[HN Gopher] Shoes, Algernon, Pangea, and sea peoples
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Shoes, Algernon, Pangea, and sea peoples
Author : crescit_eundo
Score : 48 points
Date : 2025-09-25 16:11 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (dynomight.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (dynomight.net)
| RamRodification wrote:
| _> But there doesn't seem to be any cognitive task that you can
| practice and make yourself better at other cognitive tasks._
|
| This seems wrong. Doesn't practicing cognitive tasks often lead
| to improvement in other cognitive tasks?
| more_corn wrote:
| Doesn't identifying and challenging logical fallacies make you
| better at thinking?
|
| Doesn't acknowledging the possibility of error and allowing
| conclusions to be overturned by evidence improve the outcomes
| of cognition?
| AfterHIA wrote:
| I dig your style. I had a thought:
|
| "doesn't seem to be any cognitive task that you can practice and
| make yourself better at other cognitive tasks."
|
| I believe reading books and playing musical instruments are
| examples of cognitive task that make you better at other
| cognitive tasks. Also learning other languages comes to mind. I
| think I'm reiterating your point. It's, "not a wall but a steep
| slope." Cheers mate.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| It's unclear. On one hand, there is little evidence of being
| able to strengthen mental faculties (reasoning, working memory,
| etc) through practice -- only the development of specific
| skills that can transfer.
|
| Yet, the emotional capacity to do hard work without getting
| frustrated and quitting (viz. "cognitive endurance") appears to
| be its own skill.
| more_corn wrote:
| There are known errors in thinking. Avoiding them can make you
| less likely to fall into the many reasoning errors that humans
| have been trapped in throughout history.
|
| It might not make you 2% smarter on a test. It probably makes
| you 2% and more overall because you can examine your thinking
| for common classes of error, identity your mistakes and attempt
| to correct them.
|
| Examine the known errors humans have made in their
| understanding of the world. Identify patterns in those errors,
| abstract those errors, apply the principles to your
| conclusions.
|
| Here's one: thinking there's some source of truth written on
| commonly known that cannot be challenged. For centuries after
| the invention of the microscope germ theory was disregarded
| because a false theory of miasma predominated. Why? We got
| attached to pleasant sounding but made up story. We didn't
| question it enough to allow the evidence before our eyes to
| update our thinking.
|
| I leave exploration of other classes of errors in thinking as
| an exercise for the reader.
| gsf_emergency_2 wrote:
| Pre-chatgpt blogposts on well-known topics used to be far better
| motivated or layman-oriented
|
| https://ace-pt.org/ace-physical-therapy-and-sports-medicine-...
|
| which hints that the low 2.7% improvement should not be
| unexpected of commercializable interventions targeting this joint
|
| (unlike, say, of obviously illegal (powered or not) exoskeletons)
|
| https://medium.com/the-bronze-age/the-ships-of-the-sea-peopl...
|
| Otoh, bona fide connections between Pangaea, Sea Peoples & modern
| day Turkiye are still discussed on OpenAI-resistant YouTube today
|
| https://youtu.be/a0LWFt78n7k
|
| On the first hand, the automaton reminds me that "modern-day
| philistines settled in the Gaza Strip after their defeat"
| boris wrote:
| > We have been optimized very hard by evolution to be good at
| running, so there shouldn't be any "easy" technologies that would
| make us dramatically faster or more efficient.
|
| I wonder if these new shoes have the same affect on natural
| (i.e., non-paved) surfaces? Plus, they all look quite high off
| the ground (probably all those plates and foam need space) and
| that doesn't help with stability when running over rocks, etc.
| BruceEel wrote:
| Yes. The top marathon racing shoes are optimized for road-
| running & hard surfaces like asphalt. Definitely not good for
| trails. They are indeed very tall (though there's limits for
| official competitions.) Excellent lateral stability is
| essentially a non-goal so they are not a good choice for
| volleyball or tennis either. So yeah, we run in a very
| different world than the one where our ancestors evolved...
| ashu1461 wrote:
| > In general, that argument is that there shouldn't be any simple
| technology that would make humans dramatically smarter, since if
| there was, then evolution would have already found it.
|
| With technology we have massively extended lifespan, so does this
| argument really hold valid ?
| _diyar wrote:
| The word simple does a lot of work here.
| iNic wrote:
| On average. But it wasn't that uncommon to have people reach
| 100 years of age even 500 years ago. The biggest impact on
| lifespans was hygiene not medicine (except for maybe anti-
| biotics).
| more_corn wrote:
| Vaccines dramatically reduce childhood mortality
| significantly skewing mortality figures.
| gmuslera wrote:
| Evolution is multidimensional, if for improving one trait you
| diminish another that may for our survival some compromise will
| be reached. Not by design, but natural selection, at the end
| matters that the genes manage to survive. If living more
| implies that against food scarcity you get no surviving
| children that is the end of the line for the genes that enabled
| that extra lifespan.
|
| And in evolutionary terms, having agriculture, civilization,
| technology and a global culture that may support those traits
| is the exception not the rule.
| erezsh wrote:
| Related interesting fact that I recently learned.
|
| Supposedly, one people of the Sea Peoples were the Peleset, as
| the egyptians called them
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peleset), which are believed to be
| the same people as the Philistines, for which the Romans gave
| Palestine its name.
| kwk1 wrote:
| Another tantalizing possible connection for two other Sea
| Peoples groups, the "Sherden" and the "Shekelesh" sure sound
| pretty close to "Sardinia" and "Sicily", but I'm not sure if
| there's any actual evidence besides similarity.
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