RandomAfricanAm:
osystein: Why do people take pride in being the first people, doesn't that fall into racists claims that certain people are more primitive and less evolved than others?
No because that idea hinges on the notion that the "material progress" we see today is predicated on the human genetic evolution of some set of people ...which isn't true, or at least verified.
This actually plays into a discussion Physics and pleep were having a couple of months back about Jews, IQ, and genetics that I meant to insert myself into but never got around to. Todays worlds is built on the back of ideas not some random genetic leap among modern man which is largely genetically the same.
To put it simply:
1. Humans seek to meet their basic needs of food, security, shelter, etc. any method(s) they develop to meet those needs live and die within the confines of that group in the form of cultural Memes. These "methods of production" are largely based on environment.
2. If conditions force groups into close proximity and provides the ability to meet their basic needs those "methods of production" once confined to particular groups spreads replacing/coexisting with other models(for better or worse).
See: Nile valley
See: Ghana-Mali-Songhai Complex
See: Swahili coast
See: Mesopotamia
See Indus valley civilization
See: Shang Dynasty
See: Olmec civilization
3. In that environment which sustains larger populations the chance, need, speed, and variety of production methods increase. Given the close quarters of people these cultural memes spread throughout the inhabitants increasing derivatives and improvements while also insuring survival.
4. Those "methods of production" are further spread by trade relations between said population centers. The extent to which you are isolated from those trade routes determines the extent to which you are isolated from the ideas of the world.
5. As the worlds cultural memes diversify and form ever complex configurations through increased population and means to fund more complex expressions of cultural memes you get todays world.
In conclusion:
No because the world is the way it is because of the accumulated population and subsequent ideas of man ...along with the
massive influx of capital that went into the capitalist system that was birthed by the accumulated wealth gained off the backs of free African labor in the Americas along with the raw materials still being taken from the bowls of Africa today.
This materialized not on the back of some special strain of DNA but on the martialing of a huge subset of the accumulated ideas of man that was deposited in Europe at the fall of the Moorish occupation of Spain.
All you would really be saying is that the foundation of the worlds accumulated culture and genetic make up that facilitated that comes from "us"
But really everybody is a subset of "us" so what's the point <---That's the real question
