Metaphors Are Us - Issue 29: Scaling
▻http://nautil.us/issue/29/scaling/metaphors-are-us-rp
The other day I fixed something—a rarity for me. The flotation device in the toilet water tank was rubbing against the side, getting stuck halfway up so that the tank didn’t fill completely. I own a hammer and know how to operate it. But I couldn’t fit it into the tank to whack the device back into place. Ditto for owning and using a wrench. It wouldn’t fit either. But fortunately I also own a plunger and I used its handle to push the floating thing back the other way, using the side of the tank as a fulcrum. It worked, although the device got bent so that the top of the tank didn’t quite fit. That overwhelmed me, so I called it a good day’s work.
I was proud of myself. “There,” I thought smugly. “It’s not just chimps who can use tools.”
Humans used to be unique in lots of ways. We were the (...)