https://jollycontrarian.com/index.php?title=The_Wood_Age:_How_One_Material_Shaped_the_Whole_of_Human_History&feed=atom&action=historyThe Wood Age: How One Material Shaped the Whole of Human History - Revision history2024-03-29T00:22:31ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.39.3https://jollycontrarian.com/index.php?title=The_Wood_Age:_How_One_Material_Shaped_the_Whole_of_Human_History&diff=55262&oldid=prevAmwelladmin at 20:18, 16 March 20212021-03-16T20:18:02Z<p></p>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>The contrarian’s history. </div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>The contrarian’s history. </div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>It’s hard to think of a better illustration of how importance [[narrative]] is in recounting history — not just in engaging the imagination, and providing a <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">different perspective</del>, but in shaping and defining the history <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">itself</del>: <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">setting </del>parameters <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">for </del>what are <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">even relevant </del>and <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">interesting </del>questions to <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">address</del>. <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">We </del>are <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">used to the histories </del>of kings <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">and </del>queens, <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">of men — mainly white men — of </del>villains, <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">of </del>heroines, <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">of </del>civilisations, of conquest and expiration. <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">This gives conventional history </del>a particular, heroic cadence <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">oriented around individual </del>lives and <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">personal </del>conflicts.</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>It’s hard to think of a better illustration of how importance [[narrative]] is in recounting history — not just in engaging the imagination, and providing a <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">framework from which, and through which to regard events</ins>, but in shaping and defining the <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">events of </ins>history <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">themselves. Our narrative engulfs us in ways we cannot see</ins>: <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">its </ins>parameters <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"> decide </ins>what are <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">the interesting </ins>and <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">valid questions — the “right” </ins>questions <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">— </ins>to <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">ask</ins>. </div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div> </div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">By and large, our histories </ins>are <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">those </ins>of <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">men: </ins>kings<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">, some </ins>queens, villains, <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">heroes, </ins>heroines, civilisations, <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">movements: </ins>of conquest and expiration. <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">In any case, they are anthropocentric. They have </ins>a particular, heroic cadence <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">of human </ins>lives<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">, human lifespans, </ins>and <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">human </ins>conflicts.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div> </div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div> </div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>We are in <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">love with our </del>cult of personality<del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">. But </del>it <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">isn’t plausible </del>think that a hundred, thousand or even ten thousand individuals have shaped our <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">species</del>. </div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>We are in <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">thrall to the </ins>cult of personality<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">, however absurd </ins>it <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">might really be to </ins>think that <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">one, or </ins>a hundred, <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">or a </ins>thousand or even ten thousand individuals have <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">meaningfully </ins>shaped our <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">history.<ref>Go on, say, “what about Hitler”. You know you want to</ins>.<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"></ref></ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>On the other, hand ''wood'' really might have. {{author|Roland Ennos}}’s excellent book asks whether we are not perhaps missing the wood for the trees.</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>On the other, hand ''wood'' really might have<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">. There is not a human life in history it has not profoundly affected</ins>. {{author|Roland Ennos}}’s excellent book asks whether we are not perhaps missing the wood for the trees.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>The observation has been made<ref>Yuval Harari for certain, and it’s the sort of thing {{author|Richard Dawkins}} would say, when not trolling Christians, too.</ref> about sheep, or wheat, that ''they'' domesticated ''homo sapiens'' and not ''vice versa'': these are amusing contrarian ideas with <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">perhaps </del>an element of truth (but they are better examples of the dynamic nature of [[complex]] systems where <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">everyone </del>co-domesticates <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">everyone </del>else). But it is ''far'' <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">truer </del>of wood: you can only ''eat'' wheat, and its domestication began only a few short millennia ago<del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">. About ten</del>. </div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>The observation has been made<ref><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">By </ins>Yuval Harari for certain, and it’s the sort of thing {{author|Richard Dawkins}} would say, when not trolling Christians, too.</ref> about sheep, or wheat, that ''they'' domesticated ''homo sapiens'' and not ''vice versa'': these are amusing contrarian ideas with an element of truth (but they are better examples of the dynamic nature of [[complex]] systems where <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">everything </ins>co-domesticates<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">, or conditions, everything </ins>else). But <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">however fair it is of wheat, </ins>it is ''far'' <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">fairer </ins>of wood: you can only ''eat'' wheat, and its domestication began only a few short millennia ago. </div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Wood has been — ahh <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">— part </del>of the furniture a <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">little while </del>longer than that: since <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">— well</del>, since we came down from the trees, we have lived in it, sheltered under it, made tools and weapons out of it, burned it <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">as fuel</del>, and travelled in it. It is strong, flexible, combustible, shapable, carvable, and it doesn’t melt. It may have even triggered the evolution of consciousness: apes, manoeuvering through the treetops, needed a concept of “self”, because their bodies changed the world around them by bending the branches they stood upon. That is a profound thought. Those hailing the incipient triumph of the machines might consider how that differs from conditions for evolution of a [[neural network]]. What is the “bending branch” that will prompt a learning machine into self-reflection? </div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Wood has been — ahh <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">— ''part </ins>of the furniture<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">'' quite </ins>a <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">bit </ins>longer than that: since<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">, well</ins>, since we came down from the trees, we have lived in it, sheltered under it, made tools and weapons out of it, burned it<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">, cooked with it</ins>, and travelled in it. It is strong, flexible, combustible, shapable, carvable, and it doesn’t melt. It may have even triggered the evolution of consciousness: apes, manoeuvering through the treetops, needed a concept of “self”, because their bodies changed the world around them by bending the branches they stood upon. That is a profound thought. Those hailing the <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[[A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond|</ins>incipient triumph of the machines<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">]] </ins>might consider how that differs from conditions for evolution of a [[neural network]]. What is the “bending branch” that will prompt a learning machine into self-reflection? </div></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Wood’s ubiquity, its adaptability for almost any task and its resilience — not just as a material, but as compared to any other material, up to the present day — makes for fascinating reading. Ennos repeatedly confronts and rebuts conventional wisdom with deep observations, often on topics that seem well-removed from wood. For example, how an abundance of wood has been not always been an accelerant of civilisation but, especially in the period between the Roman times and the <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">renaissance, </del>when there <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">was almost no technological </del>development, a ''retardant'': If you have plenty of a material that meets all your prevailing needs, you are not forced to improvise, to fix and make do, or to use what you have in creative and unconventional ways to make things better — from which impulse comes [[innovation]].</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Wood’s ubiquity, its adaptability for almost any task and its resilience — not just as a material, but as compared to any other material, up to the present day — makes for fascinating reading. Ennos repeatedly confronts and rebuts conventional wisdom <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">about wood, its future, its cultivation, its environmental impact and its sociological importance </ins>with deep observations, often on topics that seem well-removed from wood. For example, how an abundance of wood has been not always been an accelerant of civilisation but, especially in the period between the Roman times and the <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Renaissance </ins>when there <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">little </ins>development, a ''retardant'': If you have plenty of a material that meets all your prevailing needs, you are not forced to improvise, to fix and make do, or to use what you have in creative and unconventional ways to make things better — from which impulse comes [[innovation]].</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Highly recommended.</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Highly recommended.</div></td></tr>
</table>Amwelladminhttps://jollycontrarian.com/index.php?title=The_Wood_Age:_How_One_Material_Shaped_the_Whole_of_Human_History&diff=55240&oldid=prevAmwelladmin at 21:01, 15 March 20212021-03-15T21:01:14Z<p></p>
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<td colspan="2" style="background-color: #fff; color: #202122; text-align: center;">Revision as of 21:01, 15 March 2021</td>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>}}{{author|Roland Ennos}}: {{br|The Wood Age: How One Material Shaped the Whole of Human History}}</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>}}{{author|Roland Ennos}}: {{br|The Wood Age: How One Material Shaped the Whole of Human History}}</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">It’s hard to think of a better example of the importance of [[narrative]] in recounting </del>history <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">— not just in engaging a reader, and providing a different perspective, but in shaping the history itself. We are used to the histories of kings and queens, of famous men, of villains, of heroines, of civilisations, of conquest and expiration. This gives conventional history a particular, heroic cadence oriented around individual lives and personal conflicts</del>. </div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">The contrarian’s </ins>history. </div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>We are in love with our cult of personality. But it isn’t plausible think that a hundred, thousand or even ten thousand individuals have shaped our species.</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">It’s hard to think of a better illustration of how importance [[narrative]] is in recounting history — not just in engaging the imagination, and providing a different perspective, but in shaping and defining the history itself: setting parameters for what are even relevant and interesting questions to address. We are used to the histories of kings and queens, of men — mainly white men — of villains, of heroines, of civilisations, of conquest and expiration. This gives conventional history a particular, heroic cadence oriented around individual lives and personal conflicts.</ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"> </ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>We are in love with our cult of personality. But it isn’t plausible think that a hundred, thousand or even ten thousand individuals have shaped our species. </div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>On the other, hand ''wood'' really might have. </div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>On the other, hand ''wood'' really might have<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">. {{author|Roland Ennos}}’s excellent book asks whether we are not perhaps missing the wood for the trees</ins>.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>The observation has been made<ref>Yuval Harari for certain, and it’s the sort of thing {{author|Richard Dawkins}} would say, when not trolling Christians, too.</ref> about sheep, or wheat, that ''they'' domesticated ''homo sapiens'' and not ''vice versa'': these are amusing contrarian ideas with perhaps an element of truth (but they are better examples of the dynamic nature of [[complex]] systems where everyone co-domesticates everyone else). But it is ''far'' truer of wood: you can only ''eat'' wheat, and its domestication began only a few short millennia ago. About ten. </div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>The observation has been made<ref>Yuval Harari for certain, and it’s the sort of thing {{author|Richard Dawkins}} would say, when not trolling Christians, too.</ref> about sheep, or wheat, that ''they'' domesticated ''homo sapiens'' and not ''vice versa'': these are amusing contrarian ideas with perhaps an element of truth (but they are better examples of the dynamic nature of [[complex]] systems where everyone co-domesticates everyone else). But it is ''far'' truer of wood: you can only ''eat'' wheat, and its domestication began only a few short millennia ago. About ten. </div></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Wood has been — ahh — part of the furniture a little while longer than that: since — well, since we came down from the trees, we have lived in it, sheltered under it, made tools and weapons out of it, burned it as fuel, and travelled in it. It is strong, flexible, combustible, shapable, carvable, and it doesn’t melt. It may have even triggered the evolution of consciousness: apes, manoeuvering through the treetops, needed a concept of “self”, because their bodies changed the world around them by bending the branches they stood upon. That is a profound thought. Those hailing the incipient triumph of the machines might consider how that differs from conditions for evolution of a [[neural network]]. What is the “bending branch” that will prompt a learning machine into self-reflection? </div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Wood has been — ahh — part of the furniture a little while longer than that: since — well, since we came down from the trees, we have lived in it, sheltered under it, made tools and weapons out of it, burned it as fuel, and travelled in it. It is strong, flexible, combustible, shapable, carvable, and it doesn’t melt. It may have even triggered the evolution of consciousness: apes, manoeuvering through the treetops, needed a concept of “self”, because their bodies changed the world around them by bending the branches they stood upon. That is a profound thought. Those hailing the incipient triumph of the machines might consider how that differs from conditions for evolution of a [[neural network]]. What is the “bending branch” that will prompt a learning machine into self-reflection? </div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Wood’s ubiquity, its adaptability for almost any task and its resilience — not just as a material, but as compared to any other material, up to the present day — makes for fascinating reading. Ennos repeatedly confronts and rebuts conventional wisdom with deep observations, often on topics that seem well-removed from wood. For example, how an abundance of wood has been not an accelerant of civilisation but a ''retardant'': If you have all <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">the wood you need </del>you are not forced to improvise, to fix and make do, to use what you have in creative and unconventional ways to make things better — from which impulse comes innovation.</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Wood’s ubiquity, its adaptability for almost any task and its resilience — not just as a material, but as compared to any other material, up to the present day — makes for fascinating reading. Ennos repeatedly confronts and rebuts conventional wisdom with deep observations, often on topics that seem well-removed from wood. For example, how an abundance of wood has been not <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">always been </ins>an accelerant of civilisation but<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">, especially in the period between the Roman times and the renaissance, when there was almost no technological development, </ins>a ''retardant'': If you have <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">plenty of a material that meets </ins>all <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">your prevailing needs, </ins>you are not forced to improvise, to fix and make do, <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">or </ins>to use what you have in creative and unconventional ways to make things better — from which impulse comes <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[[</ins>innovation<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">]].</ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div> </div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Highly recommended</ins>.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>{{sa}}</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>{{sa}}</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>*[[Complexity]]</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>*[[Complexity]]</div></td></tr>
</table>Amwelladminhttps://jollycontrarian.com/index.php?title=The_Wood_Age:_How_One_Material_Shaped_the_Whole_of_Human_History&diff=55238&oldid=prevAmwelladmin: Amwelladmin moved page The Wood Age to The Wood Age: How One Material Shaped the Whole of Human History2021-03-15T20:54:14Z<p>Amwelladmin moved page <a href="/index.php?title=The_Wood_Age" class="mw-redirect" title="The Wood Age">The Wood Age</a> to <a href="/index.php?title=The_Wood_Age:_How_One_Material_Shaped_the_Whole_of_Human_History" title="The Wood Age: How One Material Shaped the Whole of Human History">The Wood Age: How One Material Shaped the Whole of Human History</a></p>
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<td colspan="1" style="background-color: #fff; color: #202122; text-align: center;">Revision as of 20:54, 15 March 2021</td>
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</td></tr></table>Amwelladminhttps://jollycontrarian.com/index.php?title=The_Wood_Age:_How_One_Material_Shaped_the_Whole_of_Human_History&diff=55237&oldid=prevAmwelladmin at 20:53, 15 March 20212021-03-15T20:53:59Z<p></p>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>{{a|book review|[[File:Wood Age.jpg|450px|frameless|center]]</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>{{a|book review|[[File:Wood Age.jpg|450px|frameless|center]]</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>}}</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>}}{{author|Roland Ennos}}: {{br|The Wood Age: How One Material Shaped the Whole of Human History}}</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>{{author|Roland Ennos}}: {{br|The Wood Age: How One Material Shaped the Whole of Human History}}</div></td><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-added"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>It’s hard to think of a better example of the importance of [[narrative]] in recounting history — not just in engaging a reader, and providing a different perspective, but in shaping the history itself. We are used to the histories of kings and queens, of famous men, of villains, of heroines, of civilisations, of conquest and expiration. This gives conventional history a particular, heroic cadence oriented around individual lives and personal conflicts. </div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>It’s hard to think of a better example of the importance of [[narrative]] in recounting history — not just in engaging a reader, and providing a different perspective, but in shaping the history itself. We are used to the histories of kings and queens, of famous men, of villains, of heroines, of civilisations, of conquest and expiration. This gives conventional history a particular, heroic cadence oriented around individual lives and personal conflicts. </div></td></tr>
</table>Amwelladminhttps://jollycontrarian.com/index.php?title=The_Wood_Age:_How_One_Material_Shaped_the_Whole_of_Human_History&diff=55236&oldid=prevAmwelladmin at 20:53, 15 March 20212021-03-15T20:53:49Z<p></p>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>{{a|book review|[[File:Wood Age.jpg|450px|frameless|center]]</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>{{a|book review|[[File:Wood Age.jpg|450px|frameless|center]]</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>}}<del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">It’s hard to think of a better example of the importance of [[narrative]] in recounting history — not just in engaging a reader, and providing a different perspective, but in shaping the history itself. We are used to </del>the <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">histories of kings and queens, of famous men, of villains, of heroines, of civilisations, </del>of <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">conquest and expiration. This gives it a particular, heroic cadence oriented around individual lifespans and personal conflicts. When you stop and think about it, it is implausible think that a hundred, thousand or even ten thousand individuals have shaped a species.</del></div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>}}</div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">{{author|Roland Ennos}}: {{br|The Wood Age: How One Material Shaped </ins>the <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Whole </ins>of <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Human History}}</ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Wood might have, however. The observation has been made about sheep, or wheat</del>, <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">that it domesticated homo sapiens </del>and <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">not vice versa: these are amusing cointrarian ideas; it is far more plausibly true with wood, </del>a <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">material we have lived in</del>, <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">sheltered under, made tools out of, burned and travelled </del>in <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">from </del>the <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">dawn of human race</del>. <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Wood may have even triggered </del>the <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">evolution </del>of <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">consciousness: apes</del>, <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">manoeuvering through the treetops</del>, <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">needed a concept </del>of <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">“self”</del>, <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">because their bodies changed the world around them by bending the branches they stood upon. That is a profound thought. Those hailing the incipient triumph </del>of <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">the machines might consider how that differs from conditions for evolution </del>of a <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[[neural network]]</del>. <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">What is the “bending branch” that will prompt a learning machine into self-reflection? </del></div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">It’s hard to think of a better example of the importance of [[narrative]] in recounting history — not just in engaging a reader</ins>, and <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">providing </ins>a <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">different perspective</ins>, <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">but </ins>in <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">shaping </ins>the <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">history itself</ins>. <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">We are used to </ins>the <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">histories of kings and queens, </ins>of <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">famous men</ins>, <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">of villains</ins>, of <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">heroines</ins>, of <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">civilisations, </ins>of <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">conquest and expiration. This gives conventional history </ins>a <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">particular, heroic cadence oriented around individual lives and personal conflicts</ins>. </div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>The <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">ubiquity </del>of wood, its adaptability for almost any task and <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"> </del>its resilience — not just as a material, but as compared to any other material, up to the present day — makes for fascinating reading. Ennos repeatedly confronts and rebuts conventional wisdom with deep observations, often on topics that seem well-removed from wood. For example, how an abundance of wood has been not an accelerant of civilisation but a ''retardant'': If you have all the wood you need you are not forced to improvise, to fix and make do, to use what you have in creative and unconventional ways to make things better — from which impulse comes innovation.</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">We are in love with our cult of personality. But it isn’t plausible think that a hundred, thousand or even ten thousand individuals have shaped our species.</ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div> </div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">On the other, hand ''wood'' really might have. </ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div> </div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>The <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">observation has been made<ref>Yuval Harari for certain, and it’s the sort of thing {{author|Richard Dawkins}} would say, when not trolling Christians, too.</ref> about sheep, or wheat, that ''they'' domesticated ''homo sapiens'' and not ''vice versa'': these are amusing contrarian ideas with perhaps an element of truth (but they are better examples of the dynamic nature of [[complex]] systems where everyone co-domesticates everyone else). But it is ''far'' truer </ins>of wood<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">: you can only ''eat'' wheat, and its domestication began only a few short millennia ago. About ten. </ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div> </div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Wood has been — ahh — part of the furniture a little while longer than that: since — well, since we came down from the trees, we have lived in it, sheltered under it, made tools and weapons out of it, burned it as fuel, and travelled in it. It is strong, flexible, combustible, shapable, carvable, and it doesn’t melt. It may have even triggered the evolution of consciousness: apes, manoeuvering through the treetops, needed a concept of “self”, because their bodies changed the world around them by bending the branches they stood upon. That is a profound thought. Those hailing the incipient triumph of the machines might consider how that differs from conditions for evolution of a [[neural network]]. What is the “bending branch” that will prompt a learning machine into self-reflection? </ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div> </div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Wood’s ubiquity</ins>, its adaptability for almost any task and its resilience — not just as a material, but as compared to any other material, up to the present day — makes for fascinating reading. Ennos repeatedly confronts and rebuts conventional wisdom with deep observations, often on topics that seem well-removed from wood. For example, how an abundance of wood has been not an accelerant of civilisation but a ''retardant'': If you have all the wood you need you are not forced to improvise, to fix and make do, to use what you have in creative and unconventional ways to make things better — from which impulse comes innovation.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">{{sa}}</ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">*[[Complexity]]</ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">*[[Evolution]]</ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">*[[Artificial intelligence]]</ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">{{ref}}</ins></div></td></tr>
</table>Amwelladminhttps://jollycontrarian.com/index.php?title=The_Wood_Age:_How_One_Material_Shaped_the_Whole_of_Human_History&diff=55235&oldid=prevAmwelladmin at 20:37, 15 March 20212021-03-15T20:37:13Z<p></p>
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<td colspan="2" style="background-color: #fff; color: #202122; text-align: center;">Revision as of 20:37, 15 March 2021</td>
</tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-lineno" id="mw-diff-left-l1">Line 1:</td>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>{{a|book review|[[File:Wood Age.jpg|450px|frameless|center]]</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>{{a|book review|[[File:Wood Age.jpg|450px|frameless|center]]</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>}}<del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">{{quote|.}}</del></div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>}}It’s hard to think of a better example of the importance of [[narrative]] in recounting history — not just in engaging a reader, and providing a different perspective, but in shaping the history itself. We are used to the histories of kings and queens, of famous men, of villains, of heroines, of civilisations, of conquest and expiration. This gives it a particular, heroic cadence oriented around individual lifespans and personal conflicts. When you stop and think about it, it is implausible think that a hundred, thousand or even ten thousand individuals have shaped a species.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>It’s hard to think of a better example of the importance of [[narrative]] in recounting history — not just in engaging a reader, and providing a different perspective, but in shaping the history itself. We are used to the histories of kings and queens, of famous men, of villains, of heroines, of civilisations, of conquest and expiration. This gives it a particular, heroic cadence oriented around individual lifespans and personal conflicts. When you stop and think about it, it is implausible think that a hundred, thousand or even ten thousand individuals have shaped a species.</div></td><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-added"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Wood might have, however. The observation has been made about sheep, or wheat, that it domesticated homo sapiens and not vice versa: these are amusing cointrarian ideas; it is far more plausibly true with wood, a material we have lived in, sheltered under, made tools out of, burned and travelled in from the dawn of human race. Wood may have even triggered the evolution of consciousness: apes, manoeuvering through the treetops, needed a concept of “self”, because their bodies changed the world around them by bending the branches they stood upon. That is a profound thought. Those hailing the incipient triumph of the machines might consider how that differs from conditions for evolution of a [[neural network]]. What is the “bending branch” that will prompt a learning machine into self-reflection? </div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Wood might have, however. The observation has been made about sheep, or wheat, that it domesticated homo sapiens and not vice versa: these are amusing cointrarian ideas; it is far more plausibly true with wood, a material we have lived in, sheltered under, made tools out of, burned and travelled in from the dawn of human race. Wood may have even triggered the evolution of consciousness: apes, manoeuvering through the treetops, needed a concept of “self”, because their bodies changed the world around them by bending the branches they stood upon. That is a profound thought. Those hailing the incipient triumph of the machines might consider how that differs from conditions for evolution of a [[neural network]]. What is the “bending branch” that will prompt a learning machine into self-reflection? </div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>The ubiquity of wood, its adaptability for almost any task and its resilience — not just as a material, but as compared to any other material, up to the present day — makes for fascinating reading. Ennos repeatedly confronts and rebuts conventional wisdom with deep observations, often on topics that seem well-removed from wood. For example, how an abundance of wood has been not an accelerant of civilisation but a ''retardant'': If you have all the wood you need you are not forced to improvise, to fix and make do, to use what you have in creative and unconventional ways to make things better — from which impulse comes innovation.</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>The ubiquity of wood, its adaptability for almost any task and its resilience — not just as a material, but as compared to any other material, up to the present day — makes for fascinating reading. Ennos repeatedly confronts and rebuts conventional wisdom with deep observations, often on topics that seem well-removed from wood. For example, how an abundance of wood has been not an accelerant of civilisation but a ''retardant'': If you have all the wood you need you are not forced to improvise, to fix and make do, to use what you have in creative and unconventional ways to make things better — from which impulse comes innovation.</div></td></tr>
</table>Amwelladminhttps://jollycontrarian.com/index.php?title=The_Wood_Age:_How_One_Material_Shaped_the_Whole_of_Human_History&diff=55234&oldid=prevAmwelladmin: Created page with "{{a|book review|center }}{{quote|.}} It’s hard to think of a better example of the importance of narrative in recounting history..."2021-03-15T20:36:55Z<p>Created page with "{{a|book review|<a href="/index.php?title=File:Wood_Age.jpg" title="File:Wood Age.jpg">450px|frameless|center</a> }}{{quote|.}} It’s hard to think of a better example of the importance of <a href="/index.php?title=Narrative" title="Narrative">narrative</a> in recounting history..."</p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div>{{a|book review|[[File:Wood Age.jpg|450px|frameless|center]]<br />
}}{{quote|.}}<br />
It’s hard to think of a better example of the importance of [[narrative]] in recounting history — not just in engaging a reader, and providing a different perspective, but in shaping the history itself. We are used to the histories of kings and queens, of famous men, of villains, of heroines, of civilisations, of conquest and expiration. This gives it a particular, heroic cadence oriented around individual lifespans and personal conflicts. When you stop and think about it, it is implausible think that a hundred, thousand or even ten thousand individuals have shaped a species.<br />
<br />
Wood might have, however. The observation has been made about sheep, or wheat, that it domesticated homo sapiens and not vice versa: these are amusing cointrarian ideas; it is far more plausibly true with wood, a material we have lived in, sheltered under, made tools out of, burned and travelled in from the dawn of human race. Wood may have even triggered the evolution of consciousness: apes, manoeuvering through the treetops, needed a concept of “self”, because their bodies changed the world around them by bending the branches they stood upon. That is a profound thought. Those hailing the incipient triumph of the machines might consider how that differs from conditions for evolution of a [[neural network]]. What is the “bending branch” that will prompt a learning machine into self-reflection? <br />
<br />
The ubiquity of wood, its adaptability for almost any task and its resilience — not just as a material, but as compared to any other material, up to the present day — makes for fascinating reading. Ennos repeatedly confronts and rebuts conventional wisdom with deep observations, often on topics that seem well-removed from wood. For example, how an abundance of wood has been not an accelerant of civilisation but a ''retardant'': If you have all the wood you need you are not forced to improvise, to fix and make do, to use what you have in creative and unconventional ways to make things better — from which impulse comes innovation.</div>Amwelladmin