I wonder how history would have went differently if humans had different shapes or physiology.
Also how would modern society would look life if so.
>>561897
As long as got dextrous tool using appendages we will still have technology but the stuff would be different. If we were quadruped but had tentacle things on our head that allowed us to manipulate objects we would probably not need horses since we would be fast travelers being quadruped although our fighting would be much different.
I imagine it would affect the way we interact with animals.
If we were much bigger or much smaller, we'd have a hell of a time riding horses.
More broadly, it might effect what areas of the world humans occupy. The design of a bipedal, warm blooded animal with opposable thumbs is a very versatile one.
If humans were quadrupedal it would take a huge toll on human endurance, which would effect how well humans could migrate, and what kind of prey they could kill.
>>561937
Being quadrupeds would make us very different. We likely wouldn't have keen eyesight - no point. We evolved good eyes after evolving bipedalism, in order to better survey the land once we were tall enough to peek over the tall grass that was everywhere back then.
We also wouldn't have been able to migrate all over the world as cavemen, energy efficient bipedal motion is how we managed to march from africa to everywhere else countless years before recorded history.
>>562028
ayy
>>562041
Ok what if we had a centaur like body then minus the horsey parts.
I've always thought how neat it would be if humans from different climates developed different physical characteristics like some other animals.
So far we can't even handle skin colors.
Our number system is base ten because we have 10 fingers.
Math would definitely be changed.
What would have to be different about us for us to be better at numbers?
Even philosophy is drastically influenced by our tendency to divide things into only several groups, many times only in two or three different parts.
Imagine if we could easily handle large numbers and easily store larger groups in memeory.
Sometimes I wonder how a cultures metaphysics, religion. philosophy, worldview etc would be different if there were two sun's in the sky, or two moons, or a large planet visible in the sky etc
>>563579
large visible planet would be believed to be home of the gods like Olympus
>>563620
Imagine a planet revolving a sun being consumed by a black hole, what that would do to their views on life and death, their mythologies and disposition as a race.
Or a species evolving on a moon revolving around a planet that harbors and advanced civilization itself. Itd be like space /pol/ on crack. Imagine thay superiority complex
> you live on the moon and we live on the mother planet heh, so shine my shoes boy
I wish more sci fi authors explored stuff like this.
>>562110
Didn't we use to count by 28's? 3 sections on each finger + 2 for each thumbs.
>>563579
Probably a bit like the theology of TES.
The planets and moons are believed to be the gods themselves, and the sun is believed to be a gaping hole into the aether. Also it's widely believed the moon is made of cocaine.
>>562041
>We also wouldn't have been able to migrate all over the world as cavemen, energy efficient bipedal motion is how we managed to march from africa to everywhere else countless years before recorded history.
This is false, wolves and horses can travel faster and more energy effective than humans
Even horses carrying humans (cavallery) traveld faster over long distance than humans
>>563579
Imagine we had a thick atmosphere that didn't let us see the stars
We would no idea how the universe looked like until we would have acchieved space travel
>>563639
It is very unlikely that two independant species civilizations on two different planet just happen do develop civilization at approximatly the same time.
>>561897
It would have been completely diferent and unregocnizable for us. The change of a small detail could be enough to create a totally different timeline.
>>564025
>We would no idea how the universe looked like until we would have achieved space travel
Would we have any motivation to even try space travel?
All futures thing from which you took your pic is pretty cool, btw.
>>563727
Everyone knows that the moon is made of cheese
>>564066
we would need to build intercontinental rockets for nukes anyway, might aswell travel to space
>>561897
Where did you get that drawing from? I'm interested
>>564114
All Tomorrows
A Billion Year Chronicle of the Myriad Species and Varying Fortunes of Man
Nemo Ramjet
>>564130
Bruh this is one of the coolest things I've read in years
>>562054
Wat exactly are you describing?
>>564015
You mean more caloric-effective or oxygen-effective?
>>562041
>We likely wouldn't have keen eyesight - no point. We evolved good eyes after evolving bipedalism, in order to better survey the land once we were tall enough to peek over the tall grass that was everywhere back then.
Humans have binocular vision because we hunt.
Horses have eyes on the sides of their heads because they're prey.
>>566600
Thats simplifying it a bit too much
Humans have Binocular vision because we look for things and track. It allows for depth perception which is handy in the trees in the jungle and hunting because it helps us see whats closer to us.
Horses have side eyes because they don't need to see depth, only there surroundings, like with prey or landscapes. because horses developed in plains and grasslands they don't have a lot of things that obscure their path, so their sight is devoted mostly to whats around them for the most part.
>>561897
we are descendants from a long chain of mammals reaching back to the dinosaurs and every single adaption was necessary for survival. you cannot change one thing because most likely a highly intelligent and sentient being like us wouldn't exist.
i recommend the rise of the vertebrates series by David Attenborough.
>>562041
>We evolved good eyes
mammal eyes are probably one of the worst. no match to fish, birds or even insects. our eyes were adapted for water, on land we lost colour vision and had to evolve it back.
>The mantis shrimp has one of the most elaborate visual systems ever discovered.[11]
>Compared to the three types of colour receptive cones that humans possess in their eyes, the eyes of a mantis shrimp carry 16 types of colour receptive cones. It was once thought that this gives the crustacean the ability to recognize colours that are unimaginable by other species.[12]
>>566629
I'm well aware mammal eyes suck but ours are some of the best by mammal standards
>>566470
>>564130
>These fledgling cultures were quick to understand the true origin of the monstrous ruins littering their planet, ruins that until then had been considered natural aberrations or timeless memorabilia of gods. Now, however, they saw the intermingled ruins of the Qu and the Star People for what they really were. It was through this understanding that the biologically unrelated Sauros took up the cultural identity of humanity.
>In their archaeological efforts, the Sauros began to understand that the animals they used for food and labor were descended from the founders of their very existence. And somewhere in the stars lurked the forces that malformed them, forces greater than the Star People, dark forces that might someday return. The human animals served as a remainder, just as Panderavis had, that if the Saurosapients wanted to assure their continued existence in the cosmos, they had to be watchful.
This made me tear up the first time I read it.
>>566655
reads like some porn fiction
>>566655
The fucking sea civilization completely based on domesticated sea creatures for their technology. Cephalod televisions whaaaaat
>>566629
I thought amphibians and reptiles saw color too and mammals lost color vision due to nocturnal habits of the cretacean ancestors.
>>566666
that's what I meant. probably wasn't clear enough. but in return we got really cool stuff like full body sensory, kickass ears and so on,
If ancient mammals had not lost their color vision, we, and many other mammals, would probably have lots of crazy hair colors instead of shades of boring brown.
>>566666
>>566666
>>566666
>>566666
>>566666
pretty much mega satan
Nice quints
>>566600
Felines and canines have pretty bad eyesight, apart from night vision, though. Zebra camouflage is actually able to trick lions, when it means jackshit to humans.
>>566732
doesn't this have more to do with pattern recognition than with eye sight?
>>566737
Not sure about lions, but this article says that mountain lions have blurry vision, just like house cats:
http://www.mountainlion.org/CAL_ch4.asp
>While a cougar's extraordinary vision seems to give it a distinct advantage over its prey, nature has a way of compensating for advantages. In humans, the high concentration of cones in our eyes allows us to resolve (discern) visual detail in daylight, while the low concentration of rods inhibits our ability to resolve detail in low light. This resolving power is called visual acuity. While the concentration of rods and the presence of a tapetum has increased the cat's sensitivity to low light, it has sacrificed visual acuity. Rods do not allow for much discrimination between light wavelengths, and the tapetum further blurs the image the cat sees. As a result, cats' vision at night is six times better than that of humans, but humans have better visual acuity.
>>562065
Your post gave me an idea that people living far north might have grown back their fur given enough time and isolation.
But then I thought about it and realized that there would be no natural selection for that given that people with extra body hair wearing clothes are hardly warmer than people with no body hair wearing clothes.
Human ingenuity really has eliminated a lot of natural selection in our species.
