"Ten Thousand Years of Solitude" by agp
Episode description
This is a linkpost for the article "Ten Thousand Years of Solitude", written by Jared Diamond for Discover Magazine in 1993, four years before he published Guns, Germs and Steel. That book focused on Diamond's theory that the geography of Eurasia, particularly its large size and common climate, allowed civilizations there to dominate the rest of the world because it was easy to share plants, animals, technologies and ideas. This article, however, examines the opposite extreme.
Diamond looks at the intense isolation of the tribes on Tasmania - an island the size of Ireland. After waters rose, Tasmania was cut off from mainland Australia. As the people there did not have boats, they were completely isolated, and did not have any contact - or awareness - of the outside world for ten thousand years.
How might a civilization develop, all on its own, for such an incredible period of time?
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YwMaAuLJDkhazA9Cs/ten-thousand-years-of-solitude
Narrated for LessWrong by TYPE III AUDIO.
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