I feel like we grossly underestimate the intelligence of our ancestors.
Tibees has a video about the Rhind mathematical papyrus, a writing of math problems used for educating Egyptian scribes from 1650 BCE.
It describes finding volumes for cylinders using a formula similar to the modern one but with 256/81 (~= 3.16) as the stand-in for π.
It also has questions on finding concentration of valuable ingredients in finished product. 100L of beer made from 1kg of grain has a lower concentration of grain in the final product than 50L of beer made from the same amount. If you add water to the 50L of beer, it’s value would change and scribes would be expected to calculate the exact change in value.
Just like there’s a large overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest humans, there’s an overlap between the smartest ancient people and dumbest people today.
They were pretty much as smart as we are - many of them more so than many of us today.
For example, I think it’s the Chaco Canyon civilization that managed to perfect the math necessary to track the stars, moon, and sun, but as far as we know had no system of writing. Which means they were just memorizing that shit.
Yeah, they were as smart as us it’s just that they had less knowledge, homo sapiens are called like that not because they are smart but because they share knowledge with the future generations
So it was that asshole’s fault
Technology is basically crushed up rocks made into shapes.
I genuinely struggle with how humanity got to where it is. I sometimes question whether aliens are actually real because we’re too stupid to be this advanced.
Post-nut clarity.
