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by kragen
235 days ago
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An unfortunate suggestion of that nomenclature is that it suggests that "humanity" came into existence only 12025 years ago, which would mean that the creatures before that time were all non-human. This is especially unfortunate given that it strongly implies that, for example, either Khoisan people, Australian people, or European people are human, but not more than one of the three, since they diverged genetically before that date. While, on one level, this is merely a semantic issue about the definition of the word "human", on another level it mirrors the ideological justifications for mass enslavement and genocide that caused historically unprecedented atrocities in the 20th century (unsurpassed until Mao surpassed them), because most people's ethical systems accord special privileges to "humans", for example holding that killing any number of nonhumans is justifiable if it saves even one human's life, or, in most cases, even if it merely provides them with meat to eat. While I don't believe the Kurzgesagt staff endorse genocide and cannibalism, I think they may not have clearly thought out the implications of their choice of terminology. Premack's timeline that you link does not make the same error, calling it the "Holocene Era", as Emiliani did. |
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