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189 points docmechanic | 1 comments | | HN request time: 1.385s | source
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mattdeboard ◴[] No.43656266[source]
Reinforcing my strongly held belief that what fundamentally sets humans apart isn't spoken language, or tools, or any of that, but rather the fact we write down what we know, then make those writings available to future generations to build on. We're a species distinguished from all others by our information-archival and -dissemination practices. We're an archivist species, a librarian species. Homo archivum. In my opinion.
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DonaldFisk ◴[] No.43657514[source]
The thing that sets us apart from other animals is that we're able to control fire.

By a strict definition of writing (e.g. what we're doing now), people have only been able to write for a few thousand years, and much of the adult population was illiterate until recently. Define it widely enough (visual communication of information), and some other animals (e.g. tigers) also "write": https://animalresearcher.com/why-do-tigers-scrape-trees-at-s...

You could reasonably argue though, that we have passed on information over long periods of time orally, e.g. in epic poems, and that (as far as we know) no other animal does that.

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1. starspangled ◴[] No.43659607[source]
> The thing that sets us apart from other animals is that we're able to control fire.

There is some suggestion that other animals can control fire.

https://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/fire-not-jus...

I don't know if that's completely verified or not, but it seems like a problematic definition. You could imagine a group of intelligent birds or apes could discover ways to control fire.

No, the thing that truly sets us apart from other animals is the ability to create the hydrogen bomb.