Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunami that finished it off

Re:Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunam... by kspacewalk2 on Monday April 18, 2022 @01:23PM (#31073729)

Because complex social structures tend to be innovations and inventions similar to those in the physical realm. It thus stands to reason that a 'social evolution' has taken place over the millennia, and there's ample evidence of that progress in the world around you. No one says prehistoric humans were individually simpletons, just that societally they were far simpler (as in strictly less advanced).

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Re:Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunam... by medstrom on Monday April 18, 2022 @01:35PM (#31073909)

Please specify, what do you mean by "less advanced"? I doubt a randomly picked person has a more complex net of social interactions today than 50,000 years ago - probably the personal level is a lot simpler today, since we can outsource many needs to corporate and national structures, with whom you also have pretty straightforward relations.

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Re:Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunam... by mrdatawolf on Monday April 18, 2022 @08:38PM (#31078529)

"I doubt a randomly picked person has a more complex net of social interactions today than 50,000 years ago..." Why? 50k years ago the average person lived with a small group of people and barely ever interacted with anyone else in the world. Whereas the common person, today, interacts with a large number of people socially; if you include virtual and physical interactions.

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Re:Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunam... by medstrom on Sunday April 24, 2022 @01:00PM (#31145880)

Yes, by simple count the social net may have been smaller in the past, but I was talking about complexity. Just imagine living with one tribe for the rest of your life, having to partake in everyone managing each other's friendships and relationships with each other.

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Re:Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunam... by melissalobos on Monday April 18, 2022 @10:31PM (#31079241)

> Why? 50k years ago the average person lived with a small group of people and barely ever interacted with anyone else in the world.

I think at least some of the people in this thread would argue against that, seeing as how it is about the idea of advanced or at least extant cities in the distant past. That would be exactly one of the points being argued on.

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Re:Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunam... by AlotOfReading on Monday April 18, 2022 @09:09PM (#31078734)

What you mean isn't something many of the relevant experts would agree with, but the words in the second sentence aren't bad.

Similarly to biological evolution, on any sufficiently long time scale the descendents aren't more advanced, simply better adapted to different conditions. Our ancestors' societies reflected wildly different contraints and path dependence, not primitiveness.

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Re:Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunam... by kspacewalk2 on Tuesday April 19, 2022 @10:19AM (#31083489)

>Similarly to biological evolution, on any sufficiently long time scale the descendents aren't more advanced, simply better adapted to different conditions. Our ancestors' societies reflected wildly different contraints and path dependence, not primitiveness.

I understand what you mean, yet I refuse to call concepts like universal human rights, rule of law and the unacceptability of war crimes as simply different adaptations, as opposed to being strictly more advanced than the predecessor ideas.

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Re:Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunam... by AlotOfReading on Tuesday April 19, 2022 @12:04PM (#31084999)

That's fine, you can take whatever moral stance you want. It just doesn't have any place in scientific discussion.

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