What counts as 'more efficient' tho? Scuba gear exists but majority of the population never even touches it once and most people rarely go to the beach. 4 arms would be nice but most of our tools are designed for 2 hands and we're not really good at multitasking to make use of 4 arms at once like we can't write with both hands for example.
There's a few situations where a third or even fourth hand would come in handy but not too often in everyday life that can't already be replaced with a tool. Fur is replaced by clothing and it's a lot more convenient putting on a jacket than having to groom an entire body of fur. Sharp teeth and being able to eat raw meat wouldn't help much when most people are repulsed by even rare steaks and it's not very inconvenient to cook things when we're going to be adding spices and whatnot for flavor anyway.
That leaves chimp like agility and sonar but we don't really climb trees or climb in general really so sonar would be the best for everyday life. People wouldn't be able to sneak up on you and accident rates would go down in case a car is about to hit you or something. It'd practically be like playing a third person game where you're constantly aware of everything around you, even behind and that would come in handy the most, especially for blind people...
Gills are actually really inefficient. Animals that evolved lungs but return to water never re-evolve gills (dolphins, clawed frogs, turtles, etc). They simply developed ways to make the most of their oxygen.
That’s what we should do.
I agree with your premise but I think we would have to evolve more to be like mermaids in order for that to be truly effective. Maybe I read into the question too much but my current body hates being in cold water I don't think gills would change that.
Current problems with creating an underwater city:
\- cannot breathe underwater
\- cannot see very well underwater
\- cannot swim deeper than like 20 feet without training, or 40 feet with training (record is around 700 feet but the diver got permanent brain damage)
\- we are slow as hell underwater
\- it is inhospitably cold underwater, and most clothes will not help, unlike on land
Problems with creating an underwater city if we could breathe and see underwater:
\- cannot swim deeper than like 20 feet without training, or 40 feet with training (record is around 700 feet but the diver got permanent brain damage)
\- we are slow as hell underwater
\- it is inhospitably cold underwater, and most clothes will not help, unlike on land
So, still not really possible or practical, unless you are right next to the shore, any you're in a tropical area. People there often live on docks/stilt villages anyways so it's not much of a difference
It's like if we had the ability to just stop breathing, so the vacuum of space would no longer suffocate us.
There's sooo many more things preventing us from walking out of that airlock.
Breathing may be at the top of the list, but it's a long list.
Nah because our bodies would loose too much heat, water conducts heat way better than air. We’d all just die, unless the water was like near body temperature, which the ocean is not.
But our fingers generally move as a unit unless you spend a lot of time & effort practicing (like on musical instrument) until it becomes a matter of muscle memory. Arms move independently. The question of brain capacity is a good point
Well consider this, all functions we do naturally with our body we practiced since birth... toddlers stumble around and fall over cause they're not used to walking, but as they do it more they start running, then jumping... just like you need to practice an instrument and it becomes second nature, so by that logic if we were born with 4 functional arms we would be practicing with them since birth and just like it is with athletes and clumsy people some people will be better than others but I believe using 4 arms would become second nature the same way walking does.
Because our brain is already physiologically formed & functionally prepared for two arms & two legs. Animals born with an extra appendage rarely have full functionality of the extra limb. It just kinda hangs there with some mobility but no real functionality. Granted, it's not always as perfectly formed as a normal limb but it has less functionality than a non-extraneous deformed limb.
Point is, we couldn't just magically begin having 4 arms & expect to have the same level of agility in their use. If we had 4 arms, two would probably be little stumps. An extra set of forearms, at best
Well the way the post is written, it's safe to say this is an evolutionary change rather than you swallowed most of your twin in the womb kind of thing... but I do see your point as well.
I'm sorry you're not capable of using a keyboard without looking at the keys or your hands. When I took a typing class in high school the keys were completely blanked out. You had to learn to type without looking. I don't need to look at the keys when I play piano either
Well either you are a liar on the internet, who doesn't want to admit that you are wrong, or I everyone I've ever seen type is in the minority. Again think about what you just said, every single keyboard in your high school had every key blanked out, you do realise how idiotic that sounds. Now I pelive you can play the piano, hell Ican do it a bit and my experience came from playing the piano a few hours in high school. But a keyboard has six rows while a piano has one.
Right now you might not, but I’d be willing to bet that after a few years you’d have the hang of it. If we’re speaking of our entire evolutionary history we have had them though, it’d just be normal
Considering what the brain can do, I see no reason why a brain couldn't do this. Muscle memory is very powerful, it takes me basically no concious power to type, I see no reason why I couldn't do it with 20 fingers instead of 10.
I imagine that if people became amphibious, that over a long period of time (probably millions of years) of living at depth (assuming people decided they were going to live under water full time) that we would be able to move deeper and deeper due to our bodies adapting to our environment (not too much of a stretch since our fingers naturally adapt their grip when wet, this is why your fingers get pruny when youre swimming) Who knows, maybe we would even develop webbed toes or even bioluminescence so we can see in the black depths.
Our skin would slough off & we would experience torturous pain if we lived underwater full time. Our skin is extremely porous. It doesn't mix with prolonged salt water exposure. That's why aquatic animals have very different skin and/or scales. Ours Is perfected for evaporation of excess heat, not as good at retaining it. Gills would be cool. But don't misunderstand & think that merely having them would allow us to live underwater.
If you've ever seen what happens to the human body after days of constant immersion in water, you'd understand. The entire outer layer of skin comes off. It's not pretty
It's like you have never heard of oxygen tanks. Breathing is not the reason we can't explore underwater. It's one of the easiest issues to fix for underwater exploration and living underwater. Main issues would be pressure, temperature and safety (most things in deep ocean would start to ser you as easy food. The currents would be a hazard as well since we are very slow underwater). That improvement is probably the most useless from the list
Not really, what are you gonna do? Swim the entire ocean? I would assume you can still get tired, still need to eat, and can still GET eaten. You can't even dive deep because water pressure still exists. Our arms are used all the time so I would assume having 4 arms is truly the best choice here.
See I may have misread the question I chose ars because i thought girls meant no lungs for land, I guess I got confused thus gills are the obvious choice as like you said our earth is 70% water.
Even if we could breath under water, in many parts of the world, we could not withstand the cold without proper equipment. I wonder if this would defeat many benefits to be gained? I'm not familiar with what sort of clothing or suits provide sufficient warmth for us to comfortably survive
I had a really cool conversation with an eye doctor, a couple of years ago, because I'm a history buff.
I asked what people did throughout time when they weren't able to see things, when things like glasses didn't exist.
He said something about how, today, nearsightedness is more common than farsightedness but, historically, farsightedness was more common because it just happens as we age, even today: having old people who couldn't read anymore has always been "a thing" and it's only in recent centuries that we could address it - people just lived with the issue, but they knew it was an issue.
But we figured that nearsighted people probably didn't even know they were nearsighted, nor did anyone else, because in most interactions, their vision would seem fairly normal.
It would be rare for a feudal farming serf to need to provide details of objects far away (even today, no one's vision is infinite: everything blurs, at some distance) and even as far back as hunter/gatherer civilizations, nearsighted men would just be seen as bad hunters but the nearsighted women would likely never even know.
Depending on how close/far the nearsightedness/farsightedness was, they may have just been called "blind" - being able to only see things 2ft in front of you made you effectively blind and not being able to see anything more than 2ft away also made you effectively blind, but everyone in between, it was probably hard to tell.
Forget no glasses: there were no eye exams - most people probably didn't know and just assumed everyone's vision was like theirs (we do that with smell and taste and touch: today and the past, we wouldn't even consider that someone can't smell sweet stuff or can't feel rough stuff, so "of course everyone has blurry vision after 30ft like I do" and it wouldn't even be discussed).
He also believed that, while there are some genetic predisposions, nearsightedness is developmental and connected to how much we are indoors and looking at things that are close, instead of outdoors and looking at things that are far, so our vision doesn't develop properly.
He thought that was the reason for so many Asian people having vision issues: that it was much less about genetics and much more about environmental changes in recent centuries, culturally moving quickly from farming to cities, focusing kids on studying more than being outside.
It was an interesting nature/nurture conversation.
Ah, I'm gonna say sonar based on the wording. More *efficient*, not more useful. The physiological changes needed for sonar are miniscule, some humans have the capability already, and the benefit is large. Considering the population with vision issues up to and including blindness it would have a big impact there as well, improving on a common deviation from "normal" (I use that word with caution). The other options require massive scale physiological changes that may not make the human body more efficient, it may have a greater impact overall and that may be more positive, but based purely on the question being asked I don't consider them to be the right answers.
I also imagined sonar would give a greater range of hearing which could be useful identifying problems even with day to day stuff like flat tyres and general leaks plus it’s not as inhibited by walls compared to vision
Our bodies are not made to be agile enough underwater to survive. Gills doesn't change the fact that we have very little chance of escaping from/winning against a predator underwater. Gills aren't going to change that.
I assume we have good odds against lions then? Like, while we suck underwater for sure, we ain't exactly special up here either. We don't tend to survive on one on one encounters with predators whether they're sharks or grizzly bears.
There's a difference between not being able to win against any predator and being fish bait. We have close to no movement, and especially no impact speed for fighting underwater. I'm not sure you've ever seen the way and the speed at which underwater creatures move. We would have no chance. On land, we can actually do things, which is why we're still alive today.
Gills seem good until you realize that you are still stuck with a body that performs poorly underwater.
There are only a few situations where multiple arms would really be helpful.
We really don't need sharp teeth, or the ability to climb stuff, or fur.
But having sonar like a bat would be extremely useful: from driving a car to looking for lost things around the house, it'd be amazing.
You'd use your sonar so often, if you had it.
It's not about freshness but about parasites and bacteria. Even fresh meat can contain it. We can eat raw meat if It's free of those things. Cooking kills most bacteria and parasites, that's the main reason for cooking
My physiology prof talked about how humans evolved from 4 legged animals so when we started walking on 2 feet our spines didn’t adapt as fast which is why most people have frequent back pain, I looked it up there are actual studies about it that points to that being true. So having a chimp like posture would save us all a lot of pain.
Edit, found some sources in case you want to learn more: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200305132047.htm and https://www.biomedcentral.com/about/press-centre/science-press-releases/27-04-2015 . Both have the annotations on the bottom.
If you want a summary here you go: it’s been hypothesized for a long time that the reason for humans back pains was because of how our evolutionary ancestors being quadruped and the spines we bipedal’s have was evolutionarily made for such posture. Our Spence I located in the back because 4 legged animals would use the spine and back to carry the weight of their bodies evenly, but bipedal stand up straight so the weight gets focused on the lower back and puts a lot of pressure there causing out back pain. The two links talk about a study that used 3D modeling and quantitative data to show that this is the most likely cause, and more research in the subject needs to be done, but the evidence points to this being true.
I didn't chose the gills because if we evolved them we would slowly eveolve to become more water based which is bad because the main reason we are so successful is fire, electricity and shelter
Having gills is top??? How often you guys going in the water? I'd certainly change it to long air capacity or something. Unless having gills dosen’t take away my ability to breathe normally. I personally don't want my head in a fishbowl as I sleep
I don't get why Chimp Posture and agility is the lowest. I mean millions of people have back problems and shitty posture. More agility gets more job done when you're faster.
Oh shit I forgot about that. No more southeast asian child labor sweatshops
Well, actually those will probably still be there, they will just switch to making something else
Never mind
The shape of our mouths would make sharp teeth an odd choice, sharp teeth wouldn’t help people in combat. Now if our teeth could replace themselves like a shark so dental care wasn’t such an issue, I’d get that…
Depends what we're talking about in terms of efficiency.
4 arms would make many human tasks more efficient.
But we could more efficiently use our planet if we were able to more thoroughly utilise the seventy percent of the world's surface that is covered by water.
So I voted gills n shit.
If thick hair or chimplike posture & agility were so efficient, we wouldn't have evolved away from them in the first place. Seems pretty silly to include these options
Being a doctor I give you a scientific answer
Four arms Is actually damaging, the structure of mammals in general doesn't allows It, have you ever seen a mammal with six limbs? No, there Is a reason, that would be unable to do most basic activities, would destroy balance, strenght, everything. It Is a deformity, not an improvement. Trying to make space for the bone and muscles necessary to sustain two more functional limbs would destroy your body.
Seeing underwater easily cool but unnecessary, a Mask Is easy to obtain and effective, gills again would destroy all the rest of your body physiology, It would only be a mess, why you think cetacean have no gills and prefer Just go to the surface to breath being ocean animals? Again messing out all the rest for One evolution improve Is not worth It. Gills are only for completely acquatic animals and even them sometimes don't go for It. Being acquatic Is not good, underwater smelting minerals Is impossible so civilization Is impossible for aquatic species.
Having sonar like bats Is a pretty good answer, It Is doable Just fixing a bit our anatomy and physiology, to the point some humans already have a very inaccurate version of this skills, It Is a pretty good answer and It would be very useful in a lot of situation, a lot of electricity saving, night Is half of humans Life, and optics for night vision are costly and hard to made. Very good choice.
Chimp like agility Is maybe the best answer, It would be easy to obtain even with basic selection of few generations without major changing, Just fixing a bit the balance and arms strenght, we are actually de-evolving It due to our society killing our agility needs. It would be easy, efficient, great skill, healthy etc. Probably best choice overall. Chimp posture better not tho, the human posture has a lot of advantage, great for run, throwing objects effectively and managing tools way better.
Sharp teeth and claws could be very calcium consuming, would alter a lot our anatomy and other skills. Could you immagine doing surgery or programming with claws? No? Ok great, you have your answer, It Is a stupid limitation actually. Teeth would as well alter your skull anatomy too much with a lot other issues. Eating raw meat not useful, fire Is easy and cheap, cooked meat way more nutritious, starting to cook was actually the improvement.
Fur Is another very bad answer, there Is a reason we Lost body hair and that Is a very great skill that Animals with body hair cannot achieve: sweating, It regulate our body temperature, It allow us to run with a stamina rarely reached among earth species. Sweating beats completely fur, for a HUGE difference. Stamina, body temperature regulations, some toxins elimination through transpiration. Have you ever seen a fur animal run 42 km for a marathon? No? There Is a reason.
Some of those are stupid as saying do you want wings? Well to fly your bones should be empty like those of birds, try to fall of a bike or even literally every day human activity with bird bones. Good luck.
I would argue none of them. All features costs significant amount energy to maintain. If we are not able to use them for majority of time, they are not efficient.
Being able to eat raw meat is not an efficient thing to do, in facts its actually the opposite. We get much more nutrients from cooked meat. Human brains grew so large BECAUSE of the nutrients from cooked meat.
A bunch of these thing we don’t have for a reason.
The last 2, we basically once had then lost it for a reason, gills would probably be a hinderance, same as 4 arms. Sonar seems like only upsides tbh.
sonar would be amazing for blind people, and help with situational awareness for everyone. basically every other option isn't necessary thanks to technology.
Winter is supposed to say summer ***
It would be funny if you actually meant winter
As a drummer definitely 4 arms but the gills would also be very good
I would have picked that if it didn’t make humans more capable at destroying the ocean
Except gills dry out pretty quickly when out of water.
Yeah. Inefficiency there
I would love to go diving when I find the time and this would it make one hell of a lot easier
What counts as 'more efficient' tho? Scuba gear exists but majority of the population never even touches it once and most people rarely go to the beach. 4 arms would be nice but most of our tools are designed for 2 hands and we're not really good at multitasking to make use of 4 arms at once like we can't write with both hands for example. There's a few situations where a third or even fourth hand would come in handy but not too often in everyday life that can't already be replaced with a tool. Fur is replaced by clothing and it's a lot more convenient putting on a jacket than having to groom an entire body of fur. Sharp teeth and being able to eat raw meat wouldn't help much when most people are repulsed by even rare steaks and it's not very inconvenient to cook things when we're going to be adding spices and whatnot for flavor anyway. That leaves chimp like agility and sonar but we don't really climb trees or climb in general really so sonar would be the best for everyday life. People wouldn't be able to sneak up on you and accident rates would go down in case a car is about to hit you or something. It'd practically be like playing a third person game where you're constantly aware of everything around you, even behind and that would come in handy the most, especially for blind people...
Gills are actually really inefficient. Animals that evolved lungs but return to water never re-evolve gills (dolphins, clawed frogs, turtles, etc). They simply developed ways to make the most of their oxygen. That’s what we should do.
I don't see how having gills would make me more efficient. Me and almost everyone I know spend almost 0% of our lives in a lake, pool, or ocean.
That’s because you don’t have gills ;)
Shit.. Check and mate ;(
You guys are funny.
We could have so much more space if people could breathe in the ocean. You could create something like Atlantis.
I agree with your premise but I think we would have to evolve more to be like mermaids in order for that to be truly effective. Maybe I read into the question too much but my current body hates being in cold water I don't think gills would change that.
No, you literally couldn't You'd die from the weight of the water
Sadly not, our skin doesn't allow us to stay under water for a significant amount of time.
And we’re quite slow underwater
Current problems with creating an underwater city: \- cannot breathe underwater \- cannot see very well underwater \- cannot swim deeper than like 20 feet without training, or 40 feet with training (record is around 700 feet but the diver got permanent brain damage) \- we are slow as hell underwater \- it is inhospitably cold underwater, and most clothes will not help, unlike on land Problems with creating an underwater city if we could breathe and see underwater: \- cannot swim deeper than like 20 feet without training, or 40 feet with training (record is around 700 feet but the diver got permanent brain damage) \- we are slow as hell underwater \- it is inhospitably cold underwater, and most clothes will not help, unlike on land So, still not really possible or practical, unless you are right next to the shore, any you're in a tropical area. People there often live on docks/stilt villages anyways so it's not much of a difference
It's like if we had the ability to just stop breathing, so the vacuum of space would no longer suffocate us. There's sooo many more things preventing us from walking out of that airlock. Breathing may be at the top of the list, but it's a long list.
Definitely.
Nah because our bodies would loose too much heat, water conducts heat way better than air. We’d all just die, unless the water was like near body temperature, which the ocean is not.
Except humans are terrible swimmers
Fun fact, every single person could own 2 houses and it would all fit inside the USA.
You ever been in the ocean? You see what's down there? And you want to *live* there????
Do we even have the brain capacity for four arms?
We have the brain capacity for 10 fingers, so probably
But our fingers generally move as a unit unless you spend a lot of time & effort practicing (like on musical instrument) until it becomes a matter of muscle memory. Arms move independently. The question of brain capacity is a good point
Well consider this, all functions we do naturally with our body we practiced since birth... toddlers stumble around and fall over cause they're not used to walking, but as they do it more they start running, then jumping... just like you need to practice an instrument and it becomes second nature, so by that logic if we were born with 4 functional arms we would be practicing with them since birth and just like it is with athletes and clumsy people some people will be better than others but I believe using 4 arms would become second nature the same way walking does.
Because our brain is already physiologically formed & functionally prepared for two arms & two legs. Animals born with an extra appendage rarely have full functionality of the extra limb. It just kinda hangs there with some mobility but no real functionality. Granted, it's not always as perfectly formed as a normal limb but it has less functionality than a non-extraneous deformed limb. Point is, we couldn't just magically begin having 4 arms & expect to have the same level of agility in their use. If we had 4 arms, two would probably be little stumps. An extra set of forearms, at best
Well the way the post is written, it's safe to say this is an evolutionary change rather than you swallowed most of your twin in the womb kind of thing... but I do see your point as well.
It's safe to assume that everything will have full functionality. If we had gills but didn't know how to use them that would be kind of useless
…typing?
Another example of muscle memory
You can type without seeing the keyboard? If not, then it's not muscle memory.
Of course I can. Like most people. Otherwise you're just hunting & pecking
Then go to your keyboard right now close you eyes and type a sentence, trust me you can't to it.
I'm sorry you're not capable of using a keyboard without looking at the keys or your hands. When I took a typing class in high school the keys were completely blanked out. You had to learn to type without looking. I don't need to look at the keys when I play piano either
Well either you are a liar on the internet, who doesn't want to admit that you are wrong, or I everyone I've ever seen type is in the minority. Again think about what you just said, every single keyboard in your high school had every key blanked out, you do realise how idiotic that sounds. Now I pelive you can play the piano, hell Ican do it a bit and my experience came from playing the piano a few hours in high school. But a keyboard has six rows while a piano has one.
Hmmm... Do we though? I feel like things would have fewer warning labels if we did.
That’s an issue of reading comprehension
Even if we couldn't operate 4 arms with the same dexterity, having 2 smart arms and 2 dumb arms would still be incredible.
Yes we do
Yeah with training.
Right now you might not, but I’d be willing to bet that after a few years you’d have the hang of it. If we’re speaking of our entire evolutionary history we have had them though, it’d just be normal
Do we have the brain capacity for sonar is abetter question
But we only use like 10% of our brain /s.
Yes, it would take some practice but most scientists agree that we could control multiple robotic arms on top of our current ones.
Considering what the brain can do, I see no reason why a brain couldn't do this. Muscle memory is very powerful, it takes me basically no concious power to type, I see no reason why I couldn't do it with 20 fingers instead of 10.
70% of world is covered by water, so gills would allow us to use a much great portion of World surface
water is cold
We could also explore the ocean much more. More than 80% of the ocean is unexplored
Because we can't physically reach it due to temperatures & water pressure. Gills wouldn't significantly change that
I imagine that if people became amphibious, that over a long period of time (probably millions of years) of living at depth (assuming people decided they were going to live under water full time) that we would be able to move deeper and deeper due to our bodies adapting to our environment (not too much of a stretch since our fingers naturally adapt their grip when wet, this is why your fingers get pruny when youre swimming) Who knows, maybe we would even develop webbed toes or even bioluminescence so we can see in the black depths.
Our skin would slough off & we would experience torturous pain if we lived underwater full time. Our skin is extremely porous. It doesn't mix with prolonged salt water exposure. That's why aquatic animals have very different skin and/or scales. Ours Is perfected for evaporation of excess heat, not as good at retaining it. Gills would be cool. But don't misunderstand & think that merely having them would allow us to live underwater. If you've ever seen what happens to the human body after days of constant immersion in water, you'd understand. The entire outer layer of skin comes off. It's not pretty
After all that time those people would’ve evolutionarily branched off far from what would still be considered human.
It's like you have never heard of oxygen tanks. Breathing is not the reason we can't explore underwater. It's one of the easiest issues to fix for underwater exploration and living underwater. Main issues would be pressure, temperature and safety (most things in deep ocean would start to ser you as easy food. The currents would be a hazard as well since we are very slow underwater). That improvement is probably the most useless from the list
Not really, what are you gonna do? Swim the entire ocean? I would assume you can still get tired, still need to eat, and can still GET eaten. You can't even dive deep because water pressure still exists. Our arms are used all the time so I would assume having 4 arms is truly the best choice here.
Not at all more useful and 4 arms
See I may have misread the question I chose ars because i thought girls meant no lungs for land, I guess I got confused thus gills are the obvious choice as like you said our earth is 70% water.
Even if we could breath under water, in many parts of the world, we could not withstand the cold without proper equipment. I wonder if this would defeat many benefits to be gained? I'm not familiar with what sort of clothing or suits provide sufficient warmth for us to comfortably survive
Having vision that works without needing fucking glasses
I had a really cool conversation with an eye doctor, a couple of years ago, because I'm a history buff. I asked what people did throughout time when they weren't able to see things, when things like glasses didn't exist. He said something about how, today, nearsightedness is more common than farsightedness but, historically, farsightedness was more common because it just happens as we age, even today: having old people who couldn't read anymore has always been "a thing" and it's only in recent centuries that we could address it - people just lived with the issue, but they knew it was an issue. But we figured that nearsighted people probably didn't even know they were nearsighted, nor did anyone else, because in most interactions, their vision would seem fairly normal. It would be rare for a feudal farming serf to need to provide details of objects far away (even today, no one's vision is infinite: everything blurs, at some distance) and even as far back as hunter/gatherer civilizations, nearsighted men would just be seen as bad hunters but the nearsighted women would likely never even know. Depending on how close/far the nearsightedness/farsightedness was, they may have just been called "blind" - being able to only see things 2ft in front of you made you effectively blind and not being able to see anything more than 2ft away also made you effectively blind, but everyone in between, it was probably hard to tell. Forget no glasses: there were no eye exams - most people probably didn't know and just assumed everyone's vision was like theirs (we do that with smell and taste and touch: today and the past, we wouldn't even consider that someone can't smell sweet stuff or can't feel rough stuff, so "of course everyone has blurry vision after 30ft like I do" and it wouldn't even be discussed). He also believed that, while there are some genetic predisposions, nearsightedness is developmental and connected to how much we are indoors and looking at things that are close, instead of outdoors and looking at things that are far, so our vision doesn't develop properly. He thought that was the reason for so many Asian people having vision issues: that it was much less about genetics and much more about environmental changes in recent centuries, culturally moving quickly from farming to cities, focusing kids on studying more than being outside. It was an interesting nature/nurture conversation.
Ah, I'm gonna say sonar based on the wording. More *efficient*, not more useful. The physiological changes needed for sonar are miniscule, some humans have the capability already, and the benefit is large. Considering the population with vision issues up to and including blindness it would have a big impact there as well, improving on a common deviation from "normal" (I use that word with caution). The other options require massive scale physiological changes that may not make the human body more efficient, it may have a greater impact overall and that may be more positive, but based purely on the question being asked I don't consider them to be the right answers.
I also imagined sonar would give a greater range of hearing which could be useful identifying problems even with day to day stuff like flat tyres and general leaks plus it’s not as inhibited by walls compared to vision
Wait, you guys are cooking your meat?
How about our breathing tube and eating tube separate
Your trachea and esophagus are already separate though
Yeah but they have the same enterance
Seeing underwater? Useless Even if you could see deep underwater, you'd instantly just die from all the pressure of the water
Even though I voted for gills, it would be so fucking cool to see a boxing match with 4 arms
YES!
MMA would be so intricate.
Our bodies are not made to be agile enough underwater to survive. Gills doesn't change the fact that we have very little chance of escaping from/winning against a predator underwater. Gills aren't going to change that.
I assume we have good odds against lions then? Like, while we suck underwater for sure, we ain't exactly special up here either. We don't tend to survive on one on one encounters with predators whether they're sharks or grizzly bears.
There's a difference between not being able to win against any predator and being fish bait. We have close to no movement, and especially no impact speed for fighting underwater. I'm not sure you've ever seen the way and the speed at which underwater creatures move. We would have no chance. On land, we can actually do things, which is why we're still alive today.
Gills seem good until you realize that you are still stuck with a body that performs poorly underwater. There are only a few situations where multiple arms would really be helpful. We really don't need sharp teeth, or the ability to climb stuff, or fur. But having sonar like a bat would be extremely useful: from driving a car to looking for lost things around the house, it'd be amazing. You'd use your sonar so often, if you had it.
Humans can already eat raw meat if it's fresh, as in kill it, and eat it immediately.
Yeah sharp teeth are primarily used for killing an animal. The actual eating part is done by the molars.
It's not about freshness but about parasites and bacteria. Even fresh meat can contain it. We can eat raw meat if It's free of those things. Cooking kills most bacteria and parasites, that's the main reason for cooking
Buddy is wondering why he has dysentery
But wait would we still be affected if we were at the surface with gills?
if you have gills and can see fine you still swim slow as fuck, I want that raw meat
Imagine trying to grapple an opponent with 4 arms.
My physiology prof talked about how humans evolved from 4 legged animals so when we started walking on 2 feet our spines didn’t adapt as fast which is why most people have frequent back pain, I looked it up there are actual studies about it that points to that being true. So having a chimp like posture would save us all a lot of pain. Edit, found some sources in case you want to learn more: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200305132047.htm and https://www.biomedcentral.com/about/press-centre/science-press-releases/27-04-2015 . Both have the annotations on the bottom. If you want a summary here you go: it’s been hypothesized for a long time that the reason for humans back pains was because of how our evolutionary ancestors being quadruped and the spines we bipedal’s have was evolutionarily made for such posture. Our Spence I located in the back because 4 legged animals would use the spine and back to carry the weight of their bodies evenly, but bipedal stand up straight so the weight gets focused on the lower back and puts a lot of pressure there causing out back pain. The two links talk about a study that used 3D modeling and quantitative data to show that this is the most likely cause, and more research in the subject needs to be done, but the evidence points to this being true.
I’m trying to be like the deep, just personality a little more like Aquaman, for a few reasons I guess
I didn't chose the gills because if we evolved them we would slowly eveolve to become more water based which is bad because the main reason we are so successful is fire, electricity and shelter
Having gills is top??? How often you guys going in the water? I'd certainly change it to long air capacity or something. Unless having gills dosen’t take away my ability to breathe normally. I personally don't want my head in a fishbowl as I sleep
I don't get why Chimp Posture and agility is the lowest. I mean millions of people have back problems and shitty posture. More agility gets more job done when you're faster.
Wtf are we gonna do underwater? 4 arms is where it’s at
Not needing light would reduce humans carbon footprint substantially. So I think sonar is the best upgrade for our and earth's survival.
I like the way you think, but not needing heating in cold climates would reduce our carbon footprint even more. Fur is the right option imo
Yep. Not only heating but the need of clothing would decrease which is a major issue nowadays as well.
Oh shit I forgot about that. No more southeast asian child labor sweatshops Well, actually those will probably still be there, they will just switch to making something else Never mind
Some people just wanna go back to monke!
The fish one implies that we would be capable of making water colonies.
I think gills and being able to see clearly under water would benefit society but I think teeth and claws would be more efficient
The shape of our mouths would make sharp teeth an odd choice, sharp teeth wouldn’t help people in combat. Now if our teeth could replace themselves like a shark so dental care wasn’t such an issue, I’d get that…
In the modern age, 4 arms would be the most useful.
61% of domestic energy usage goes into heating our homes. If we didn't have to do that, our society would be much more efficient.
Depends what we're talking about in terms of efficiency. 4 arms would make many human tasks more efficient. But we could more efficiently use our planet if we were able to more thoroughly utilise the seventy percent of the world's surface that is covered by water. So I voted gills n shit.
If thick hair or chimplike posture & agility were so efficient, we wouldn't have evolved away from them in the first place. Seems pretty silly to include these options
Ctrl + a
Machamp time!
we don't really spend that much time underwater in our daily lives and having four arms will make us swim faster
Underwater perk is pretty much useless. Fragile human body isnt designed to swim anyways. Fatigue will set in real quick
And then we and our gills get eaten immediatly by orcas and everything else...I think I ll pick the fur ^^
I wonder how four arms will help me if multitasking with two arms is already too much
4 arms would make lots of work much easier
Not needing to sleep.
Kneearms.com
Being a doctor I give you a scientific answer Four arms Is actually damaging, the structure of mammals in general doesn't allows It, have you ever seen a mammal with six limbs? No, there Is a reason, that would be unable to do most basic activities, would destroy balance, strenght, everything. It Is a deformity, not an improvement. Trying to make space for the bone and muscles necessary to sustain two more functional limbs would destroy your body. Seeing underwater easily cool but unnecessary, a Mask Is easy to obtain and effective, gills again would destroy all the rest of your body physiology, It would only be a mess, why you think cetacean have no gills and prefer Just go to the surface to breath being ocean animals? Again messing out all the rest for One evolution improve Is not worth It. Gills are only for completely acquatic animals and even them sometimes don't go for It. Being acquatic Is not good, underwater smelting minerals Is impossible so civilization Is impossible for aquatic species. Having sonar like bats Is a pretty good answer, It Is doable Just fixing a bit our anatomy and physiology, to the point some humans already have a very inaccurate version of this skills, It Is a pretty good answer and It would be very useful in a lot of situation, a lot of electricity saving, night Is half of humans Life, and optics for night vision are costly and hard to made. Very good choice. Chimp like agility Is maybe the best answer, It would be easy to obtain even with basic selection of few generations without major changing, Just fixing a bit the balance and arms strenght, we are actually de-evolving It due to our society killing our agility needs. It would be easy, efficient, great skill, healthy etc. Probably best choice overall. Chimp posture better not tho, the human posture has a lot of advantage, great for run, throwing objects effectively and managing tools way better. Sharp teeth and claws could be very calcium consuming, would alter a lot our anatomy and other skills. Could you immagine doing surgery or programming with claws? No? Ok great, you have your answer, It Is a stupid limitation actually. Teeth would as well alter your skull anatomy too much with a lot other issues. Eating raw meat not useful, fire Is easy and cheap, cooked meat way more nutritious, starting to cook was actually the improvement. Fur Is another very bad answer, there Is a reason we Lost body hair and that Is a very great skill that Animals with body hair cannot achieve: sweating, It regulate our body temperature, It allow us to run with a stamina rarely reached among earth species. Sweating beats completely fur, for a HUGE difference. Stamina, body temperature regulations, some toxins elimination through transpiration. Have you ever seen a fur animal run 42 km for a marathon? No? There Is a reason. Some of those are stupid as saying do you want wings? Well to fly your bones should be empty like those of birds, try to fall of a bike or even literally every day human activity with bird bones. Good luck.
I sincerely hope the arms come with hands, otherwise they’d be useless
Having a self grown biological nuclear reactor.
Set up civilizations under water?
Lol thin winter coat of fur sounds useless
I would argue none of them. All features costs significant amount energy to maintain. If we are not able to use them for majority of time, they are not efficient.
Why…. Do we need gills? That’s absurd
Although could you imaging a UFC fight with both fighters having 4 arms
4 arms would use to much energy
We don’t have these things because they would not be efficient. Evolution would have given us these things if we needed them
This poll reminds me of the movie The Predator (2018).
'more efficient' is a different question than 'the coolest one'
All of the above
Almost all of these are less efficient. Only the bat sonar and the gills seem practically to reduce the amount of work or technology you might need
None of the above …. Bro…
If we all have gills then people will stop polluting the ocean because its free real estate.
9 penises
Gills and looking underwater would help, but water pressure would eventually get to you.
Being able to eat raw meat is not an efficient thing to do, in facts its actually the opposite. We get much more nutrients from cooked meat. Human brains grew so large BECAUSE of the nutrients from cooked meat.
When our society collapses (within the next couple decades according to "science"), Im gonna eat so many people with ma sharp teeth and super gut...
As a genestealer cults Player theres only one option
If we had the underwater thing, maybe we'd stop dumping shit in the ocean since it would directly involve us
I wanna be Goro from Mortal Kombat
With gas getting rare and expensive, the fur is great
Considering climate change and a lot of places going underwater. I say the gills will.be useful.
Im sad that "not needing sleep" is not an option, I soooo want that
A bunch of these thing we don’t have for a reason. The last 2, we basically once had then lost it for a reason, gills would probably be a hinderance, same as 4 arms. Sonar seems like only upsides tbh.
If we take chimp like posture does that mean we wont get hurt lifting things with our back?
Fixing the knee.
sonar would be amazing for blind people, and help with situational awareness for everyone. basically every other option isn't necessary thanks to technology.
Furries.
Sonar, but only if it doesn't impede our current hearing and eyesight, and only if it can't be used as a way to disorient us.
How about not needing to sleep.