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A comment on Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?. Parent comment

Re:Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest st... by 9nGQluzmnq3M on Tuesday February 18, 2020 @03:27AM (#22354395)
Trying to phrase this delicately: is there such a thing as a non-full-blown civilization in your view? Or is an uncontacted tribe in the jungle equally "civilized" as the ancient Romans or Chinese?
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Re:Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest st... by ptah on Tuesday February 18, 2020 @06:34AM (#22355182)
from the perspective of sustainability the uncontacted tribe is more civilized than the ancient Romans or chinese
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Re:Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest st... by harperlee on Tuesday February 18, 2020 @08:42AM (#22355965)
Insightful, but that is unidimensional and clearly not sufficient to define civilization. What other perspectives we should consider? Do you think we need to leave out some that might come quick to mind, such as "complexity", "specialization", etc.?

I heard in highschool that scale is the big issue with civilization. Anarchy, for example, can work up until people start not knowing themselves (I heard 200 then; I'd argue that this corresponds or is near of Dunbar's number 150 [1]. I don't think this was known by my teacher then, as this was first proposed in 1990 according to wikipedia).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number

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