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Benjamin Parry's avatar

Another excellent piece. Thank you! The enrichment of the human affordance landscape is such an essential story to tell. I love it. Two thoughts:

1) I think for many there is a distinction between agency and capacity (ability) that is important to address. We undoubtedly have more ability - as you catalogued. Agency however has a strong connotation of the exercise of free will, or, at least, the feeling of exercising free will. The reason “We have radical agency over our information diet” is so contested is precisely because people do *not* feel in control of their choices in regards to the, unquestionably vast, set of abilities that things like social media provide them.

I think it’s still possible for a detractor to make a compelling argument that our capabilities have increased dramatically but our agency has on average decreased. E.g. by charting rates of addiction (a lack of agency in relationship to a behaviour) across drugs, gambling etc. It feels like this should be addressed or should find a way to avoid connotations around people’s choices rather than their ability by defining agency or using another word.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-with-drug-use-disorders

2) Love the title ‘The surrender of the Gods’ very spicy. Would not change 😅 and that progress includes an increased capacity of ideas is also important. However, I think the narrative of Enlightenment thinking as a clean break from religious thinking, with a focus on people like Massey, may be over-reified. It seems like a story about evolution of thought is more precise e.g. Newton was a devout believer and he and Kepler’s projects were very directly driven by a belief in and search for ‘universal laws’ that were an article of faith not of observation. Something to consider.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1106.6345

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PAtwater's avatar

Note the causes of the megafauna extinction are contested. From GPT:

"The extinction of megafauna in the Americas, which occurred around the end of the Pleistocene epoch (approximately 10,000 years ago), is attributed to several factors. The most prominent theories include:

Human Overhunting (Overkill Hypothesis): The arrival of humans in the Americas, who were skilled hunters, led to the rapid overhunting of large animals. Evidence suggests that human populations expanded rapidly and hunted many of the megafauna to extinction. This theory is supported by the timing of megafaunal extinctions coinciding with the arrival of humans in various regions.

Climate Change: The end of the last Ice Age brought significant climatic changes, including warming temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and the transformation of ecosystems. These changes would have disrupted habitats and food sources, making it difficult for large animals to survive.

Combination of Factors: It's likely that a combination of human activities and climate change contributed to the extinctions. The changing environment may have made megafauna more vulnerable, and human hunting pressure could have been the final blow.

Disease: Some scientists propose that the introduction of new diseases by humans and their domestic animals might have contributed to the decline of megafauna.

Vegetation Changes: The shift in vegetation types due to climate change could have reduced the availability of suitable food for many large herbivores, leading to their decline and subsequent extinction.

Each of these factors likely played a role to varying degrees, and the exact cause of the megafaunal extinctions remains a topic of ongoing research and debate among scientists."

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