You may be over-romanticizing the hunter-gatherer times. It wasnt all just a nice summer evening where people did a nice walk in the forest after chilling at the beach. Life was rough, often it was cold and rainy, people were hungry and every little injury could easily mean a horrible death. Constantly worrying how to fill your stomach without getting killed by wolves or a tiger (or a rival tribe) or breaking your foot, or some deity being unhappy with you and sending a thunderstorm. Can't just pop a pill when you have pains or can't sleep.
True, mental health likely wasn't much of an issue. But the other issues you got in exchange...
Of course. I never meant that it was all fun and chill, perhaps life was much harder, and perhaps our brains evolved to cope with that and when there are no natural threats it errs.
> There's no need to "dumb down" anything ever, not even for children.
This is so wrong that I can't imagine you actually meant it in the way that it quite obviously reads like.
When my 3-year old just saw is favorite toy fall from the sofa because he put it in an .. unstable position, then obviously it won't help if I explain the theory of relativity to him, cause ultimately it was gravity causing the mess. It won't help either to "dumb it down" by only explaining Newton's mechanics. What he actually needs to understand is that things fall down. Why exactly can be explained later. Much later. When he goes to university perhaps, if he chooses to and still wants to know.
I don't think we disagree at all about how to explain falling objects to a 3 year old. I did say it's best to leave out irrelevant detail.
You might not like this, but full detail physics explanations are usually irrelevant to everyday life. I try to explain in terms of what's necessary to accomplish a goal, not what's necessary to fully understand.
e.g. "if you tip things over close to the edge it will end up on the floor, so don't do that"
As a side note, kids often put stuff in precarious places because they can't reach anywhere better.
Anyway, the exceptions would be when the goal involves fully and arbitrarily defined contexts such as code or law. You can't assume much to get on with a task before being given a full explanation.
That won't work because many people here post anonymously. They have a throwaway account and make a new one now and then to leave no trace to their real identity. Leaving an email address would mean having to maintain a throwaway email in sync with the HN account.
Nowadays that's even harder to do since HN shadowbans new accounts for a while. You write a comment and you are surprised that nobody replies. It's because nobody but yourself can see it.
Which, ironically, contributes to the issue disussed here.
I'm also using a rather new account, let's see if this msg actually is visible now.
But easier maintainability I also favor braces everywhere.