The Big Picture: Relics

Falseprophet

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Evil Alpaca said:
My only issue is with your statement about racism being an integral part of human history since the beginning. That's not really true since to be a racist, a person needs to feel as if they belong to a larger race of people than just their surrounding environment. The ancient Greeks weren't racist because they did not see themselves belonging to a superior race. An Athenian would see himself superior to his fellow Greeks and Greeks superior to Persians, Romans,or any other Mediterranean race. The concept of belonging to member of a "race" didn't come along much later until the Enlightenment when the scope of the world view had broadened.
It was defined differently, generally having more to do with ethnic origin than physical differences, but it existed. E.g., the word "barbarian" comes from an ancient Greek slur meaning "person who doesn't speak Greek". The concept was so pervasive that the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire had a Bureau of Barbarians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Barbarians] as late as a thousand years ago.

lralowicz said:
Two things... Amm... Movie Bob?

1. I actually don't associate Lost City with Africa... More with South America... And I do know those cites were build by native people who lost their knowledge over time. Or were wiped out by more aggressive neighbours (or conquistadors...)
You don't, but the early examples of this trope in fiction--Haggard and Burroughs, as Bob mentioned--were inspired by the finding of real lost cities in Africa in the late 1800s. Later writers moved the concept to other parts of the world. South America became a popular location after 1911, when the Incan city of Machu Picchu was rediscovered.

lralowicz said:
2. Isn't a bit racist (ok not racist... Equivalent of racism for nation - it's not nationalism either...) to use British as stereotype of stupid blind colonist? There were more countries sticking their noses to Africa than GB. It's like using Russians for baddies in almost every modern war game... Even upth years after end of cold war... (Vanquish... I'm looking at you)
That's true, but how many of those countries invented adventure fiction based on lost cities found in Africa, and if so, were they as internationally influential on later writers as the early British and later American writers in that respect? If there's a French or Dutch writer who inspired the creation of Indiana Jones, it's news to me.

DarkSpectre said:
Its like the dark ages in Europe. If an outsider, like from China, saw the wooden shacks and huts of the people then these huge amazing ruins like Rome or Athens. They'd have to question what happened. Of course the answer would be from the barbarians that the sort invaded destroyed and killed the Romans without asking them how to make all that fancy stuff. A minor oversight yes.
Ninja'd!
 

Scarim Coral

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Very interesting episode. While it was bigot for assuming that the African people weren't capable for building all of that stuff but one would think if they did build all that why is it in ruin? (Ok the answer is online somewhere I'm not going to dwell into it further).

As for my question to ask you- Who are those image of the guys you always use to repersent your emotion/ emote and also why use those image as your emotes?
 

MorganL4

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How high do you think the probability of a Justice League film is in the relatively near future? (within 10 years) The inclusion of Amanda Waller in the admittedly bad GL film combined with the soon to be reboot of Superman are my primary reasons for positing said question. In addition DC traditionally has found it hard to stomach it when Marvel gets a leg up on them.
 

Rabidkitten

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DarkSpectre said:
I've never gotten the impression of Africa from most "lost city" stories. Almost always it seems to be South America and then it is pretty clear that it is the Mayans or Aztec, and we know they built them. The Spaniards just wiped them out. The other influence I see in the lost city trope is the Beng Mealea Temple. This second seems to be the source of more mystery than the South American ones. We know a lot of South America and why their cities are empty now (because they all got killed by the Spanish) what happened to Beng Mealea Temple is a lot more interesting of a topic.
It should be noted that South America has a very long line of civilizations. The usual down fall of each one being the rise of another civilization. For the most part, the South American ancient civilizations had a bad habit of killing each other off. When you lost a war, the city was leveled, the men were killed, the women and children were taken. This is pretty par for the course of the entire planet's ancient cultures up until someone found value in control over pillaging. This is why we find ruins in Africa, the Middle East, and every corner of the planet. The end result of most ancient civilizations was simply genocide by a neighboring civilization. What the Spaniards did was horrible, but it was the remnants of a long human tradition of mass murder.

One of the reasons we know so much about the ancient Roman, Greeks, Egyptians, Persians, and other long standing civilizations. Was because they instilled control over genocide as the norm for conquest.
 

grigjd3

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@Jegsimmons, actually, most civilizations tend to move both forward and backward in terms of technology, quality of life, etc. Europe went through the dark ages after the fall of Rome. Incan and Aztec ruins are all over South America, Pakistan and Afganistan used to be the center of culture and learning in the world and China has moved forward and backward so many times on this scale its ridiculous. To believe that society generally only moves forward is, well, ignorant of all of history.
 

Gigano

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Oct 15, 2009
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Yes, yes, and The Lord of the Rings movies are an antidemocratic celebration of a strongman - of superior numenorian genetics, no less - righting a society gone wrong through putting it under his authoritarian rulership. All in the face of a black/white conflict with an ultimate evil of easily identifiable dirty foreigners from a hellish desert wasteland.

Or maybe it's all just good fun which one shouldn't read all kinds of political messages into. The fact that these days people are looking to Uncharted to find their daily dose of "racism" to educate the dirty masses on should tell you everything about how much of a non-issue it is (in case the accusation against Deus Ex:HR [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.310500-Square-Enix-Responds-to-Racist-Deus-Ex-Character], Mafia II [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102889-Mafia-II-Accused-of-Racism-Take-Two-Responds], Resident Evil 5 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/89834-British-Ratings-Board-RE5-Is-Not-Racist], Left 4 Dead 2 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/93597-Valve-Responds-to-Racism-Accusations], Civilization IV: Colonization [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/84721-Civilization-IV-Colonization-Called-Morally-Disturbing], and the Kinect motion controller [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.243277-Consumer-Reports-Claims-Kinect-Is-Not-Racist?page=1] didn't already).
 

ablac

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Actually im not sure this is/was the case. Thing is the people who lived near these ruins or in the same area at least had nothing similar themselves. It may well be logical to think that the locals might not have been responsible as if they were why would they have subsequently abandoned them for seemingly worse conditions. I dont know if this was the case because i aint studied it but i dont think its fair to say that it was blatant racism which brought these things about. Not saying it wasnt or that the locals werent responsible just sayinf that it isnt fair to say that was the reason without explanation of where these ruins did infact come from. Also considering these ruins usually are the handy work of locals in the stories, if they are made by people, means it might not infact be as racist as depicted. There was racism going on and it was pretty terrible but I just see holes in this.
 

JasonBurnout16

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My question is: What do you think it would take for a MMORPG to have more subscribers than WOW? Where is the next step for this genre?
 

Hungry Donner

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Excellent episode Bob, and a topic of particular interest to me. My father grew up in South Africa, and my mother lived there for a few years. We heard about a lot of outlandish racism growing up, but it was often the more subtle examples which had the most impact.

On the subject of subtle racism, and hitting you in home court, the last time I visited the Boston Museum of Science they'd opened a special hands-on room. It contained: bones, rocks, stuffed animals, and Native American artifacts. This was about a decade ago so maybe they?re better about such things.
 

Thistlehart

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SlothfulCobra said:
That is to say, people have been trying to claim that there must've been some mystical/alien force helping the ancients build their wonders from the great Pyramids to Stonehenge, where everyone doubts that the very white, but not-german and not-roman Celts could've built something that <a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju_6_7YJPWE>a man built in his backyard.
Wow. Mind=blown. Thank you for that link.

OT
Huh, interesting stuff. Thank you for the brain-food, Bob. I wonder what the civilizations were like that built those structures. I also have to wonder how far they progressed technologically before they were pillaged.

I mean, the Romans had developed concrete, and that allegedly became a lost technology until it was "rediscovered" sometime in the 18th century. The Mayans are rumored to have developed a primitive battery and had also developed sophisticated mathmatics and astronomy.

It boggles the mind what can be gained and lost over time.

Like a lot of others here, I tend to veer towards South America when I hear the phrase "Lost City", but then I wasn't exposed to a lot of the stories you're addressing. My exposure to lost cities was in studying Mayan ruins in school
 

grigjd3

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@Spot1990, well, there's tons of evidence of ruins throughout Europe that people lived in hovels next to. Anyhow, there is a prolonged historical argument that happened from around 1800 to 1950 about the origins of Inca and Aztec ruins that exhibits this sense of racism. You can read through letters of white historians saying there is no way these locals could have built such wonders. However, I am not so sure the transition to pop-culture icons such as turn of the century adventure writing and the Indiana Jones movies is real. If I am searching for a "Lost City", wouldn't it be more fun if I had to go somewhere exotic to find it rather than my back yard?
 

rancher of monsters

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Awesome episode as always Bob. While we're on the matter of race, what do you think about the character design change that Aqualad went through from the comics to the Young Justice TV show?

 

Dr Jones

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I got it. people.

Dear Bob:
What is your favourite movie? (And for that matter what sort of music do you like aswell?).
Thanks for your time
 

TheFederation

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for my question, i was wondering... although i agree with you on your views on racism in the Help and other movies like it, i was wondering why in that movie white people solving the problems of black people made me angry, while in say, to kill a mocking bird it didn't.

on a less serious question, what do you think of yahtzee not liking new super mario bros.