Brain sizes actually went down with the advent of agriculture, which is normal for a domesticated species.
this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2025
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It's also rare that we lived in caves.
The plants domesticated us!
And by domesticating us they also domesticated cats
So I read some interesting stuff on this recently, (ignoring that brain size isn't as important as brain compelxity for intelligence) a lot of creatures that have big brains including our ancestors and elephants had/have most of the extra mass in regions related to memory. The theory goes that simply remembering where everything is and picking the most likely solution (e.g. the neares watering hole that you saw water at this time last year) is generally more effective than traits like creativity and imagination... right up until you hit a break point where you start making tools and seriously modifying your environment. As we developed agriculture we had less of a need to remember every little thing so while we didn't get less intelligent we did end up with worse memories, possibly gaining an even greater degree of creativity in return as those parts of the brain became more valuable in the new self created environment.
Ancestral humans did not live in caves.
Caves were either social gathering places or emergency shelters.
They lived in huts made of wood and bone and skin.
My brain lives in a hut made of bone and skin.
Deep
And before that?
Just like. Slept in a nice clearing they could find. Like animals. Because that's what they were.
Trees. We were at one time an arboreal species.
What we are
Ur mom maybe…
Or definitely. You’d say definitely I guess.
I wish I was more of an animal.
Where's my tail :<
I wish I was more of an animal.
Buy a drum set.
Listen, I think it's remarkable that people could paint such realistic depictions of animals in France and I can't doodle a satisfactory person with a sword.
Maybe you should go to France.
sorry I'm just so understaffed in here
It really is unnatural, and I think addiction to the (mis)information firehose is degrading the way people think. There's so much to process they tend to rush through it, taking a few seconds to make a kneekerk value judgement on each item before scrolling to the next. It shrinks attention spans, discourages analytical skills, and rewards meme-level thinking - all handy tools for fearmongers and other con artists. An equally corrupt liberal version of Trump is probably right around the corner.
Designed?