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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 10, 2025

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Regarding your last paragraph, I don’t think that’s a meaningful anthropological distinction. I’m sure there would be plenty of plowing in any truly hoe-based society.

It's certainly a distinction used by academic anthropologists, which given the epistemic standards of anthropology is only weak evidence that it is useful. Yudkowskian rationalists who read books by antrhopologists have said that this particular concept is non-BS, which is rather stronger evidence.

The broader point - that some, but not a majority of, sub-Saharan African cultures fit a pattern where farming is considered pink-collar work, men do very little useful work for the tribe, and women enjoy more sexual freedom than they did in almost any other premodern culture is well-attested by a wide range of Western commentators including journalists, travel memoirists, British imperialists, aid workers etc. as well as academic anthropologists .

I know, I was just trying to make a puerile joke.