Modern Man: Fucking Weak

[Dylar]

Conservative commentators have been bemoaning the decline of the American man almost as long as the American man has been in existence. As it turns out, they are right: Men these days are a mere shadow of what we once were. We've become physically weaker than our ancestors. We're slower runners. We can't jump as high as we once did. As Peter McAllister, an anthropologist with the University of Western Australia and the author of the new book "Manthropology: The Science of Why the Modern Male Is Not the Man He Used to Be," puts it, we might be the "sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet." I, for one, blame guyliner.

"Manthropology," a tongue-in-cheek look at the science of maleness, examines what recent discoveries in the fields of archaeology and anthropology can teach us about the state of modern masculinity. Ice Age aboriginal tribesmen, he discovers, were able to run long distances at approximately the same speed as modern-day Olympic sprinters. Classic Grecian rowers could attain speeds of 7.5 miles an hour, which today's rowers can only attain for short bursts of time. Our culture may be obsessed with muscles: He notes that, since 1982, G.I. Joe's Sgt. Savage has gotten three times more muscular and Barbie's Ken now has a chest circumference attainable by only one in 50 men, but the luxuries of our contemporary lifestyle have caused a steady decline in genuine physical power. The book may be a light, breezy work, but it puts our current debate around masculinity into fascinating context.

Modern Man Can't String Odysseus' Bow

[Libido_Itch]

War is the only worlds hygiene.  And we haven't had any good ones since ww2

[Andrew]

So what?  Physical strength is not what makes mankind powerful.  At this time in history we have access to more knowledge and power than any creature we've ever known of, and we should be spending these days flexing and grunting like gorillas?  Exercise should only be about maintaining health and keeping mind sharp, anything else is a waste of time.

[Dylar]

Technology has progressed to a point where it also contributes to brain atrophy: that's just as much a use it or lose it proposition as muscles are.

[Wolfgang]

Technology has progressed to a point where it also contributes to brain atrophy: that's just as much a use it or lose it proposition as muscles are.

While the original post is probably pseudoscience babble, this I actually agree with. I imagine we can find examples of this in all of our day to day lives. As a teenager I used to pride myself at the ability to recall a phone number instantly after hearing it just once. I only realized I had lost that skill and most of the phone numbers that were most important to me some years later, after years of owning a cellphone, when I found myself in jail and needing that one phone call.

[Dylar]

It's not pseudoscience: it's based on analysis of fossil trackways and primary source texts (the estimates for rowing, for instance, are based on reconstructions of Salamis and other ancient naval battles).

[Wolfgang]

It's not pseudoscience: it's based on analysis of fossil trackways and primary source texts (the estimates for rowing, for instance, are based on reconstructions of Salamis and other ancient naval battles).

I'm interested and I'll look into it more thoroughly, but typically outlandish claims of prehistoric or ancient superhuman feats can be met with a large degree of skepticism as a lot of that stuff is probably motivated by some religious cause. However no one is going to dispute that as the human brain rapidly evolved over the last 5000 we would have lost some physical prowess as part of that evolutionary process. I imagine a modern day class full of students from prehistoric times wouldn't score as well on their SAT's. Without getting into another scientific racism debate, you can look at the physical builds of various races and find some correlation between intelligence and a decrease in physical strength.

[Cargést]

It's not pseudoscience: it's based on analysis of fossil trackways and primary source texts (the estimates for rowing, for instance, are based on reconstructions of Salamis and other ancient naval battles).

I'm interested and I'll look into it more thoroughly, but typically outlandish claims of prehistoric or ancient superhuman feats can be met with a large degree of skepticism as a lot of that stuff is probably motivated by some religious cause.

OH DEAR, SOMEONE WAS MOTIVATED TO DO SOMETHING.  WE CAN'T TRUST THEM ANYMORE!

[esoteric]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/3219359/Lemmy-Kilmister-Dont-kill-yourself-because-of-me.html

MOTORHEAD's Lemmy: "I couldn't possibly do my job if I didn't smoke and drink."

[Wolfgang]

It's not pseudoscience: it's based on analysis of fossil trackways and primary source texts (the estimates for rowing, for instance, are based on reconstructions of Salamis and other ancient naval battles).

I'm interested and I'll look into it more thoroughly, but typically outlandish claims of prehistoric or ancient superhuman feats can be met with a large degree of skepticism as a lot of that stuff is probably motivated by some religious cause.

OH DEAR, SOMEONE WAS MOTIVATED TO DO SOMETHING.  WE CAN'T TRUST THEM ANYMORE!

If that motivation is to prop up Biblical accounts of man living for hundreds of years and similar such nonsense, then no, we can't trust them. Or rather, I can't trust them. You seem to buy into some of that stuff though. No disrespect intended but you seem to come down on the Creationist side of the coin in every other thread lately. How was Church yesterday?

[Chessnut]

Yeah budday!

[Cargést]

If that motivation is to prop up Biblical accounts of man living for hundreds of years and similar such nonsense, then no, we can't trust them. Or rather, I can't trust them. You seem to buy into some of that stuff though. No disrespect intended but you seem to come down on the Creationist side of the coin in every other thread lately. How was Church yesterday?

Wow.  Let's break this down.

Valid criticism of an incorrect generalisation yields passive aggression, in the form of "no disrespect intended" -> insult.

I don't even understand what you people mean by "Creationism" - I'm British, remember?  As far as I understand it, "Creationism" is the idea that the King James version of Genesis is the absolute truth as regards the origins of existence.  This is quite obviously stupid, even though Genesis does get a number of things right (such as the order of animals corresponding with our current model of the evolutionary history of animals).

It doesn't matter whether such "outlandish" claims are motivated by a "religious cause" - if the evidence is there to be observed, then the fact is pretty much undeniable (unless, of course, you're a Creationist).  If, hypothetically speaking, a Christian/Jew/Muslim told you that God had decreed that he tell you that the Earth travels around the Sun, would you doubt him because of his religious motivation, or would you test his claim against reality?

To clarify my position on "that stuff", I don't buy into anything unless there's sufficient evidence/logic to back it up.  For example, I'm absolutely adamant that the modern "scientific" method of examining existence is incredibly shortsighted, it relying on the physical capacity of humans and nothing else (though, of course, it's a hell of a lot better than simple guesswork).

[reasonable]

Technology has progressed to a point where it also contributes to brain atrophy

How so?

[Cargést]

We have the technology to sit down all day staring at screens while information is fed to our brains.

[reasonable]

And how does the fact that information is more readily available contribute to mental atrophy?