It might be seen as self serving for western industrialists to promote the noble savage idea as 'myth.'

Notice that there isn't a 'noble industrialist' meme? I wonder why?

> Aztec

> before collapsing (and before Columbus)

In the alternate universe you come from, who was fighting Cortez?

They weren't referring to Columbus as the person who conquered South/Central America (there were quite a few conquistadors involved there... not just Cortez).

They were referring to the arrival of Columbus as the watershed moment that signal the arrival of Europeans en masse to the Americas.

I'm not saying they were referring to Columbus as the person who conquered Central America. I was amused by GP's insinuation that the Aztecs had somehow collapsed before Columbus.

> Maya, Toltec, and Aztec societies deforested Central America quite significantly before collapsing (and before Columbus).

On a second reading it seems that GP had most likely meant that they were deforesting before Columbus, not that they had collpased before Columbus, but it's still strange to refer to getting conquered as a "collapse".

Unsure why this is downvoted. Toltec empire ended around 1200 AD. Mayans... hard to define, like the Rome technically even still around. The Aztec Empire was right there when the conquistadors showed up.

They weren't saying the Aztecs weren't there. They were saying the Aztecs had massively deforested areas prior to the arrival of Europeans.

>noble savage myth

Closet racism. There is far more evidence that Europeans destroyed these cultures and ignored their advances, than there is proving this so-called myth.

See for example, the Australian FNP. They were far, far more advanced than European propagandists could allow anyone to imagine.

We are STILL uncovering major advances in these cultures today.

I'm sure Europeans would have adopted any advances of great value to them, just like they adopted a lot of crops from the new world.

In fact, Europeans did - eventually - catch up with the Australian FNP's innate knowledge of healing. They had a form of resilient Hippocratic oath for literally thousands of years before us, for example. An understanding of antiseptics in a European age of miasma theory. And so on ..

> … the Australian FNP. They were far, far more advanced than European propagandists could allow anyone to imagine.

Other thank some claims about land management and herbal medicine, what were that not only more advanced in but FAR more advanced?

Ship building, metallurgy, literature, maths, chemistry, conflict management, law?

I am genuinely curious.

Oldest continually running mining operation of mankind. Longest running school. A Hippocratic oath before Europeans genocided them. Forms of agriculture which literally guaranteed a well-fed populace. An understanding of antiseptic materials, and even micro-biology, in an age of European miasma theory and blood-letting.

There is much to learn about oneself once you drop the prejudice.

I'm not suggesting we haven't "advanced" beyond them now, but I am suggesting that we may have overlooked something in our race to the moon, and their 40,000 year old tradition of unbroken oral tradition ..

You've been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly and badly in your posts to HN. If you keep doing that, we're going to have to ban you. Would you please https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules instead? People posting here need to do that regardless of how bad other comments are or they feel they are.

I think that was the ‘general you’ not you

>Other thank some claims about land management and herbal medicine, what were that not only more advanced in but FAR more advanced?

Snark detected.

Surely its easier to tell us all what the advancements were than downvote me?

I am genuinely curious. [after all propagandists have prevented me from imagining, let alone knowing.]

Please don't break the site guidelines like this. Flamewar dross and empty complaints about downvoting are both off topic here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html