Yesterday I wrote about Covid deniers and how baseless their arguments are specially compared to the research that has been done for many years towards understanding these kinds of deceases. The people that have a hard time believing in what science has to say are often also negative about the progress we have made as humans.
The humans that lived 200.000 years ago where more or less like us in capabilities, if you put modern clothes on them and teach them English for instance you wouldn’t see a difference. Why is it important to know this you might wonder? It is important to know because most modern cultures look at the people that still live as hunter gatherers in remote places as primitive and backwards. But these people are exactly like us, the biggest difference is that they are raised in a totally different environment than ours. But they also have ambitions, fall in love, some like adventure others like to learn like we, people that live in cities. The biggest difference between the hunter gatherers from 200.000 years ago, and in a lesser amount, the “modern” hunter gatherers, is that they live(d) more in fear than we do.
Yesterday I wrote that I wanted to start reading some of the books I have (read). I decided to start with Sapiens, from Yuval Noah Harari. It is a well known book that I read it a couple of years ago, well, I listened to it. I have listened to the first chapter today. I do this listening in the car and at work. Wile listening I sometimes get distracted and forget to pause, this is the reason why I didn’t mind listening to the book again. I took some notes this time, and after the first chapter I listened to it again in a faster speed. It is a good thing that I did that because I missed some parts again… Normally I don’t mind not getting it all in, but now I want to listen to it all I notice that that is not so easy. I am sure this will also happen when you read a book, but I was quite obvious now. I work as a carpenter, it is often impossible to concentrate on a book, but today the work didn’t need much attention, but I guess my mind wondered off at some point.
This is written on his website of Yuval Noah Harrari, a brief history of humankind.
Homo sapiens rules the world because it is the only animal that can believe in things that exist purely in its own imagination, such as gods, states, money and human rights.
Starting from this provocative idea, Sapiens goes on to retell the history of our species from a completely fresh perspective. It explains that money is the most pluralistic system of mutual trust ever devised; that capitalism is the most successful religion ever invented; that the treatment of animals in modern agriculture is probably the worst crime in history; and that even though we are far more powerful than our ancient ancestors, we aren’t much happier.
If you are interested in human history than I recommend starting with prehistory. How did people live before the periods we have some (written)information from. I find it interesting, and this book tells it without nonsense and it is reasonable up to date with the latest findings as far as I can tell. The way he writes tell me that he is a skeptical person, he tries to show different opinions but he doesn’t shy away from telling his own opinion. It is by no means a book that will tell you everything you need to know, it is a book written for a large audience and the ideas it brings are a good starting point for more research.
A few things that I realize better now are the facts that not only Homo Sapiens and the Homo Neandertalensis lived at the same time, but that there were other Homo … living also at the same time. We also pride ourselves of the big brain we have and that this is the reason why we are ahead of other animals, but we had that brain for 2 million years and didn’t do much with it. He writes that those “brains” were as capable as ours, they could in principle learn what we can learn if one would wake up now.
There is also a discussion about how we became Homo Sapiens. Did we replace the other species or did we breed with them. Most scientist prefer the so called replacement theory because this fits better with the idea that all humans are the same. The other idea is known as interbreeding and suggest that some Home Sapiens have DNA of other species that where living in the area they moved into. They now know that a lot of people in the west have some Neanderthaler DNA and people in other parts of the world carry DNA from other local, and extinct species. This is something I like to know more about.
We all know that if you want to become better in something, you have to practice and learn. But something strange happens if you learn more and more. There comes a point that you learn so much about a specific task or subject, that you loose control, to many variables make choosing the right direction, to hard.
If you are born before the 1990’s you probably know how to fix one of those old TV’s, you make a fist and bang on it, it is easy. You know only one way of fixing it, banging it. Now you’ve been to TV repair school and know all about TV’s, the next time it is broken, you have to go over a long checklist and rule out 50 possible problems. You gained a lot of knowledge, but it didn’t get easier, the only thing you know for sure is that banging on a TV is not good. This example is of course a little silly, but you can replace the TV with whatever you want, and you will see that this example still work.
Look at history, with little knowledge you can take big steps and proclaim that we are living like this because they did that 50 years ago. When you then start to read and learn more about that period, you will find out that it is more complicated once you take in account all the other facts and circumstances. A lot of historians will tell you that after many years of study they understand less of what happened, because they know to much.
It was still normal before the 18th century that a scholar was not only a philosopher but also a astronomer, chemist, physicist and also a mechanical engineers. All those different fields of knowledge where still so small that one person could understand it all. After the 18th century you will see that more and more people are specializing in one or two fields. These day’s you can be an engineer specialized in a subsection of a subsection of the department that is specialized in the designs of a wheel for an airplane.
If you know little, you will bang your fist on the TV in the hope you will fix it. If you know to mush you spend the rest of your life thinking about why the TV is broken.
Martin repaired the two ends of the “livholt” and now Joost is helping to see if they can get one of the rotten pegs out, next week they have to see if they can find the peg on the outside because from here it isn’t working.
Click here if you want to read the Introduction/first post.
This week Peder, the electrician finished his work on Brottsjø for this year. All the old switches, sockets and switchboards are cleaned, measured and repaired, if necessary using old parts where possible. Look at the results, they look like new again.
Click here if you want to read the Introduction/first post.
This week I worked with the new stern. The old stern didn’t fit so good anymore after so many years so I spent some time measuring the old Skin and inner stern/knee to make sure that the new one fits good.
Click here if you want to read the Introduction/first post.
Oursmith has made a new part forthesteering system. Chainsfromthesteeringwheelcontrolthis arm that is connected to therudder, itwasoriginallymade by a smithsoweusedthe same techniques to copythe old one.
Click here if you want to read the Introduction/first post.
