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Comment by askonomm | Hacker News Reader

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Sure, the same way an individual ant is fragile.

But we're strong as a group; we can achieve medical feats that the these folks wouldn't have even understood. We collectively know more than they ever did. Some of us have stood on the moon.

Back then, all they knew was hunting. Probably became masters at each species and teach the young how to master it.

Now we don’t do that and teach are young about math and science. We don’t need hunting because we can just shoot them in the face. Or drop on nuke on their species.

That's almost certainly wrong. The amount of things they must have known, both individually and collectively, to survive was probably pretty big! They had to know:

- what plants are safe to eat, where to find them, when they come into season.

- what plants are medicinal, and their uses.

- heck, medicine in general. how to treat certain injuries and illnesses, how to help mothers with childbirth.

- navigation, by the stars, by local features, etc.

- crafting & manufacturing

- etc etc etc

I have heard this apocryphal idea before: Modern people have to know more to get through a single day than someone from X time period would have learned in their entire lives.

It is, of course, not true.

> 99% of us can't protect ourselves from another human

I mean, statistically, wouldn't this number have to be around 50%?

Not saying the 99% stat is correct, but it doesn’t need to be 50%. Attacking and defending are different skills.

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