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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 5338398" data-attributes="member: 177">Yes, but that doesn't mean they recognized that this would be a Bad Thing, or that even if it was bad, that stopping was the best alternative.1) Let's not go to the religion and politics thing, please.2) My point is that what is &quot;common sense&quot; to us today may not have been so to them, centuries ago, without the perspective of the following centuries of scientific discoveries behind us.&nbsp; Judge them not by our current knowledge.For comparison: in Europe, spontaneous generation of life from inanimate matter was discussed as a fact into the Renaissance.&nbsp; Shakespeare references crocodiles and snakes forming out of the mud of the Nile in Antony and Cleopatra!So, even if the people of Easter Island knew they had a major problem on their hands (which, actually, I'll grant you), we don't know if they'd have really identified the same thing we do as the cause, or the same thing we would as the best way to fix the problem.&nbsp; They probably didn't understand how the system worked, to be able to manipulate it reliably.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 5338398, member: 177"] Yes, but that doesn't mean they recognized that this would be a Bad Thing, or that even if it was bad, that stopping was the best alternative. 1) Let's not go to the religion and politics thing, please. 2) My point is that what is "common sense" to us today may not have been so to them, centuries ago, without the perspective of the following centuries of scientific discoveries behind us. Judge them not by our current knowledge. For comparison: in Europe, spontaneous generation of life from inanimate matter was discussed as a fact into the Renaissance. Shakespeare references crocodiles and snakes forming out of the mud of the Nile in [I]Antony and Cleopatra[/I]! So, even if the people of Easter Island knew they had a major problem on their hands (which, actually, I'll grant you), we don't know if they'd have really identified the same thing we do as the cause, or the same thing we would as the best way to fix the problem. They probably didn't understand how the system worked, to be able to manipulate it reliably. [/QUOTE]

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