god that post made me mad. "humans just CAN'T be persistence hunters, because persistence hunting doesn't make any sense to me personally! no i'm not going to cite any sources, just trust me, i read about it in school!"
okay, mmhm, sure...except it does work. it does work, and we know it does because it was still in practice by modern humans in the central Kalahari until AT LEAST 1990. some of those people have even explained some of the challenges and nuances of the practice as well as the knowledge they use to make it easier. it's not the only method of hunting humans have used over the years, but it is definitely one of the methods in our repertoire.
"humans can't run for multiple days without food and water (which is how i assume persistence hunting works, for some reason)! and they're not fast enough to chase an antelope without losing it! and tracking is a stupid concept that doesn't work, and i'm going to scoff and ignore it!"
you don't have to run for days. you don't have to be super fast. you just have to be fast enough to not let your quarry rest long enough to recover, and you do have to be able to track-- which is absolutely a real thing that people can and do learn how to do.
(i suspect the OP ignored tracking as a possibility for the same reason they tried to discredit any information about the indigenous peoples of the Kalahari as basically being (1) all noble savage bullshit from the 60s or (2) irrelevant because it's not what their forefathers were doing-- their anthropology course probably taught them about the challenges these bands are facing with colonialism, and probably also taught about the rampant misinformation about them, but it did not teach any actual respect for their cultures or knowledge. or for them as, you know, people. whose grandparents remember the way their grandparents hunted, and can talk about it, even if they are no longer able to continue the practice.)
(knowing the noble savage stereotype is bad doesn't make it less racist when you still talk about people from a stance of "but my modern ways are better than their hungry primitive ways and i'm going to talk as if they're already extinct and have no expertise worth discussing.")
"there's no POINT to it! we have tools! and weapons!" the point is not getting gored and kicked to death by a wounded animal four times your size that didn't die when you hit it the first time. the point is that an exhausted kill is an easy kill where you don't die. it's a decent point. it's fucking reasonable. also, afaik there's decent odds we learned hunting before we learned tools.
and yeah, i get that the OP was just upset and yelling in the initial post. i do understand that. and I understand their frustration at hearing a theory misrepresented as fact. but their subsequent reblogs and responses are equally thoughtless pseudointellectual posturing, and i'm sorry, it's garbage. someone pointed out modern pursuit hunters exist, and they basically went "mmmmyeah, all of that is just outdated, cherry-picked misinformation and you're very stupid and i'm very smart, look at me i know lots of tribe names and i'm going to link some articles about why these people no longer matter, isn't that sad and TOTALLY relevant to this conversation." someone else mentioned tracking, and they ONCE AGAIN basically said if you lose your line of sight, that's it, you're done, you've lost your quarry. tracking isn't real, don't even bring it up. hoofprints in wet ground in the rainy season? those are fake. doesn't happen. broken brush where a panicking animal has run? lol, that's not real. you can invent tools, but learning to follow an animal? bullshit. total malarkey. it's all just guesswork. you can GUESS where the antelope went but that's the best you can do.
🙄
anyway, i don't know enough about human evolution to guess why we're shaped the way we are, and i'm not going to speculate on it today. but what i DO know is that i am willing to believe the G/wi and the !Xo when they say, hey, if you drink a lot of water and then chase a large ungulate through the hottest part of the day in the fucking Kalahari at a steady jog, it will probably overheat and collapse before you will. because one, i kinda figure they know what they're talking about, and two, it does actually make sense when you stop and think for thirty fucking seconds. sure, you need to be physically conditioned to run distances in extreme heat, and you need to be able to find your quarry again if you lose sight of it. but conditioning and tracking are both things you can learn, no matter how badly certain clowns wish it wasn't because it doesn't support their bias. 🙃
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OK but I really love how unhinged Neil comes off in other people's POV cause looking back at the first three novels he was so damn weird
Take what happened in Colombia
Imagine what Andrew was thinking
Holy crap this binder WTF?!?! OK he's sus as hell I've gotta test him, I'm gonna mess with the tags when I refold his clothes but like...I doubt even he's THAT crazy
*Neil barges in and starts shouting in FRENCH*
OK so he IS that crazy (and French?!)
OK I'm gonna spike his drink and get some answers in a minute just gonna leave him with Aaron and Nicky for a sec while I satisfy my Gay panic this runaway has inspired in me with Roland and then I'll just...WTF DID HE JUST PAY A GUY TO KNOCK HIM OUT?!
OK I'm gonna pick up some breakfast and when I get back to the house I can interrogate the....OK ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME THIS DUBIOUS TWINK CRAWLED OUT OF THE BATHROOM WINDOW?!
OK so he's not around let's get back to Palmetto he probably got a ride from one of the upperclassmen
OK he didn't...did he run away? I guess that makes some sens... OK wait he HITCHHIKED?! THE FUCK?!
OK THIS ASSHOLE SPEAKS GERMAN TOO?!
OK he's on the run from the mob...there are a lot of holes in this story but at this point I'm gonna take his word for it that he's isn't a danger to my people cause I don't have the energy to continue to pursue this anymore. This fucking guy is more unhinged than what I was prepared to deal with this weekend.
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elia martell character of all time because she was playing the game of thrones AND WINNING — survived aerys, set up an alternate court on dragonstone, universally beloved even by most of robert’s anti-targ regime, was probably at least angling to get rid of aerys — but the literal song of ice and fire was being written around her and well. you can’t outrun your inevitable doom.
like. that’s elia’s tragedy, and what makes me so insane about her. she was in the wrong story. she was playing the game of court politics but ended up yoked to 300 years of targaryen collapse and dynastic rot instead. there’s nothing i love more than characters doing their best with the pieces they can see on the board, while the fact slowly dawns on them that the board is in the process of being swallowed by an eldritch monster.
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