Shower Thought: How different would history look if humans could fly?

This is a really weird thought I had and I thought it might make an interesting discussion point so I've made a thread for it. So imagine, humans are as they are now, but the only difference is we can fly. Be that with wings or some weird just innate ability to fly like Superman. We only have the ability to fly at the speed of a bird.

Wouldn't it change absolutely everything? Wars would've played out differently. Weapons and different weapons may have been developed to make use of the fact we're flying around. Armour would have to change in order to either fit wings inside or work alongside it to protect ourselves. Would we have ever developed the plane? Why would we need a plane when we can fly. Would we have perhaps instead focused on ways to make ourselves fly faster?

Obviously history would be completely different.

But you're not changing the human mind, so we'd still have spent our entire time being utter banana splits to each other. Just in the sky as well as on the ground.

Qikz wrote:This is a really weird thought I had and I thought it might make an interesting discussion point so I've made a thread for it. So imagine, humans are as they are now, but the only difference is we can fly. Be that with wings or some weird just innate ability to fly like Superman. We only have the ability to fly at the speed of a bird.

Wouldn't it change absolutely everything? Wars would've played out differently. Weapons and different weapons may have been developed to make use of the fact we're flying around. Armour would have to change in order to either fit wings inside or work alongside it to protect ourselves. Would we have ever developed the plane? Why would we need a plane when we can fly. Would we have perhaps instead focused on ways to make ourselves fly faster?

Let's first address the elephant bird in the room (which, ironically, couldn't fly):

We only have the ability to fly at the speed of a bird.

Which bird? An eagle would be incredible. A kingfisher maybe less so!

Wars and conquest would have played out differently. We may have been less bloodthirsty with the increased mobility allowing greater mixing of peoples and spread of resources, but even if not a lot of traditional geographic defences would be nullified (that big hill your castle is on might not be as secure!). If we flew using wings then weapons would be based around hitting/protecting those because they would be four metre wide instant kill zones. I imagine if we flew with innate anti-gravity most weapons would be based around either wide-spread flak cannons or hand-to-hand melee - I'm not sure small arms would be useful (they're certainly not good for flying - BOOM BOOM!)

We would still have aircraft. We have always been able to walk but still developed the car alongside finding ways for us to walk/run faster.The benefits of vehicles aren't just moving faster and moving in environments we cannot, they allow for increased cargos. Wa*king is great and you don't need any special equipment or other people to get the job done, but it is much slower than other methods and the payloads involved are usually tiny.

We need an assumption on how far we can fly, recovery time between flights and energy requirements per flight to then extrapolate the impact on history.

It's also super hard to imagine as it's a day dot change, so we have the ability pre-society so how does that affect our society forming?

Hunter-gathering is preumably a lot easier if you can fly around like superman so maybe we never developed farming and civilisation at all

With the ability to fly, evolution would have taken a completely different path, so we wouldn’t even be humans. We wouldn’t be the dominant species, we would be prey to land mammals, we wouldn’t have any kind of advanced civilisation.

And there would be gooseberry fool everywhere.

It's a really interesting question!

I think parrots and corvids show that there is some selection pressure on birds to develop nuanced communication and to be intelligent problem-solvers, so it's possible that a species of bird could develop sapience. Many birds collect materials to build intricate nests, which seems like a relevant instinct, and some birds live in large social groups (like penguins). Birds have a hallux, which is like a thumb, so intricate craftsmanship isn't out of the question -- evolution might favour them developing the ability to stand on their wings, leaning back, while they manipulate objects with their claws.

Pre-agricultural humans had a fairly unique way of hunting, and this may have been important for our higher development. We were endurance hunters, meaning that we would drive prey into a chase until they collapsed of exhaustion. Humans are (more or less) the most efficient long-distance runners amongst mammals -- the mode of hunting is rare amongst other mammals except wolves.

Perhaps a species of bird might find itself in an environment where it was beneficial to hunt in a similar way. Hunting in small groups, they might circle a prey animal and make swooping stabs with sharpened sticks grasped in their claws, or simply drop stones on it, to drive it into a chase. The evolutionary benefit may be roughly as in humans, that is that the use of tools and pack tactics made it possible to hunt animals stronger and faster than us.

The final step is the development of agricultural civilisation. This is a leap of social development and abstract thinking. I don't think we can rule out that the mind of a bird, sufficiently developed in language and tool usage, could make that leap.

After that, I don't think the world would be all that different. But optimistically, I do like the idea raised already that they would be less easily incited to racism by virtue of the world feeling a bit smaller for people who can fly. Thinking of our society -- I mean, it's not always true, but there's a correlation between meeting people of different cultures, and being less prejudiced towards them.

Game design would have thought of verticality faster.

Jawa would be king of the parakeets that's for sure.

Flying dry robe wankers, that's all we need.

Let’s go with wings for a sec because levitation is just outright magical.

Let’s consider the scientific basis for this. Based on the standard Terran 4-limbed genetic template all non-insect life follows humans would have wings under their arms (and possibly a tail) rather than looking like an Angel.

Birds only fly because their bones are incredibly hollow and light. Their power-to-weight ratio allows them to get off the ground with a 9.8m/s gravitational pull against them. Anything larger would need an exponentially larger force to get off the ground. Therefore if winged humans can fly either our bone structure is much lighter or the earth this race has evolved on has a much lower gravitational pull.

Humans as large, brittle creatures would make us incredibly delicate. We may have, in our earlier tribal days banded together more to offer greater protection from ground-based hominids that we would never have inter-bred with. Because flying humans have access to the sky above the clouds they never mutate lower melanin in the skin and different shades of human never appear. Because we appear as airborne gods the other hominids either worship us and become enslaved or are wiped out. Humanity develops waterborne craft at a slower rate and as such civilisation in the americas and Asia is much more advanced when coming into contact with Europeans. In fact our lighter frames mean that heavy weapons and armour are not needed and so metalworking is much slower. As a result civilisation develops technology at a slower rate but at the cost of greater peace, a cleaner planet and less intercene conflicts. Space travel is never developed as the fragile flying humans cannot cope with the g-forces involved.

If the gravitational pull of the earth were less and flying humans have the same density as ourselves then crop yields are bigger because plants can grow larger and faster. As a result Homo sapiens spreads out faster and more numerous much earlier in time. We would wipe out the other hominids as we already did. Fire is still needed for warmth but waterborne craft are slower to develop as we have no need of the faster transport. As a result civilisations across ‘colonial’ countries develop faster and are more advanced before coming into contact with Europeans. As a result the west never colonises the Americas or Asia. Lower gravitational pull also means it’s a lot cheaper and easier to get things into space. Humanity colonises the moon and mars much faster as the lower gravitational pull is easier to adapt to. On the flip side this colonisation is a necessity as the lower gravity is a result of the earth being smaller in diameter so has less space to live in.

Dowbocop wrote:....... Wa*king is great and you don't need any special equipment or other people to get the job done, but it is much slower than other methods and the payloads involved are usually tiny.

rinks wrote:With the ability to fly, evolution would have taken a completely different path, so we wouldn’t even be humans. We wouldn’t be the dominant species, we would be prey to land mammals, we wouldn’t have any kind of advanced civilisation.

And there would be gooseberry fool everywhere.

My question is looking specifically at humans being the dominant species as we are now, just we can fly as well. I realise based on science it's not exactly what would happen, but that's what my thought was about anyway.

Qikz wrote:
rinks wrote:With the ability to fly, evolution would have taken a completely different path, so we wouldn’t even be humans. We wouldn’t be the dominant species, we would be prey to land mammals, we wouldn’t have any kind of advanced civilisation.

And there would be gooseberry fool everywhere.

My question is looking specifically at humans being the dominant species as we are now, just we can fly as well. I realise based on science it's not exactly what would happen, but that's what my thought was about anyway.

OK, just the gooseberry fool everywhere then.

The commute to the office would look like this.

Last edited by rinks on Mon Apr 01, 2024 11:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think it’s safe to assume that flying would require more physical effort than running. Given how few humans run anywhere, I reckon any that did use their flying ability would be looked upon like jogging wankers.

You’d have competitive sporting events, of course.

Maybe houses wouldn’t have wasted space for staircases. But public buildings would need one-way flying corridors.

Imagine what a shitshow gigs would be, with everyone flying around to get a better view. Mosh sky pits would be great, though.

rinks wrote:I think it’s safe to assume that flying would require more physical effort than running. Given how few humans run anywhere, I reckon any that did use their flying ability would be looked upon like jogging wankers.

Nah, it'd be the other way. Most people would fly and it'd be hipster wankers on the ground jogging who'd be telling everyone that flying is overrated and jogging is the only decent workout.

We'd all deliberately gooseberry fool on those people.

We'd all be asking why didn't the humans fly the ring to Mordor instead

I managed to levitate once for about 10 seconds. It was the most surreal experience I've ever had.
I lifted one foot off the floor and felt no extra heft. I then lifted my other foot out in front of me and while perfectly still, I was suspended with nothing around me but water. Amazing.

Tomous wrote:We'd all be asking why didn't the humans fly the ring to Mordor instead

Because they're weak willed, and would have succumbed to its influence before crossing the Anduin. :roll:

Shower Thought: How different would history look if humans could fly?

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