>>2442This is what uncritically referring to 19th century european though does to your brain. Remember kids, real life is not a game of Civ or AoE.
>>2300I must say I dislike images like that as they assume only civilized societies (like those of the colonialists) are worthy of admiration and study and ultimately starting from there just makes you seek what is similar to those "model societies". In other words, it puts a huge bias on you, that no matter how benevolent the intention, ultimately blocks you from understanding the whole picture and does a great disservice to the peoples of Africa. These days, recordings of hunter gatherers earnestly sharing their insights and thoughts are probably some of the greatest treasures we can access.
>>2527I'm probably on the minority on this board, but I say discarding all notions of progress is the best thing one can do to properly understand the world. Those people are adapting to change, nothing more. 50000 years ago human beings were larger, stronger and had bigger brains, but were also far more violent and therefore less apt to living in a s o c i e t y. There was a trade-off in our evolution. Are modern hunter gatherers light years ahead of big brain Chad from 50000 BP? Probably not, and neither are we City dwellers and Internet natives who develop disorder after disorder due to our lifestyles. Were those prehistoric men better then? I say that's not it either. We just changed, adapted to different challenges, choose different paths, that's all.