Remote View
Humans, apparently, throw like gods
Humans, apparently, throw like gods
111 comments
-
The human superpowers are basically throwing fastballs and jogging in hot weather. The ancestral hunting strategy is basically to throw stuff at the animals to get them to run, then jog after them. Repeat until the animal is too tired to move.
-
There are still humans who do this to this day, the most notable being the tarahumara tribes of South America. They will literally run down the local deer barefoot for their food.
Humans are insanely adapted to be endurance runners compared with the rest of the animal kingdom which, if you think about it, kind of makes sense. It takes a LOT less energy for a cheetah to sprint down an antelope in 3 minutes than to chase it for 3 hours, so they adapted to be great sprinters. Likewise, the antelope only has to outrun the cheetah for 3 minutes so they, too, became great sprinters. For small mammals it makes more sense to be able to run very fast and hide from predators than to run long distances in potentially dangerous territory.
Since there was no evolutionary incentive for animals to run marathons they never developed the biology to do so, and we see this not just in mammals, but in reptiles, too. Horses are an exception to this though as they, too, are well adapted to distance running although iirc their adaptations are more in the way of making it mechanically easy (long, strong legs, huge hearts, etc.) to run long distances rather than the cooling systems humans developed.
Humans just kind of lucked out or perhaps ended up filling an evolutionary niche due to our need to cover long ranges with scarce food sources in our early evolutionary development.
-
"are you tired yet? you can rest you know. " human probably
-
Hey its me ur huntr. Jus checking to see if ur feeling tired yet.
-
-
But that's not it. We've also got the social aspect that brought us, as a species, to the apex to be able to hunt animals that could kill us easily individually, some of us have the balls to dominate those animals even alone, and the intelligence to develop novel tools to increase our capabilities and effective cross-generational communication to enable iterating these tools over many lifespans.
Through this, humans or our descendants might one day hunt apex predators on other planets that maybe are better joggers and throwers than we are.
-
Fuck that, seems like too much work. I'll just order a pizza... /s
-
And finding reasons why that important thing can wait until tomorrow, even though that thing is pretty easy to do
-
I think the only reason we can keep running in hot weather (better than other animals) is because we're resourceful enough to carry water
-
-
We invented the flame thrower. I know George Carlin did the bit best but... Imagine explaining that to a group of aliens.
"You... you throw what now?"
"Flames, bro."
"For what purpose...?"
"Well, We had these people called Nazis and they liked to hide in concrete fortifications so we figured the best way to make them not be in there would be to fill it with fire."
"Does that not harm these 'nazis'?"
"Oh yeah, it harms them. That was like, a bonus."
"Well, It was nice meeting you. Goodbye forever."
-
But wait! Let us tell you about the mustard gas!
-
"So we created these chemicals for wars..."
"Ah, killing the enemy efficiently!"
"Well, no."
"So they knock them out temporarily?"
"Haha, not exactly..."
"Then they're useless?"
"No. They just really mess them up. It goes into their body really easily and it's super carcinogenic, permanently fucks their DNA up, basically eats their skin, probably causes them to go blind, and will make them mentally fucked up. But it takes hours for them to notice the effect."
"...What the hell is wrong with you guys?"
-
-
Monkeys have both force and accuracy when pelting humans with feces.
This is just inaccurate.
-
It's just a good rule of thumb to write off science memes as bullshit.
-
they do not
-
Seems like while on average a human can be expected to "naturally" throw better than a monkey, most monkeys are perfectly capable of learning to throw with skill comparable to a human.
Sources:
-
-
-
I’ve seen enough videos of chimps and gorillas throwing shit at people that I don’t want to test this claim.
-
Yeah, most species take FOREVER to get the hang of projectile weapons and us big brained humans only took like 5.5 million years to perfect it! That's practically no time at all!
-
The first wars were thought to be a bunch of people facing off and throwing rocks and sticks at each other. We've been throwing shit for as long as we could walk
-
-
I did read somewhere that our brains are really good at calculating where to throw to hit something in motion.
Granted you need practice to get good, but supposedly we are wired for it.
-
There's a correlation between eyesight and intelligence (in species, not individuals) - interpreting visual inputs takes a lot of brain power, and might be one of the factors pushing for greater intelligence. So, there's at least a decent chance that intelligent aliens would have good eyesight.
Also, they'd need hands, or something equivalent.
Once you have hand(equivalent)s, decent eyes, and intelligence, hand-eye-coordination isn't far off.
If elephants can figure out how to throw rocks with enough force to kill a child, then so can E.T.
-
Apes can't yell "Kobe" because they can't speak. Apes also can't throw with accuracy. Coincidence? I think not.
-
Some great apes can learn sign language tho, would be awesome if a group somewhere managed to become best bros with gorillas
-
-
-
Soccer includes accurate throwing from the goalie. I'd posit that hitting a projectile with a stick accurately is a close cousin of throwing.
That's all the big ones in US and EU that I can think of.
Baseball, basketball, soccer, football, cricket, rugby, hockey, what am I missing?
-
I'd posit that hitting a projectile with a stick accurately is a close cousin of throwing.
That’s just throwing with extra steps.
-
Football hooliganism is also based around accurate throwing of objects.
-
Soccer is just throwing with your feet
-
Ditto kicking.
-
-
-
-
Inverse Kinematics is really cool. Whenever you move your hand to a position, you're only thinking of your hand moving to that position, but there's an order of operations you dont even think about. For your hand to be in the right spot your forearm has to be in the right spot, and for your forearm to be in the right spot your upper arm has to be in the right spot. Your brain subconsciously calculates those movements. This enables very accurate motions, your hand can follow a smooth, deliberate arc towards your target
-
And most people actually suck at it. Source: I do martial arts. Also, my Grandma taught me knitting same principle applies: If you start doing it with your fine motor skills, letting those influence your gross motor posture, you're going to cramp up in no time. Easy and relaxed does the job, move from the shoulders (or even belly), don't even move your fingers just keep them static knitting doesn't really require you to move them. Doesn't matter when all you're doing is opening a door or such but for repeated movements, or forceful ones, or ones that need to be stabilised against adverse forces (like a block) it becomes crucial.
-
If true, it's probably because humans have mostly slow twitch muscle fibers (e.g., great for endurance and manual dexterity) while great apes are mostly fast twitch muscle fibers (good for raw strength). That's why a chimpanzee, who is much smaller than a person, can perform feats pf strength that would embarrass most strong-man competitors. OTOH, humans evolved to run; the kind of long-distance running that some people do for fun would kill other primates.
-
Well, the kind of long distance running that some people do for fun would definitely kill me
-
Especially long distance running. Imagine a gazelle in prehistoric Africa running away from this weird ape until it is completely exhausted, just to turn around and see the weird ape still coming after it in the distance. We were the horror villains of prehistoric animals.
-
-
Elephants can throw stuff fairly accurately. Not very far though.
-
I just spent several seconds trying to figure out if "kobe" is some imaginary alien word I'm supposed to know from Star Trek or something.
-
You shout Yeet for power and Kobe (RIP) for accuracy
-
I always shout "Klaatu!" Instead of "Kobe!" because I do not understand what a Japanese city has to do with throwing
-
Necktie!
-
-
-
humans are space orc themes in tumblr are really neat
Oooh, a doodle
-
Thanks for the thread, I've always been fond of the space orcs interpretation.
-
-
This ability is what made us weaker apes the "apex predator" of the planet.
-
-
Footbal literally penalises you for touching the ball with your hand?
-
That's only because humans are too good at throwing balls to each other. They just use feet to make it harder. That's the exception that proves the rule.
-
still a projectile just uses your foot
-
Goalkeeper throws are an important part of the game, as are throw-ins from the sideline.
-
-
This makes me wanna read r/hfy once again.
-
I've always preferred these short imagination-provokers to the long-form stories that are so common in HFY.
-
-
This chimp does not throw like a 10 year old: https://piped.video/watch?v=I7PN_0AALjc
But ok, maybe it was a lucky shot, but it looks almost like a handball throw (presumably with 0 training in throwing)
-
I mean, it didn't hit anywhere close to where it came from. All the chimp had to do was get it out of the enclosure to hit someone. With the amount of people filming, I don't think the odds were even that bad that there would be a video of getting hit by it.
-
-
I need to know, how the heck is this post getting 900+ upvotes, if the channel only has like 100 users...
-
It got to whatever the equivalent of r/all is? That's my best guess.
-
Thanks!
-
-
111 comments