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Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhat is man, that thou art mindful of him?Give a gift subscription
How bipedalism, bureaucracy, and the binding of time forged the only superintelligent hypersocial superorganism on Earth.
Or, alternatively: the improbable ascent of the East African Plains Ape to planetary dominion—by way of gossip, gift-exchange, and Google.
Or is it, perhaps: Is your smartphone really just the latest chapter in a multi million-year story of collective superintelligent cognition?
I was provoked this AM to turn back to this project by Doug Jones’s showing us a very interesting chart:
Share Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality
And writes:
Doug Jones: Calories and curves <https://logarithmichistory.wordpress.com/2025/06/16/calories-and-curves-9/>: ‘Comparing energy expenditure (TEE or Total Energy Expended) and fat among humans and our closest relations: chimpanzees…gorillas… and orangutans (Pongo)… adjusted for differences in overall body mass…. Humans are a high-energy species. Also we carry a lot more body fat… particularly… women… extra fat to meet the high energy demands of human infants, gestating and (even more) nursing. But it even applies to men…. A high-energy life-style means… an extra reserve of fat in case of emergencies. We don’t know [for] how long ago our ancestors [had done this]…. A high energy life-style also goes with extensive food sharing and changes in human kinship…
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(The chart is from Pontzer & al. (2016),” Metabolic acceleration and the evolution of human brain size and life history” <https://www.nature.com/articles/nature17654>.)
This bears immediately and strikingly on Joseph Henrich’s work.
Share
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhat is man, that thou art mindful of him?Give a gift subscription
How bipedalism, bureaucracy, and the binding of time forged the only superintelligent hypersocial superorganism on Earth.
Or, alternatively: the improbable ascent of the East African Plains Ape to planetary dominion—by way of gossip, gift-exchange, and Google.
Or is it, perhaps: Is your smartphone really just the latest chapter in a multi million-year story of collective superintelligent cognition?
I was provoked this AM to turn back to this project by Doug Jones’s showing us a very interesting chart:
Share Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality
And writes:
Doug Jones: Calories and curves <https://logarithmichistory.wordpress.com/2025/06/16/calories-and-curves-9/>: ‘Comparing energy expenditure (TEE or Total Energy Expended) and fat among humans and our closest relations: chimpanzees…gorillas… and orangutans (Pongo)… adjusted for differences in overall body mass…. Humans are a high-energy species. Also we carry a lot more body fat… particularly… women… extra fat to meet the high energy demands of human infants, gestating and (even more) nursing. But it even applies to men…. A high-energy life-style means… an extra reserve of fat in case of emergencies. We don’t know [for] how long ago our ancestors [had done this]…. A high energy life-style also goes with extensive food sharing and changes in human kinship…
Leave a comment
(The chart is from Pontzer & al. (2016),” Metabolic acceleration and the evolution of human brain size and life history” <https://www.nature.com/articles/nature17654>.)
This bears immediately and strikingly on Joseph Henrich’s work.