ahahahahaahaa what even is this
I don't see the point of adding in civs like Assyria....
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ahahahahaahaa what even is this
Go to a mall and bring a blank map of the world with you. Stop 10 random people and ask them to identify Greece on the map in less than 10 seconds. You'd be lucky if you could get 3 that could do it.
The Greeks invented western civilization. The Romans pretty much emulated the Greeks. The Greeks had a massive impact on engineering, military organization and discipline, architecture, mathematics, art, etc. I think its safe to say that the average ancient Greek had a natural intelligence that was greater than most people that are alive today (not just America but worldwide).
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The "average" ancient Greek lived in a hut and raised pigs. Don't confuse Aristotle with his average compatriots. The reason we know the names of intelligent ancient Greeks is because they were preserved for posterity. No one remembers the swineherds and the swineherds greatly outnumbered the thinkers.
The chances are, if you go to a mall, you are just going to meet the modern equivalent of a peasant. They may be functionally literate and have an x-box under their big screen TV, but effectively, they are peasants. Their concerns do not exceed their daily living and entertainment.
The people with extensive knowledge have always been few in number. It's because you have to have both the time and the desire to learn things that are non-essential to connecting calories with stomachs. The number whose names will be recorded will only be the fewer who manage to change the ways that we see our world.
The chances are, if you go to a mall, you are just going to meet the modern equivalent of a peasant. They may be functionally literate and have an x-box under their big screen TV, but effectively, they are peasants. Their concerns do not exceed their daily living and entertainment.
The people with extensive knowledge have always been few in number. It's because you have to have both the time and the desire to learn things that are non-essential to connecting calories with stomachs. The number whose names will be recorded will only be the fewer who manage to change the ways that we see our world.
moysturfurmer
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Yea maybe if ur a rich b*rch whose daddy threw money at the sophists
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I agree with this 100%. People think that peasantry and feudalism was a thing of the past. Technology has evolved but the social/power structures are the same as they have always been. 99% of the people in the world are peasants and serve their feudal lords without even realizing it.
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Do you see how it disagrees with your previous statement that all the ancient Greeks were smarter than people today?
The "average" person today has a government provided education and a service sector job. They exist somewhere close to the bottom of the class system. The "average" ancient Greek was an agriculturalist with little to no education and existed close to the bottom of their class system. So obviously the ones today with the government provided education are smarter than illiterate farmers, even if the peasant mentality hasn't changed much in the mean time. The ancient Greeks who are the prime example of ancient intelligence are the cream of their crop. They certainly had a better relative level of knowledge that our modern service sector employees do now, but the cream of OUR crop is better still.
Except for when you suggest that people from civilization A are dumber than people from civilization B. A civilization with public education--even bad public education--is going to have a population far ahead of one without. You think finding a foreign country on a map is a measure of intelligence? In some nations, the ability to write your own name is nothing to take for granted.
Yes, it's an odd blend of populism and elitism.
Give an average random person from the modern day a map of Europe and they'll at the very least point you to the general area of Greece.
Give an average random ancient Greek a map of Europe and you'll be lucky to find more than one person to say "hey that vaguely resembles this map I once saw in passing in the market!!!"
Give an average random ancient Greek a map of Europe and you'll be lucky to find more than one person to say "hey that vaguely resembles this map I once saw in passing in the market!!!"
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Given that Herodotus thought the Nile ran West to East, South of the Sahara, before veering North to run through Egypt, you are more than likely correct.
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
Well, most Ancient Greeks couldn't find America on the map, so it evens out
More seriously, you're comparing the stereotype of the "average" American intelligence to the elite thinkers of Ancient Greece. Did some random Thete even know where Etruria was?
There is no reason not to include Assyria. If we are going geographical, forget it. There are reasons why most great civs were in similar regions. That was where the conditions were the best. And if you added the greek the romans, the byzantines and the ottomans (all had a form of istanbul and the balkans, and most of their land stretched around the meditteranean at their height) that is proof that repitition of areas in one geographical area is no problem for firaxis. In addition, we all know the byzantine empire was split off the roman empire, really just continuing the roman legend and trying to rebuild its glory under justinian.
Really, I don't see why this discussion is being held.
Really, I don't see why this discussion is being held.
Gucumatz
JS, secretly Rod Serling
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Yes Romans, this is entirely what the world looks like.
Frankly that's a really cool map. Could we some Chinese, Greek, and Middle Eastern maps too, I would love to have a collection of these to file away somewhere in my data folders...
For Greece, here is Hecataeus map
Spoiler :
Here his Ptolemy's map
Spoiler :
And by far the best Greek map, this gem
Spoiler :
For the middle eastern map, I haven't found any (satisfying) ancient map, so here is a map from the middle ages, from Al-Idrisi (1154)
Spoiler :
And sorry, I didn't know where to find chinese maps.
WChrisMullen
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Well, they thought the tropics were uninhabitable, and that the southern hemisphere had to be almost entirely water in order to "balance" the land on the northern hemisphere.
And your sources for your observations about ancient Greece are a handful of writings by a handful of intellectual giants of the ancient world? Exactly how does that provide insight into the intellectual capabilities of the average ancient Greek citizenry?
Near as I can understand from the pop neuroscience I've read (NY Times Science Tuesday - yay!), the raw, intellectual wattage of modern humans hasn't changed in 25,000+ years (maybe 100,000+ years). What has changed is the technology of knowledge creation, retention and dissemination -- from alphabets, reading and writing to printing presses and public libraries to telephone and telegraphic technologies to computers, flash drives and the internet. Ancient humans were much more reliant on memory and oral knowledge transfers, while we don't need to know where Greece is -- we can just ask Siri.
WChrisMullen
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One could say that the sum of human knowledge has increased but the capacity of the human brain to process and use that knowledge has not.
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