One thing I've learned is that in all of the brief history of humans we're aware of, people a lot smarter than I am existed in fairly large numbers. It puts things into perspective. They would have learned to use hacker news and program computers as easily as I do. We stand on the shoulders of giants.

I love the perspective they had on things due to living in such different (yet remarkably similar) conditions.

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mk89 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

100% agreed with you.

I think we forget we're the "same" (more or less) homo sapiens as 200+ thousand years ago. Better overall conditions allow us to use the brain more (books, universities, etc) but our brain hasn't changed, as far as I know.

	▲	steve_adams_86 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Right, and as far as I know as well. It's kind of exciting when you realize just how much there is to learn from the people who came before us. All of the most interesting, difficult problems of human minds and experiences are still almost just as pressing and difficult today, but many people had remarkable insights and made genuinely incredible progress in understanding things we tend to take for granted these days. Hard problems that we face literally every day, even.

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davnicwil 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Definitely true. In modern times we confuse understanding things with just being used to them.

I'm typing this on a smartphone. I don't conciously think of it as my "magic pane of glass" like the cliched Roman might but what's actually going on when I tap this screen is as much a mystery to me as it would be to them, at least beyond a few high-level concepts which it also wouldn't take all that much time to explain.

Every day we ride atop an unfathomable stack of abstractions and shouldn't take as much subconcious credit for this as we do. As a civilisation yes you might say we're smarter, but as individuals definitely not.

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delichon 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I don't think that's just a modern thing. The feeling that you understand your phone is the same as feeling you understand the hand holding it. The hand is as magical of a technology as the phone. We are deeply adapted to living with such magic.

	▲	davnicwil 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Agreed. Indeed I'd guess the average Roman felt similarly about civilisations that came before them!

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deadbabe 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I think if you transported the average Roman to modern times, after the initial future shock wears off, they would likely just become accustomed to technology much like any other person today who has no clue how most things work. They could learn to drive cars, use smartphones, catch flights, take medicine, etc.

They would probably even spend a lot of time talking about how things were better back in their days, and how pathetic society is now.