Wisdom Builder

Three Tidbit Stories

Topic:

Ancient History

4000 BCE to 500 CE

MODE:

Speed: 1.00

Ancient History.

3 random tidbit stories in about 3 minutes.

Idea 1.

A Ancient History Story.

Homo naledi: A Likely Hybrid.

335,000 BCE

Human, but probably not our human branch.

Speculative branch of humans. Maybe a long lost hybrid: In the evolving tapestry of human history, the emergence of Homo naledi represents a captivating mystery that challenges traditional narratives of linear progression. Positioned within the intricate web of human evolution, Homo naledi could exemplify a complex branch woven from ancient threads. Imagine a scenario where a group descended from late Australopithecus interbred with Homo erectus, resulting in a unique hybrid species. This hybrid lineage, embodying a blend of primitive and advanced traits, might have thrived alongside other hominins, contributing to a rich mosaic of human diversity. The existence of Homo naledi, with its distinct blend of characteristics, suggests that our evolutionary past may not be a simple tree with neatly diverging branches, but rather a dense network of interconnected lineages, intermingling and evolving in response to the dynamic landscapes of ancient Africa. Such a perspective invites us to reconsider the complexity of human ancestry, highlighting the possibility of multiple, overlapping narratives of evolution driven by hybridization and adaptation.

Imagined image: Homa naledi. Left is circa 250,000 BCE. Right is circa 335,000 BCE. The later Homo naledi individual as appearing more human-like is somewhat speculative but can be supported by the evidence of their anatomical features and behaviors.

Survival: From about 335,000 BCE to 236,000 BCE in Eastern and Southern Africa (in woodlands and grasslands)
Size: 3’4″ to 4’5″ (a bit taller than modern chimpanzees)
Brain Size: around 510 to 600 cm³
Brain to Body EQ: 3.3 to 3.8 (humans=7.4 to 7.8)

I wrote that Ancient History Story,

and posted it to TST 2 years ago.

Idea 2.

A Ancient History Story.

Moon Formation.

4.44 Billion Years Ago

About 60 million years after Earth forms.

In a cataclysmic event, a Mars-sized object named Theia collided with the early Earth, sending massive amounts of debris into orbit. This debris coalesced over time to form the Moon, which eventually became tidally locked to the Earth, stabilizing the planet’s axis and paving the way for the development of life. The Moon is comprised of lighter elements because the heavier elements of Earth had already sunk to the center.

I wrote that Ancient History Story,

and posted it to TST 2 years ago.

Idea 3.

A Ancient History FAQ.

How does TST Ethics handle the trolley problem?.

The traditional trolley problem asks a brutal question: if a runaway trolley will kill five strangers unless you pull a lever that redirects it toward one stranger, should you do it? In its classic form, it is a numbers problem wrapped in moral tension. Do you act and cause one death, or do nothing and allow five?

TST Ethics starts with its recipe:

Group ethics guides. Personal morality chooses. Act with good intent. Weigh the result. Adjust.

So let’s start with the group ethics layer. Clearly, killing one person is better than killing five. The next major question is whether letting something happen and doing something should be treated as ethically equal. In a binary decision like this, it is logical to treat doing and not doing as ethically equivalent choices. So, in the clean thought experiment, group ethics points toward pulling the lever and choosing the lesser harm.

But group ethics only guides. Personal morality still has to choose. Do you follow the group standard or not? In a purely hypothetical case, the guidance points toward following group ethics unless you have a reason not to. But that ambiguity is part of the problem.

In this case, unless you have a reason not to, TST Ethics asks you to follow group ethics and choose to kill less people.

However, reality is never as neat as philosophy class. What if the person on the side track is your child? Real decisions happen in messy reality, not sterile thought experiments. If someone chose to save their wife or child rather than five strangers, TST would not remove the moral burden, but it would recognize the human reality behind it.

I wrote that Ancient History FAQ,

and posted it to TST 7 months ago.

By Philosopher Michael Alan Prestwood