reference?

I like this thread

You come to a nice point and it is correct. Adults aren't fully all logic. And they do tell stories. I simply say getting this in-community stories or creativity as " a want to seek god such as Abrahamic religions' books say " is wrong. They tell stories to teach stuff, and not mindless prayer.