- The .2 Newsletter
- Posts
- The 444 Newsletter - #6
The 444 Newsletter - #6
The Final 444 Newsletter
Greg Schmalzel
January 31, 2024
January, 2024.
If you don’t follow me on Instagram, then you may have not yet heard that this is the last 444 Newsletter. It’s time for a fresh start. This was a great learning experience for me to practice a newsletter format, and I hope it provided you all with some useful information as well. But, it’s time to move on.
I’m in the process of transitioning my focus from writing blog articles to creating YouTube videos. For those of you who enjoy reading the articles, don’t worry you will still be able to (as you’ll read below)! As a result of this transition, there will be some changes to the Evolved to Exceed community. Here’s what to expect.
First, say goodbye to the Evolved to Exceed website.
Second, say hello to a new iteration of Evolved to Exceed, Evolve.2. This will be my YouTube channel from here on out. It’s already up and running so head on over and click subscribe!
Third, I’ll be posting weekly YouTube videos on all the topics we love to explore (nutrition, diet, psychology, lifting, running, etc.), all from the perspective of human evolution.
Fourth, instead of these monthly newsletters, I’m starting a new weekly newsletter accompanying the YouTube channel. I’ve been brainstorming name ideas and want to go with “The .2 Newsletter”, but I’m open to suggestions from you guys. In it will be a full transcript of that week’s YouTube video with research citations (like the articles) for those of you who still want to read! I’ll be keeping the Fit Fuel song suggestions for all you animals out there. Also, I’ll probably include some more off-the-cuff, less formal writing as well.
So while this is the final 444 Newsletter, it is not the last time you’ll be hearing from me. Expect a few more updates from this email concerning the transition. They will include links to the new YouTube channel, newsletter updates, and dates for when full-length videos will be released.
Be on the lookout for emails from The .2 Newsletter!
Here are the articles that were published this month on Evolved to Exceed:
Why We Crave Nature - By Greg Schmalzel
Believer In Evolution Critiques His Own Theory - By Greg Schmalzel
Religion And Evolution: A False Dichotomy - By Greg Schmalzel
Caloric Inflation - By Greg Schmalzel
BJJ: Controlled Violence With Value - By Greg Schmalzel
The Adaptive Scholar
The Adaptive Scholar, my eBook on navigating academic research is officially published. If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, now is your chance! With the spring semester just getting started, if you (or anyone you know) are in college, The Adaptive Scholar is an essential resource. It will guide you through my system for finding, reading, and comprehending scholarly material - in a time-efficient manner. You even have the option of sending it as a gift! At only $5, it is well worth the investment.
Click the link below to buy a copy:
Book.
Title: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Author: Yuval Noah Harari
Published: 2015 (English translation)
Summary/Analysis
Have you ever wondered why media empires like HBO and Netflix make preposterous amounts of money? Sure they have phenomenal marketing teams that know their niche and can target an audience. But this doesn’t explain the sheer size of their market. It seems as though all 8 billion people on Earth could be potential Netflix consumers. What is it about humans that attracts us so universally to movies and shows? The answer probably lies in stories, especially fictional ones.
In this monumental work of history, anthropology, psychology, and almost every other “ology” you can think of, Harari takes us through human history. From our early evolution to the development of artificial intelligence, he guides us through the story of humanity from a very particular perspective. Throughout the book, he poses the question, both implicitly and explicitly, “What is it that makes humans so special?” His answer is storytelling.
Today we obviously differ from all other species. However, this was not always the case. Early in our evolutionary history, we were similar to other human species, living off the land with minimal technology. Even later in our evolution, our Neanderthal cousins were not all that different from us. Yet, we largely outcompeted them, despite small bouts of interbreeding. Harari suggests that the advantage that humans initially had over Neanderthals, which persists today, is our ability to create and believe in shared fictional stories - to believe in myths.
It is hard for organisms to cooperate. Selective pressures often dissuade them from doing so, incentivizing them to defect and act selfishly to propagate their own genes. This is especially true as group sizes increase, and individuals become less and less related. Homo sapiens, argues Harari, solved this problem through fictional narratives. Humans, despite living among unrelated strangers, can cooperate and coexist peaceably (for the most part) because those strangers share a story.
In science and the humanities, we often compare and contrast the ideas of subjective experience and objective facts. Subjective experiences are those which are felt and interpreted by individuals, while objective facts are those which exist independent of the individual. Harari shows how stories are neither. Rather, they are inter-subjective. They are not objective, hard facts, but they also exist beyond the individual - in the “mind” of the culture, if you will.
Some of the earliest inter-subjective stories that brought people together were religious in nature. As people settled in permanent locations and societies grew larger, money too became a shared story to reinforce human cooperation. Religious texts are not literally true and money is not literally useful. Both exist inter-subjectively in the shared minds of Homo Sapiens. Harari shows how later developments like science, law, and capitalism are all extensions or reinforcers of this uniquely human capacity for imagined realities.
In contemplating the implications of this theory, the current state of society seems disconcerting. With the slow erosion of religion, dissatisfaction with modern economics, and growing skepticism of science, what is our story today? All of these stories were largely effective for coordinating people of past population sizes. However, the interconnected world has grown to such a degree that these stories are not as functional. They have fractioned off into smaller tribe-like populations within our larger human population, causing friction between ideas and cultures. It seems that we lack an over-arching, meta-story to glue these fractured pieces back together. What could, or should, that story be?
Quotes
“Yet the truly unique feature of our language is not the ability to transmit information about men and lions. Rather, It’s the ability to transmit information about things that do not exist at all. As far as we know, only Sapiens can talk about entire kinds of entities that they have never seen, touched or smelled.”
“Just try to imagine how difficult it would have been to create states, or churches, or legal systems if we could only speak about things that really exist, such as rivers, trees and lions.”
“Three main factors prevent people from realizing that the order organizing their lives exists only in their imagination: a.) The imagined order is embedded in the material world…. b.) The imagined order shapes our desires…. c.) The imagined order is inter-subjective.”
“How can we distinguish what is biologically determined from what people merely try to justify through biological myths? A good rule of thumb is ‘biology enable, culture forbids.’ Biology is willing to tolerate a very wide spectrum of possibilities. It’s culture that obliges people to realise some possibilities while forbidding others. Biology enables women to have children - some cultures oblige women to realise this possibility. Biology enables men to have sex with one another - some cultures forbid them to realise this possibility.”
Academic Paper.
Bramble, D. and Lieberman, D. 2004. “Endurance running and the evolution of Homo.” Nature 432:345–352.
Summary/Analysis
Another contribution to the 444 Newsletter by the Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard, Daniel Lieberman. He leads the pack in terms of applying evolutionary science to human health and fitness, and will surely be featured in future newsletters. For this month, we take a look at a highly influential paper he co-wrote with Dennis Bramble. In it, they explore the role of endurance running in the evolution of our species - Homo sapiens.
The thesis of this paper is that the ability of humans to run long distances is unique among all primates and that it emerged around 2.5 million years ago with the emergence of the genus Homo. They note how the predecessors of Homo, such as the australopithecines, share with us adaptations to walking (e.g. skeletons that support walking upright). However, there is a suite of adaptations that appear with the emergence of Homo, that a.) were not present in australopithecines, and b.) seem to support improved endurance running.
The authors divide these derived adaptations into four general categories. First, are those dealing with energetics. These include spring-like tendons in the long legs of humans, which decrease the amount of energy needed per stride. Second, are adaptations that increase skeletal strength. Running deals more impact on the skeleton than walking, so the larger bone surface area observed in Homo is likely advantageous for dispersing that stress. The third is stability. Running on two legs is less stable than running on four, so humans evolved things like larger glute muscles to increase trunk and hip stability. Fourth, are adaptations for thermoregulation. Humans have more sweat glands and less body hair than all other primates. These features would have allowed us to more efficiently release internal heat built up from running.
They conclude by asking why humans evolved these adaptations for endurance running in the first place. What were the selective pressures? Accordingly, it is argued that humans became efficient at running long distances as a way to compensate for our poor sprinting abilities. Most other animals in our evolutionary environments were much faster than us. However, if we could outrun them over the long haul, then it’d be to our advantage.
Two hypotheses are posited to highlight the types of scenarios in which endurance running would have helped early humans outcompete other animals. First, is a form of persistence hunting. Humans would have forced their prey into long runs, exhausting them until they collapsed. The second is to compete against other scavengers. Endurance running would have helped people find the remains of already dead animals before other species like wild dogs or hyenas got to them.
Endurance running is partly what defines us as a species. Its value is evident in our bodies, providing us with the adaptations necessary to persist in the hyper-competitive African environments of our past. Maybe this partly explains the “runner’s high” reported by so many individuals. Maybe they are tapping into a deep sense of physical activity rooted in our ancient ancestry.
Quotes
“Judged by several criteria, humans perform remarkably well at endurance running, thanks to a diverse array of features, many of which leave traces in the skeleton. The fossil evidence of these features suggests that endurance running is a derived capability of the genus Homo, originating about 2 million years ago, and may have been instrumental in the evolution of the human body form.”
“No primates other than humans are capable of [endurance running].”
“Well-conditioned human runners exceed the predicted preferred galloping speed for a 65-kg quadruped and can occasionally outrun horses over the extremely long distances that constrain these animals to optimal galloping speeds, typically a canter.”
“Today, [endurance running] is primarily a form of exercise and recreation, but its roots may be as ancient as the origin of the human genus, and its demands a major contributing factor to the human body form..”
Podcast.
Summary/Analysis
After reading Walker’s book Why We Sleep for my November newsletter, I wanted to explore his ideas a little further. I found this quick 20-minute podcast on optimizing sleep. I’ll keep this one brief! He provides 5 conventional tips and 5 unconventional tips on how better fall asleep and stay asleep.
5 Conventional Tips
Regularity - Fall asleep and wake up at the same time every day.
Temperature - Keep it cool.
Your brain and body need to drop about 2 degrees to fall asleep well.
Darkness - Dim lights at least ½ hour before bed.
This triggers the release of melatonin.
Walk it out - Don’t spend more than 25 minutes in bed awake.
Get up and do something relaxing (e.g. read) under dim light.
Abstain from caffeine after noon, and avoid alcohol in the evening.
5 Unconventional Tips
If you have a bad night of sleep, don’t try to overcompensate by sleeping in.
Have a wind-down routine.
Ex.) stretch, read, hot bath, meditate.
No naps - Especially after 1 pm.
Don’t count sheep.
Instead, take a mental walk, visualizing a very familiar route you often take.
Remove all clocks from your bedroom.
If you struggle to get a good night’s rest, give these a shot and see if they work!
Quotes
“We are a dark deprived society in the modern era.”
“After that bad night of sleep: don’t sleep in any later the following morning, don’t nap during the day, and then don’t try to go to bed any earlier the following evening.”
“Sleep is much more like landing a plane. It takes time for your biology to start to wind down and sort of bring you down and descend you down onto the terra firma of good sleep at night.”
“None of these tips are going to help you cure or solve your insomnia. they are simply tips for better optimizing your sleep.”
Fitness Tip.
Types of Fat
People get very wrapped up in counting the macronutrient content of their diets, but they often fail to account for the variability within these categories. As a prime example, not all fats are created equal. There are roughly four types of fats: monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, saturated, and trans fats.
Generally, mono- and polyunsaturated fats are preferable for one’s health. These are found more in unprocessed foods, and they increase good cholesterol (HDL) while decreasing bad cholesterol (LDL). Saturated fats, on the other hand, increase both HDL and LDL. Trans fats are arguably the worst of the four. They are rarely found in nature and are mainly the result of modern food processing. Because of this, our bodies are not adapted to their consumption and lack the enzymes required to break them down properly. Its effects on cholesterol are opposite those of unsaturated fats. Trans fats lower HDL and increase LDL.
When thinking about your macronutrient consumption, it is just as important to consider the quality of fat you’re consuming as it is the quantity - possibly more. For health and longevity, you want to minimize the percentage of your fat consumption coming from saturated and trans fats.
Fit Fuel Song Suggestion.
If you’re new here, heed this warning:
The Fit Fuel song suggestions are hand-picked by yours truly to elicit the motivation (and possibly aggression) needed to initiate or persist through a grueling workout. They typically consist of heavy, brutal guitar riffs and gruesomely guttural vocals. Additionally, I timestamp what I believe to be the best riff of the song - one that will kick your nervous system into overdrive when approaching a personal record.
Not too many modern metal bands can keep up with the brutality of these guys. If listening to this song doesn’t make you want to grab a barbell and put your body through hell, I don’t know what will.
Title: Beyond Cremation
Band: Skeletal Remains
Album: Condemned to Misery (2020)
PR Moment - 0:20