Homo Habilis

[poliphilo]

I press a button. Morgan Freeman appears in front of me and says, "Shit". It's raining where he is. I press another button. He disappears.

I take this power for granted, but I don't have a clue how it works.

If our technology were to disappear tomorrow I wouldn't be able to do a thing to get it back. I don't even know how to smelt metal.

Maybe I'd have the wherewithal to go make myself a hand-axe, though I understand there's quite an art to knapping flint.

Left to my own devices I belong in the stone age- if that.

I have about as much aptitude for tool-making as a chimpanzee.

Comments

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I've been reading An Army of Davids by Glenn Harlan Reynolds (aka Instapundit). He posits that there are enough geeky types who are fascinated with obsolete technology and/or re-enactment that we'd be able to find mentors to help us knap flint, etc.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank heaven fot the geeks! Where would we be without them?

I have...

[jubal51394.livejournal.com]

Enormous aptitude for tool-making, though little else... Look me up. I will happily craft any such tools as you might need... for a price of course.

And so it all began... *crafty leer*

Re: I have...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Doesn't it just go to show how much we NEED one another!

Re: I have...

[jubal51394.livejournal.com]

What it shows us is that civilization was/is inevitable, I think. ;)

I make stuff... compulsively, so my response was immediate and instinctive. The "for a price" part came a little slower but still... it's no mystery how free enterprise got born. Is it?

Re: I have...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You've got something I want. We trade. Next thing we build a market place to facilitate the transaction...

Yup, I see what you mean.

[thewayupward.livejournal.com]

Now I can't remember who said that a citizen is a person who, if need be, can recreate his own civilisation. Which is weird, because this quote used to bug me out. One of my favourite nightmares is being sent back in time accidentally!! and realising omfg I can't do anything. I figure I could probably create electricity (you need ... a lemon ... and, like, metal bits. And wire. hoo yeah) but then what would I do with it? Build a computer??

Anyway, I totally resolved my dilemma: I would teach everyone the scientific method and wait for the great minds of the age to work out computer-building for me. Views? ho ho ho

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You see I couldn't even get that far. First find your lemon....

I didn't know that quote. And now I do I'm going to forget it again as quickly as I can. That's nightmarish.

[cataptromancer.livejournal.com]

There's a quirky movie called Happy Accidents - it starts out as a typical wacky guy meets girl-who's-been-hurt-too-much romantic dramedy, but then the guy starts claiming he's from the future (and it's relatively well done so you're not sure until the end).

Anyway, okay movie, but it has one scene which I thought was absolutely great. The guy starts talking about time travel and one of the girl's friends, understandably skeptic but also drunk and obnoxious, says something like, "Oh yeah, well how does your time machine work?" The future guy says he doesn't know. "Well, how are we supposed to believe you if you can't even tell us how it works?" And then the future guy gets really angry and starts asking her friends to explain how cars work, and none of them can.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's nice.

I look round the room and it's full of stuff I don't understand. There's the computer, a quartz watch, a digital camera...

But it's not just the relatively sophisticated objects. Here's a plastic waste bin. Do I know how plastics are made? Of course not!

[forestdweller.livejournal.com]

Aye, I've thought about that myself. Were civilization as we know it to disappear I would be able to do some rudimentary flint-knapping and foraging, but I would be hard-pressed to build a fire or to hunt with more than pit traps or snares.

We do need each other, utterly and completely.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I could build a fire, but I don't think I could light it without matches.

But I guess you don't really know what you're capable of until you're up against it. There was an item in the news the other day about a guy who got stranded in the Australian bush and survived for three weeks eating bugs and frogs and leeches.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I still smile when remembering your comment that, if left behind on a desert island, you would lie down and wait to die...