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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8336121" data-attributes="member: 82106">This is silly. It is like the delusional notion that some lifeforms are 'primitive'. Every single living thing we know of on Earth today descends from LUCA, they are all equally shaped by evolutionary pressures. Some happen to have occupied niches/environments in which the optimum solution was reached long ago. That does not make them 'more primitive'. In a similar way, when an Amazonian Native is living in the rain forest, they are accessing a toolkit just as sophisticated and INFINITELY more iterated on, as some European American living in the US. It is just different. Their society has not developed the same level of operational capabilities in the sense of being able to employ materials science to make a wide variety of things. Calling that 'primitive' is a pretty bad idea. Those people were able to exist in their environment successfully for many millennia. Ours will be destroyed by our 'sophisticated' methods in a couple more generations. Who is really the primitive here?Other illustrations of the genuine silliness of this notion: It has been discovered that the traditional land management practices in the Sahel are FAR more effective than those which western agencies, with all their supposed scientific advancement, attempted to impose. The people engaging in these practices have a very sophisticated understanding of how manage their land, and employ ecological and biological concepts which were completely unknown and not understood by our supposedly 'more advanced' experts. Likewise, nomadic pastoralists, such as the Masai in Kenya, have an extremely sophisticated understanding and practice of range management. Western interests came in and tried to 'improve production', etc. and all they ended up doing was wrecking the range. Turns out 1000's of years of native technology, and that is what it is, technology and science, far outstripped the so called 'experts'. I agree, modern western civilization has any number of advantages and capabilities that traditional societies generally lack. The problem is, it cuts both ways, and when you label one as 'advanced' and one as 'primitive', you are simply mistaken. Nor do I think it is right to say that modern urban civilization has a toolkit which is just as ancient as anyone else's. Urbanization and industrialization are a true change of paradigm and rely largely on a new and novel set of tools. I mean, sure, Europe has in theory traditional medicinal, building, horticultural, etc. techniques that are ancient, but they are not the basis of most of our modern society.</blockquote>

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