Space exploration, to put it bluntly. — L'éléphant

So far, humans have traveled 250,000 miles from earth to the moon. Mars is about 34,000,000 miles away. The galaxy is 107,000 LIGHT YEARS in diameter. Successfully traveling to our nearby moon does not make us a space-faring civilization, as depicted in science fiction.

IF and when something we want or need is found on a moon planet, or asteroid, someone will try to go get it, space treaties or not. Common heritage? We have dumped shit on heritage sights that are a lot closer than the moon.

All of our problems have to be solved under the sky that is overhead. The solutions are to be found here, not there, or they won't be found.

BTW, I like science fiction, and I like reading about humankind traveling to other solar systems. Of course, in some books, we run into beings more powerful than us who end up eating our lunch. Or, we turn out to be more powerful and we eat somebody else's lunch.

Or, another theme in science fiction: we travel for a very long time in space and never find anyone else.

I get that about Baker. Of course, on the Internet nobody knows for sure how much of what somebody says reflects their actual life and how much of it is public relations copy. You wouldn't know for instance, that I am actually a cloistered monk with an overheated imagination in an isolated monastery and lots of time on my hands.

I have found great pleasure in music written by people who have been dead for hundreds of years, whether that was sitting in a plush orchestra hall seat or listening to it through earphones on a bus. I can say the same for listening to music performed in the flesh by the guys who wrote it. And I've danced to music in discos.

BTW, you can rest, assured that people who have paid a hundred bucks to listen to a stage full of professionals play Beethoven are engaged with the music. They own comfortable chairs to sit in, and have many ways of being amused. They don't have to go to to Orchestra Hall for a good time.

Some music was intended to be the basis of group movement (dance) and some music was intended to be heard by people sitting still -- and this goes back centuries. Gregorio Allegri's Miserere Mei, written in (written in the early 1600s) is still a killer piece of music. The Vatican knew it had a platinum hit, and it didn't want to lose control of the piece. They were successful until a young Amadeus Mozart heard the music in one Good Friday in Rome, and went back to his motel and wrote it out from memory.

Some orchestral music calls for movement -- thinking of some pieces by the German Michael Praetorius' Terpsichore, for example, 1610.

Did Stone Age people always move to whatever music they produced? (Some ancient bone flutes have been found, about 66,000 years old. "Ok, shut up everybody, Glug is going to play something now."

Not necessarily. It isn’t like a male can’t be sympathetic to the plights faced by females. There were also white activists during the Civil Rights weren’t there? This type of thinking implies that there are qualities that can only be possessed by people of a specific gender/race, which is just another form of race (or sex) essentialism, correct? — Pinprick

I was specifically asking why, if there were available Asian trans-women as viable options, why a black woman is the best person as someone that is sensitive to the issues inherent in cases concerning race or gender. You made it sound as if black women hold some special vantage point on the matter. But if you're saying that blacks are the only minority that we a viable pool to choose from then that makes more sense. — Harry Hindu

Sex, race, ethnicity, religion, class, education, etc. are not reliable indicators of political or judicial views. Those factors, plus social and professional experiences, are more reliable indicators of how someone will behave in the future. Nothing guarantees a specific opinion or behavior.

The American colonies and later the union of 13 colonies cum states, was never an egalitarian society. It still isn't. From before our beginning (in England) propertied men and of course white males were the beneficiaries of systems of education, social experience, privilege and power.

From the first justices down to the present, the largest group of qualified and (very important) well-connected individuals have been white males. Only recently (measured in decades) have any women, white, black, or asian, attained sufficient education, judicial experience, and connections to be considered for the court. That is not to say that there were never women who could have served on the court, but nominating them would have been a huge deviation from standard practice. The political system, after all, was composed exclusively or (lately) mostly white males.

In the last 30 or 40 years, that has begun to change.

In an earlier post I pointed out how much conservatives hated the court under Chief Justice Earl Warren (1950s and 1960s). Those hated liberal judges were all white males.

There are very conservative blacks and women who no political liberal or even moderate would think of appointing to the court. There may be, given time, asian transgender justices who no liberal or even moderate would think of appointing to the Supreme Court. Being asian and transgendered does not, as far as I know, also make one a justice interested in extending civil liberties, lessening corporate privilege, and so on.

What does make someone a liberal, if anything does, is class, education, and (most important) social experience.

Conversely, there were a few Jews able to hide in plain sight because they were tall, blond, blue eyed, and very Aryan in appearance -- more so than many of the top Nazis. Early after the Nazis took over, a diplomat saw Goebbles and asked "Who's the little Jew sitting next to Hitler?"

Yes, I know about the very large numbers of people killed by Stalin, and during the famine of the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. There are some differences between the Nazi plan for Jews and Slavs, and the actions directed by Stalin. The same comparing Hitler or Stalin with Mao: the differences make little difference. There are millions of dead, whether caused by efficient planning, paranoia, or colossal, malignant incompetence.

I am not in favor of censoring speech. Whatever the consequence of censorship is, it won't be good.

Most Americans work under the legal idea of "Employment at will", meaning one can just quit a job if one so wishes without any penalty (supposedly). The other side of that coin is that one can be fired without any justification -- unless one is working under an agreement, like a union contract. (You probably already know this.).

Employment at will is one of the features of the workplace that contributes to worker precarity. If one quits, one is ineligible for unemployment insurance. Same thing if one is fired "for cause" -- like maybe one was engaging in 5-fingered discounts, or just outright theft.

Unemployment benefits vary a lot from state to state, and the harshness with which the program is administered also varies.

Work sucks. That's why they have to pay people to do it.

Saying that the Holocaust was not about racism, but man's inhumanity to man, is a relatively 'weak' statement, but not false. The Nazis were racist, but they used the term in a somewhat different way than it is used contemporarily. Up to the earlier part of the 20th century, some people still used race the way we use 'ethnicity', so the race of Frenchmen, the race of jews, the race of Englishmen, the race of Slavs. The term 'race' also distinguished between Africans, Asians, Europeans, and Indigenous Americans, which is its primary meaning now.

The holocaust is the example par excellence of inhumanity, and goes downhill from there.

What makes Whoopi Goldberg's statement relatively weak, is that 'man's inhumanity to man' is used to describe everything from really, really rude behavior to acts which are an abomination (like the holocaust was).

I regret their interest in PoMo. I want our intelligence services to be clear-eyed and rational, science based, and politically reliable. NoPoMo is better than moPoMo.

There is a lot of text there. Right now I am too hungry and tired to read it.

You have used many words in your posts which are not bitter and are not cranky. I would like to see you change your 'handle' but perhaps you like the 'ironic' element too much and I fully accept your choice of 'handle' is just that, your choice. — universeness

It is an ironic choice, the irony more visible to me than anyone else. I don't want to change horses mid stream, and this handle goes back to the first incarnation of Philosophy Forum, so a few years worth. Plus it would take too much CPU time to think of another handle.

Why not an Asian trans-gender woman — Harry Hindu

We could have an Asian trans-gender person; we could have an indigenous gay person, we could have a pissed off incel of whatever extraction. One barrier to having these types is that the supremes are usually selected from the cohort of experienced federal judges. There are not many Asian trans-gender, gay indigenous, pissed off Incel judges to start with, even fewer who are experienced. Maybe n=zero in that category.

Hence, have patience.

But were I appointing judges, I would not start with a transgendered person. The status of "transgender" is too unsettled at this point.

It turns it's constituents into hypocrites. — Harry Hindu

Hypocrisy is our collective default state.

@Jill: Mexicans, Mafia, Muslims...

So, what actually is that? It looks like it could be a galaxy. — T Clark

It purports to be an image of electrical activity in the central galactic region. Or it's art. It's art on a galactic scale.

I took your recommendation and am watching the first episode of Ozark.

Riveting, as you said.

I am declaring that this is abstract expression art, the title of which is "What did the galaxy ever do for you, anyway?"

The atoms of which you are composed will survive your death and go on to have all sorts of interesting adventures FAR FAR FAR into the future. And just think, your drab wretched life may be the fantastic adventures of a few atoms that maybe passed through Julius Caesar and Jesus Christ. Or Atilla the Hun, or Vlad the Impaler, or the guy that invented the wheel, or the champion flint knapper of the mid-stone age. You could contain atoms from the first flowering plant, the first animal to venture onto dry land, the first bird, the last passenger pigeon. It is certain that you are composed of matter created in the Big Bang.

So what more do you want?

what if these citizens are actually being effectively abducted into group home or low income neighborhood situations while commonly drugged by a predatory medical establishment and forced to assert that they have an incurable ailment, in essence ostracized to various degrees by their communities? — Enrique

That would be bad. But the picture you paint is inverted, unlike the actual reality.

The predatory parts of the medical establishment are the various insurance companies, some worse than others, and the for-profit medical system. There are guilty parties here, but the medical staff are not the culprits.

I am old enough to remember when it really was possible to commit people against their will to the very large state run mental hospitals; those practices were made illegal starting in the early 1970s. However, the old state mental hospitals served a very real need that existed prior to the introduction of drugs that made it possible to greatly lessen the symptoms of psychosis, mania, and depression.

The treatment available in these hospitals was not great -- and couldn't be great, because the means were not at hand. Since the 1970s, most of these facilities have been closed.

Today, in every large city, there are homeless people who are mentally ill who would benefit from care on an involuntary basis. They can't receive care under those terms, so the end up immiserated.

Why not an Asian — Harry Hindu

All I good time. Have patience.

how many are actually learning your ABC's and practicing them every day — universeness

A lot of people perform A and B. C, less so. C takes time, ability, and effort. More people who are capable, though, could do more study, and should.

all good but the current state of the planet would suggest, it's just not enough — universeness

Well, universeness, our problems may be beyond our capacity to solve. I don't like that, but it may be true.

It would be nice if we could flip a switch and suddenly have zero carbon output, zero methane output, and so on. No such switch. Too bad. We are DEEPLY dependent on fossil fuels and there is no handy substitute at hand. Wind and solar, nuclear and hydro are alternatives, but we are a long way from deploying them fully. We don't have enough time before things get much worse.

Yes, we could suddenly shut down carbon emitting plants and processes all over the world, then watch the world's economy collapse. World-wide economic collapse and worsening global warming are both bad. Which one shall we have?

We are between a rock and a hard place.

The justice system is about finding "a" guilty person — god must be atheist

That is one of the tasks of the courts. The Supreme Court doesn't do trials. Their main concern is to review cases from the POV of procedure and constitutional questions and to resolve conflicting rulings by lower courts.

The best person should get the job regardless of race, sex, etc. — Pinprick

That's true in some situations; in others, it isn't. Race and gender do not matter when you are hiring a hundred teachers; just got the best you can. The best person to be Pope, however, will be a Catholic male.

The Supremes are a special group. They generally will not answer in advance how they would rule on potential cases, so some other criteria has to be used for selection. If you want anti-abortion anti-gay justices, pick a conservative Catholic male. If you want more moderate views, pick a liberal Protestant or a Jew. If you want someone sensitive to the issues inherent in cases concerning race and gender, a black woman would be the best person.

What do you think outlawing guns (like the UK does) would do to the US murder rate? — Down The Rabbit Hole

The likelihood of the US Congress and 38 states approving a constitutional amendment repealing the Second Amendment and banning gun possession is zero, or close to it. Even if this were done, there are so many guns already in possession (by about 1/3 of the adult population) gun violence would remain a problem.

If gun and ammunition manufacture and sale were ended, it would take time for the existing supplies of ammunition to be used up. Some of those bullets would be used to kill people intentionally. Eventually, gun violence would decline; it might take quite a while.

Now, let me point out again -- as anti-hand gun and anti-assault weapons as I am -- a very small percent of gun owners shoot people. Those who do shoot other people almost always use hand guns. [Of course, mass murders with rifles or assault weapons are an egregious exception.] A large share of hand gun deaths are among young minority males, generally in urban areas, who often are at least relatively poor, may be involved in the drug trade, and may be involved in gangs.

So, the problem of gratuitous violence also requires changes in the urban environment (economically, socially, educationally, medically, and so on).

One can kill other people with devices besides guns. A large rock will work if nothing else is available. A highly motivated individual can do it with his bare hands.

Your opening post is a bit diffuse, but you do ask the perennial good questions.

Where does the 'responsibility for the way things are lie' and what personal responsibility (if any) do each of us have as a consequence? — universeness

"The way things are", both the good and the bad, are a consequence of mostly insignificant individuals acting within very large, deterministic systems.

You and I can can choose to ride bikes to work and the grocery store instead of buying big gas-guzzling SUVs, but neither of us are in a position to do anything about the 1 billion cars on the world's roads, or the giant auto, oil, steel, and rubber businesses committed to continuing business as usual, or even changing gears and replacing 1 billion gas guzzling vehicles with 1 billion electricity guzzling vehicles.

You and I can bicycle across the country to help out in the next big disaster, but fortunately there are large organizations like the Red Cross, FEMA, Catholic Charities, Lutheran World Relief, and so on that are prepared to get there first and to start major relief efforts.

You and I can try to replace the major system behind a lot of the world's problems, like global capitalism, but we are 2 sardines up against a big herd of sharks.

What options are left? The same options that have always been open:

A) Behave generously, fairly, and kindly to those in your immediate community, for whom your behavior makes a difference.
B) Find a larger system and make a contribution of time and talent.
C) Read widely and gain knowledge about how the world works.

"A" is a clear and present opportunity. It yields good for others and good for you.

"B" offers many options. It doesn't have to be as big as the Red Cross. There are ay small NGOs trying to ameliorate the world's problems. Yes, some are more effective than others, but better to be involved in a so-so effort to heal the world than fecklessly dithering over the sad state of the world all by yourself.

"C" is very important--you probably already do this. One has to make an effort to make sense of what is going on -- the puzzle won't put itself together by itself. Personally, I find history to be my best source understanding -- not so much ancient history or medieval history, though those are interesting, as 'modern history' the last 200 years or so.

One of the pleasures of reading history (provided it is accurate) is the "ah ha! So THAT IS WHY things worked out the way they did" moments. Not every history will yield a lot of "ah ha!" moments, but eventually they pile up.

Here's an example of a really good recent history: The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein (2017) is a history of how the Federal Government, banking, and real estate interests undertook a major housing segregation and home construction program starting before the 1930s, but really getting under way then. This history explains how much of the present segregation of black and white people was brought about, particularly in the new suburbs built after WWII. It wasn't an accident: racial segregation was explicit in the enabling legislation of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Legislation and court decisions have since undone the laws and regulations, but the consequences remain.

You're sure, however, that occupation = oppression. Certainly it can, but equally certainly not necessarily. — tim wood

Tim, even though lots of people are anti-Israeli, it's OK to be on the side of the Israel. What isn't necessary is to bend over backwards to make a positive of everything they are doing. Occupation does pretty much = oppression. What else would it be? European Jews, with the help of Great Britain et al, claimed, occupied, liberated, moved into, invaded, or otherwise came to possess much of the area of Palestine, called Israel and Judea a long time ago.

Of course the residents of that area, who had been living there for hundreds of years, would resent it.

And you appear to represent that the Palestinians are the aggrieved party. I submit the Israelis are the aggrieved party and I will merely gesture at the last 75 years of their history as proof. — tim wood

True enough, the new state of Israel had to fight for its existence from the getgo. It was attacked from within it's newly claimed territory and from without. Just guessing, but the Israelis probably expected this to happen. That's why they built up a powerful military (homemade and bought abroad). Is that how they are "aggrieved?

A man beats his wife: a terrible and horrible thing. But when you grow up you eventually figure out that, terrible as it is, it also may not be as simple as it seems. — tim wood

Oh dear. Tim, when did you stop beating your wife?

I guess I'm asking is if kind of artificially adding diversity is a thing we do — TiredThinker

There is absolutely nothing 'natural' about the SCOTUS; it's an appointed office, so everything about it is "artificial" by definition.

The ethnicity, race, sex, and age matter some. What is REALLY important is whether the court is "conservative' (tending toward limiting the role of government, protecting corporations, limiting individual rights, etc.) or 'liberal' (tending toward accepting changes and enlargement of government's role, limiting corporations, expanding individual rights, etc.)

Liberal Americans are experiencing some of the great angst that conservative Americans experienced under the liberal Warren Court, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, 1953-1969.

The Warren Court expanded civil rights, civil liberties, judicial power, and the federal power in dramatic ways.[1] It has been widely recognized that the court, led by the liberal bloc, has created a major "Constitutional Revolution" in the history of United States.

The Warren Court brought "one man, one vote" to the United States through a series of rulings, and created the Miranda warning. In addition, the court was both applauded and criticized for bringing an end to de jure racial segregation in the United States, incorporating the Bill of Rights (i.e. including it in the 14th Amendment Due Process clause), and ending officially sanctioned voluntary prayer in public schools. The period is recognized as the highest point in judicial power that has receded ever since, but with a substantial continuing impact.

Conservatives absolutely hated Earl Warren -- paying for "IMPEACH EARL WARREN" billboards along highways. It should also be noted that the Warren Court was all-white and all-male until Thurgood Marshall was confirmed in 1967.

One of the issues in gun ownership is gun type. In many states quite a few hunt deer, ducks, geese, pheasants, turkeys, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, etc. with rifles. While a rifle certainly is an effective weapons against their fellow humans, they aren't convenient to tuck into one's pants and whip out if somebody threatens one with a discordant opinion, or something similarly intolerable.

The larger problem is handguns, which are very portable and pretty much concealable. You can even buy plastic guns over the internet which are not picked up on metal scanners.

My view is that there are far too many guns of all kinds in the USA. However, they are here now -- at least 1 per person, averaging out the total supply, and there isn't any acceptable way to round them up. While I loathe the slogan, it is true that guns don't kill people ON THEIR OWN--people do. Most people who own guns do not shoot other people. They could, but they don't. That fact doesn't make me feel better, but it a good idea to keep it in mind.

55% of households in Mississippi own guns, 28% of California households own guns. The state I live in, Minnesota, has a gun rate of 42% and a low rates of gun violence.

Most of the shooters and victims of gun violence are decidedly NOT middle class.

Also, is the murder rate uniform over the US? It's a humongous country. — RolandTyme

The homicide rate is not at all uniform in 2017, varying from Louisiana, with 653 homicides--a rate of 12.4 per 100,000, to New Hampshire, with 17 homicides for a rate of 1 per 100,000. Very crudely, the SE quarter of the US has much higher homicide rates than the NW quarter of the US.

Most, but not all, murders are committed with guns, but knives and blunt objects are also effective methods.

It may surprise some, but a majority of Americans do not own guns.

About 40% of Americans say they or someone in their household owns a gun, and 22% of individuals (about 72 million people) report owning a gun, according to surveys from Pew and Harvard and Northeastern. This figure has declined over time, down from 51% of gun-owning households in 1978. Gun purchases, however, have hit historic highs in recent years and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fewer people own more guns, and far fewer use them to kill people. In 2020 there were 20,480 homicides in the US--a solid effort, one has to say, but in decades past the the rate of murder was higher--another sign of declining US productivity. People in Chicago, though, know how to get things done. In 2021 there were 849 homicides (any method). Chicago has a great web site for tracking murder and assault -- HEY JACKASS!. Sadly, other cities lack this one service.

And what exactly is the argument? Have Palestinians left off teaching their children that Jews murder Arab babies and drink their blood? Or have Palestinians left off their desire to drive the Israelis into the sea? Has Hezbollah or whatever the terror organization of the moment is left off their violence? Have Israel's neighbors decided they can welcome and live with them, instead of trying to annihilate them?

If I'm Israel and they insist on rocketing me and murdering mine - can you say Yassar Arafat, or Munich? I evict them all and give them sixty days to be gone! Maybe ninety, but gone. But maybe I'm behind the times. Have the Palestinians made any substantive efforts to live peacefully with the Israelis?

I do not question that Palestinians have a tough go at the hands of Israelis, but have they not earned it many times over? Or even can the Israelis afford to be less vigilant? It seems to me that the Palestinians have worked hard to ruin a generation of their own, and more, and it is hard to see it becoming truly peaceful until they and there Arab allies change their ways - and when will that happen! — tim wood

One can be pro-Israel and still acknowledge that the Palestinians have gotten, are getting, and will probably continue to get a raw deal. They are in Israel's way. Israel is strong enough to push them around. Ugly, buy that's how it works. We Americans happily don't experience the effects of America throwing throwing its weight around elsewhere in the world. That's one of the nice parts of being on top.

How does one establish a new nation (even if it is claimed to have existed--and then vanished--a couple of thousand years previously) on already-occupied property? You displace the previous occupants, or you just sort of run over them, give them a good deal or a bad deal, but to a large extent engulf and subordinate them. People generally don't like this approach when they are on the receiving end, and they quite often resent and resist it.

Ideally, the Palestinians would just all disappear like morning fog. They won't / can't. Where would they go? North Dakota or New Mexico (somebody else's stolen land)? There aren't any great places in the world which aren't already occupied.

Next best for Israel would be for the Palestinians to "Shut up, go to your room, and stay there. Be quiet. Don't bother us. Don't call us--we'll call you if we need anything from you." I can understand the Israeli desire for the Palestinians to become obsequious peasants. Were I a Palestinian I would find that to be altogether impossible and outrageous to boot.

I don't know what the future holds. I'm pro-Israel, and the establishment of the State of Israel was "business as usual"--carried out by force against unwilling recipients of imperial policy. That's how these sorts of things get done, pretty much everywhere. Yes, the Jews were were in a dire situation, and one of the countries that could have taken in many Jews, had we not been kind of anti-semitic ourselves, was the United States. We did take in some Jews, but not nearly as many as we could have. The US was never going to be a Jewish homeland, but we could have helped more of them to survive than we did.

We can be pro-Israel without having to make a virtue out of stuffing one group down another group's throat. It will happen again, and it won't be nice. Nobody is going to like it. As global warming displaces more people, more "other people" will be unhappy that strangers are suddenly camped on their doorsteps. Imagine how enthusiastic India and Burma will be when millions of Moslem Bangladeshis are driven from their nation by rising sea water? They will end up somewhere, and nobody will be happy about it.

They use science to do their work. — L'éléphant

Of course. I respect scientists, science, and research. The fact remains that they could not examine the subjects because they had been dead for thousands of years.

Genetic changes may well have occurred. As far as I know (that's not too far) the means by which any given gene or set of genes determines intelligence isn't a road map.

Here:

A practical question comes to mind when examining this research: is everyone born with a certain intelligence level that can’t be changed? Not exactly. This is where the magnitude of the effect becomes relevant. A gene being statistically associated with intelligence does not mean it is solely responsible for how well you’ll do on an IQ test. A lot of other factors come into play, and a gene is only one.

Which leads to a key statistic: together, these 22 genes accounted for about 5% of the differences in intelligence scores.

So there is still a lot other stuff (to use a scientific term) contributing to intelligence aside from genes, including upbringing, lifestyle, and even technology—after all, even if a gene 100% destines you to be born with blonde hair, you can still use the amazing human invention of hair dye to turn it purple.

On top of that, intelligence isn’t everything, and it may not even be that meaningful of a thing. Individual cognitive domains like reasoning, short-term memory, and verbal ability are more specific than an overall intelligence score, and likely have their own genetic and environmental determinants. Getting higher scores in measures of those domains (like the ones we provide) requires measurement, optimization, and healthcare, not just hoping for good DNA. — Cambridge Brain Science

I'm biased towards genetics determining a lot of what we are--now--but even that is hard to prove.

when are we going to reject idiotic titles such as — universeness

Not until people stop quoting idiotic statements by Bruce Lee?

one of the main attractions is bushwalking — Wayfarer

We hope that you don't get bushwhacked while you bushwalk.

You've reserved your comment for motor skills. — Agent Smith

Just following your lead. The brain that births bright ideas also guides the batter's swing.

Per St. Augustine about time and Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart about hard core pornography, "I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it." There is a long list about which the same thing can be said: Justice, Art, Beauty, Grief, Truth, Fragrance, and so on. If I said, "this was a perfect pear" (referencing its fragrance, texture, color, taste, juicines) you would know what I meant, but neither of us (just guessing) could describe what the fragrance of a pear is.

Conversations may crash, as you said, when definitions are demanded--"What is your definition of art?" for example. It happens in this forum quite often. It may be that we can not unpack the word we use. Or in the case of the Holy Trinity, about which rivers of ink have been spilt, I think it is a crash-causing bug and not a feature at all.

Activities that are habitual, routinized, directed by "muscle memory" and so on can certainly be disrupted by the interference of thought. Mindfulness might be a bad idea a good share of the time.

Conversely, some activities benefit by mindfulness. Walking in the winter (snow, ice) can be treacherous and one must pay attention to the ever changing treacherous surfaces. Let your mind wander, and that is when you are likely to slip and fall.

Skating on ice, on the other hand, should not be thought about, unless one is preparing for a figure skating contest where the sequence of moves is complex. Once learned though, I'm guessing that professional skaters let the performance roll along without thinking about it slide by slide.

A lot of what we do (physical actions) is under the control of non-conscious motor systems, which are quite competent. Over ride them with incompetent conscious thought and one might fall flat on one's face.

You mean you're not convinced. — L'éléphant

There are two questions here:

One is: Were hunters / gatherers smarter than us, or not?
Two is: Can we determine the answer to question One?

Answer One: I don't know; nobody else does either.
Answer Two: We can not.

At a distance, I don't have a reliable, valid way of measuring your intelligence. I would need to be present with you, administer tests, and observe your performance. I would need to interview you, take a personal and family history, etc. For a much less robust measurement, I could have someone administer a paper and pencil test to you.

Let's try going back in time to... 1900. Let's measure the intelligence of your ancestor. You choose. I will assume the person is dead. How would we measure his or her intelligence?

Let's go way back to 15,000 B.C.E. The time machine is broken so we will have to measure the intelligence of someone ??? far away in time and space. How would we measure his or her intelligence?

to continue saying "we don't know..." and "we have no way of knowing.." are killers of rational dialectic. — L'éléphant

Not so! There is nothing wrong or irrational about saying "We don't know" when, in fact we do not know, and in fact there is no way to know.

What we can and do know about our hunter / gatherer forebears is that

a) they survived the difficulties they faced (we know, because we descended from them)
b) they were very good tool makers (we know because many of their stone tools survived)
c) they had a culture for which they left very few traces, except cave paintings and many stone tools. (We know that fabric and wood tend to not survive in the environment for long. We have seen the caves, and have collected the stone tools.)
d) they were successful in their lives (their skeletons show that they were generally healthy and strong

When you reach the end of what you can currently know, it is appropriate to claim no more knowledge. Future research may reveal more about our distant forebears. I will quote Wittgenstein here: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." Topics like "The nature of God" are examples about which we should remain silent.

We certainly can and will speculate about what we MIGHT know in the future. That's fine as long as we don't claim our speculation as fact, until it IS fact, which it might never be.

Meanwhile, I have work to do: — L'éléphant

We don't care.

So, at least Crabtree based his guess on something in particular, though it isn't at all convincing. Look, we don't know whether people are smarter now, or dumber, than they were 1, 2, 5, 10, or 50 thousand years ago. We have no way of knowing that--none. We don't have highly valid and reliable ways for measuring the intelligence of people who are here today. (Which is not to say that existing instruments have zero validity and reliability.)

It is better to operate with the understanding that human intelligence has not changed on average. It might have changed--might be better, might be worse--there is just no way to prove either one.

What difference does it make in the end? Whoever is alive at any given moment in history has a unique set of problems to deal with, a set of resources to work with, and a certain amount of intelligence and experience. They may do well, the may do badly, or some result in between. There are far too many factors in play for anyone to derive meaning estimates about intelligence.

It really fills up the space — TiredThinker

What does "space" even mean in digital terms?

You are tired, thinker. you are having bad ideas. Go to bed.

He must have been right about the benefits of the graham cracker. In 1850 the world population was 1.2 billion. After he introduced his famous cracker, guys stopped masturbating and now the population is just about 8 billion.

Forget Sam Harris -- call General Mills to set up a company to sell intelligence-restoring omelettes in convenient heat-and-eat packages (recyclable, of course).

The comparison is between us and the primitive hunter-gatherers, the Paleolithic early humans — L'éléphant

And just how did they test the intelligence of Paleolithic humans?

I have heard rumors that IQ scores have been rising throughout the 20th century. Maybe it's just me, but I haven't seen any evidence that people are getting smarter.

We shouldn't see any real change in intelligence or brain size over a short period of time -- like 2 or 3 centuries. In time, it might change, but with 8 billion people breeding without any eugenic supervision, it's hard to see how the AVERAGE intelligence would change. Very stupid and very bright outliers have always been produced.

You've hit the nail on the head as far as I'n concerned. — Agent Smith

The sentence "You" can live without self-actualization; "for me" it's essential." was not to be taken as specifically applicable to you. I was just observing that other people's actualization tends to be less interesting than our own.