The Third Chimpanzee
Explores the question of what in the less than two percent of genes has made humans different from apes.
Stats for nerds
6recommend
15mentions
11people
2007–2022years
60% recommend40% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins is great.
Or something by Jared Diamond, e.g. The Third Chimpanzee.
- It's a little outdated, but anyone interested in "extinct human species", or proto-humans, should read Jared Diamond's book "The Third Chimpanzee", which is about the small genetic and vast cultural differences that separate us from other large primate, including the two other types of chimp...
- * Last Call The Rise and Fall of Prohibition * The Information, a theory, a flood * The Fruit Hunters * The Third Chimpanzee
Off the top of my head were pretty information dense in the sense that I remember walking away from them knowing a good deal more about something I didn't previously
- The author is Jared Diamond - IMHO one of the great thinkers of our time, who certainly deserves serious consideration. His books, "Guns, Germs and Steel", "Collapse", "The Third Chimpanzee" are excellent, thought-provoking (even worldview-altering) reads.
That said.. he is right, but from the vantage point of someone in this day and age, who loves science and technology, who has benefitted from the efforts of the billions of post-agricultural humans, I selfishly prefer this outcome to sitting around gathering nuts in uncomfortable underwear, waging endless war with neighbouring bands and tribes.
Sure, agriculture produced a Long Dip in living standards, with population increases outstripping any gains made in production. But the whole point of a large population - perhaps the only redeeming feature of civilization - is that one can trawl the probabilistic waters and produce the few very mad, very interesting geniuses who make it all worthwhile.
I've always thought that the Matrix really came about due to the natural tendency of civilization to increase population density. From the open savannah to cubicles, cars and capsule hotels.. the Matrix is just highly aggressive telecommuting.
And it worked, too. Humans maintained ever higher population densities, produced lots of crazy geniuses who kept improving the interfaces, until significant bits of personalities could jump across from brain to brain. "AIs" were nothing more than mobile multiple-personality disorders. Morpheus' crowd were basically scavengers, helping keep the Matrix clean of dangerous personalities while maintaining a reserve pool of free-range human at Zion, in case the Matrix needed to be repopulated... which it did, from time to time, after epic meme-virus infections which killed off most of the existing inhabitants. The whole "AI vs humans" story and attempts to kill Morpheus & co was a big piece of drama to keep them righteously motivated rather than relaxing with the blue pill.
- Well read Jared Diamonds "The Third Chimpanzee" or "Why Is Sex Fun" for some actual research on gender differences.
That we don't know how Hormones affect us is pretty irrelevant in that context. There are other forces at play, hormones are just mechanisms for changing behaviors, not the force that shapes behaviors.
It is also true, to some extent, what Steven Pinker says: "if I don't like what my genes want from me, they can go jump in the lake". But individuals acting against evolution does not change the big, global trend. In the long run those people die out - they might still have good lives, but not every lifestyle is sustainable at (web) scale.
- This seems like a good opportunity to recommend the book "Why is sex fun?" by Jared Diamond.http://www.amazon.com/Why-Sex-Fun-Evolution-Sexuality/dp/046...
(Or apparently "The Third Chimpanzee", some reviewers claim that is a superset of the book).
