🧵 The Origin of Human Intelligence: Cannibalism
Anonymous at Wed, 27 Mar 2024 09:06:50 UTC No. 16099066
We ate people before we ate animals. And cannibalism began with women eating their own children, and children eating their grandparents. You have to think like a woman two million years ago who was pregnant all the time, who did not know how to prevent pregnancy or how to abort, and who had to feed many children, often without a male partner to help.
The tradition of eating old people is documented in many cultures: nothing was wasted, and it would have been foolish to waste the flesh of a dead person.
Once you start eating your own family members, it becomes natural to start eating other people. In prehistory (and even not so long ago), people from other tribes were not perceived as belonging to the same species: they don't speak my language, their customs are different, they smell different, therefore they are not the same species as me. Killing and eating them was no more morally wrong than eating a hamburger today.
Anonymous at Wed, 27 Mar 2024 09:07:05 UTC No. 16099067
The main meal was brains: our brains need a lot of protein, and another brain gives the highest amount of protein in the shortest time. Hence the tradition of killing an enemy and eating his brain.
Not to mention that it has been known for some time that the ARHGAP11B gene is unique to humans. The ARHGAP11B gene protein is located in the mitochondria. This gene causes stem cells in the brain to proliferate in a manner similar to rapidly dividing tumor cells (basal progenitor amplification). The result is an explosion of stem cells in the brain and a larger brain. This could be the only reason why the human neocortex is about three times larger than that of our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, and much more nutritious. The mechanism was explained in 2020 by Wieland Huttner's team at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics. A few months later, the same team, in collaboration with Hideyuki Okano of Keio University in Japan (a pioneer in the technology of generating transgenic non-human primates) and the Central Institute for Experimental Animals in Japan, transported the gene into monkeys: they generated transgenic baby marmosets equipped with the ARHGAP11B gene. After 101 days, the team measured their neocortex and found that it was both enlarged and folded, just like the human brain. This seems to prove that this gene alone causes primate brains to develop a larger, tastier neocortex.
Anonymous at Wed, 27 Mar 2024 09:08:06 UTC No. 16099068
Then cost-benefit analysis made humans realize that humans were difficult and dangerous to kill, while many animals were easy to kill and provided less but enough protein to live on. That's when domestication began: feeding on defenseless cows and goats was much safer than feeding on humans armed with spears and axes, and the human brain stopped growing. That's when cannibalism became a thing of the past, of primitive man. However, it was still practiced (and valued) in many places around the world until recently.
We are living in the first cannibalism-free age in the history of the human species. It's an age that is only a few decades old. The age of cannibalism lasted several million years.
Anonymous at Wed, 27 Mar 2024 09:27:39 UTC No. 16099091
>>16099066
Just-so stories and evolutionary psychology: the height of /sci/'s inquiry into the mind.
Anonymous at Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:11:22 UTC No. 16099268
>>16099265
What a stupid pointless post.
Anonymous at Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:49:33 UTC No. 16099308
>>16099091
>>16099265
low iq cope
Anonymous at Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:57:54 UTC No. 16099316
>>16099308
Its not necessarily due to their low iq (although they are definitely low iq judging by their word and syntax choices), its more about their elevated fear making them cope because they can't accept how malevolent and predatory nature and the human condition can be.
Anonymous at Wed, 27 Mar 2024 15:33:53 UTC No. 16099422
Sexual selection, cooking, hunting tools, and the ability to more easily migrate are the likely enablers of higher intelligence.
Cannibalism is more similar to poly(either) socities, an adaptation to subpar environments. It's cost is the increase in degenerative prion diseases.
Evopysch is mostly just-so bullshit.
Anonymous at Thu, 28 Mar 2024 01:44:31 UTC No. 16100362
>>16099265
Shut up, Lancelot. Clean your fucking room.
Anonymous at Thu, 28 Mar 2024 06:54:06 UTC No. 16100725