Comment by derefr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by derefr | Hacker News Reader

> Other than “we’ve been doing it for a while,” there seems to be no reason to expect that being in a 100x dimmer environment all day wouldn’t be awful. Indoor darkness seems to be one of those things that we don’t question only because it’s been that way forever.

An interesting question is: what average light levels existed in the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness for humans, given the types of things our ancestors spent their days doing?

Consider: many humans were savannah persistence-hunters; but many humans were also jungle and arboreal-forest gatherers. And either way, we probably liked to find trees to climb and use as protection, when we could (as chimps do.)

So, given that, are human brains calibrated for "sun-baked African plains" daytime brightness, or "under a forest canopy" daytime brightness, or somewhere in between?

It could be different for everyone. My ancestors likely grew up in dense equatorial jungles and caves, not plains. A lot of my family members perform much better in dim light. My optimal seems to be 2-7 PM on a rainy day.

I'm not sure about the genetics of it (none of my family members seem to agree with me), but I also perform computer tasks far better in a dim light. A friend of me, who is also a night-owl, has the theory that when we get exposed to daylight, our cavemen heritage's natural reaction is to feel like going hunting/food gathering. While I don't buy the argument verbatim, I feel more like doing outdoor/physical activities on sunny days.

I've been wondering the same about ‘normal’ levels of activity. Pretty sure most of us are horribly motion-deprived by the standards of hunters or gatherers. But then again, presumably someone also was staying behind at home, and I don't remember any folk wisdom saying housekeepers are all dystrophic.

I mean, I think most of us spent a lot of generations inside caves, didn't we? I think we adapted.

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