I'm always impressed by psychologists' claim to be able to accurately define and measure intelligence, creativity, or indeed most personality traits, when researchers from other, presumably adjacent fields (AI to neuroscience to animal behavior to developmental biology) haven't come near approaching these notions. Not only that, but (in the case of intelligence) it apparently stems from the ability to match words and recognized predefined patterns very quickly? This is such an extraordinary claim to make, so either psychologists are onto something people from other fields are too close-minded or feeble-minded to grasp, or some kind of intellectual shortcut was taken there.
Taking a far-reaching and encompassing notion that's very ingrained in everyone's vocabulary, redefining it so that it's easier to measure, and reducing it to a bunch of puzzles, seems to be a favorite pastime of psychologists.
-No genetic explanation at any point during the paper. It's all and well theorizing about evolution this genetics that, but if you don't have a mechanism, or even a putative explanation with actual genes involved and the evolutionary pressure behind them, don't expect to be taken seriously bt evolutionary biologists.
-The paper makes the assumption that a gap exists between the apparition of language and that of elaborate constructions, as opposed to us just not knowing more about it. It is entirely possible that humans from 300000 years ago were able to make figurines but we couldn't find any.
-What the hell is this doing on biorxiv?
-What the hell is RIO? I've never heard of this journal, and I don't think many people have (IF=0.8).
Overall this reads much more like a blog post than an actual article.
There's a common theme on HN that it's all the fault of consumers for wanting free stuff. The truth is, budgets are limited, and if you start charging for stuff you will soon find out how much consumers actually value it - with respect with other stuff they can buy. I'm not talking about the average HN user making six figures in a cushy software job - of course you'd pay for a product like Gmail. But think about most people who don't care that much about technology, to whom it's just a tool and not an art, a craft or a hobby. Do you really think your product is that valuable? Do you really think people are willing to buy your content - enough that you can stay afloat?
It's not that consumers want free stuff, it's just that most people do not have extra money laying around.
I'll also add that "charging a fair price" has never deterred companies from engaging in unethical and privacy-violating practices in addition to taking your money. See: Microsoft, Amazon, etc.
Finding out what countries have been particularly stricken by the pandemic and have had austerity measures imposed on them recently on account of "paying one's debts", very much like Germany's situation in the 30s, is left as an exercise for the reader.