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it's a mistake to think that human society, in total, is evolving... it's changing, but not necessarily evolving (as in, becoming more adept at dealing with the world).
perhaps the only evolving aspect of human existence is that of technology. it, alone has remained relatively constant. it is technology that has shaped how the cyclical perceptions of race, God, and culture are played out (in terms of scope and intensity).
while aristotle and pythagorus would have turned up their nose at medieval conceptions of science... they would have marveled at the ballista's and other siegeworks of the times. such inventions are the result of technological progress, not scientific. no one in the middle ages could define gravity/centrifugal forces etc. but they could construct what the ancients could not, even though the ancients possessed a conception of science much more like our own. technological progress is not directly parallel with scientific progress.
this is why i say human society does not evolve, only taking the same problems conceptualized by similar minds... and filtering them through the next generation of technological achievement.
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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
~ Winston Churchill
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