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Comment by cracrecry | Hacker News Reader

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I guess you should probably take it up with Prof Stephen Rostain, director of investigation at the National Centre for Scientific Research in France, who led the research - and who the BBC quotes directly, rather that giving the journalist a kicking.

If the Prof says he was warned against this research at the start of his career because scientists believed no ancient groups had lived in the Amazon. Then this is clearly an interesting new angle. Sorry that you found it too "woke".

If you just read the quote in the article it does look a bit silly. The reason why people warned him and why the field of history was so "eurocentric" is because it is extremely difficult to find evidence in the Amazon. Nobody doubts the existence of Tenochtitlan or Cuzco because we have both written sources and archeological evidence. In this context, complaining about eurocentrism does come across as motivated reasoning.

You'll excuse me if I think the Professor probably knows a bit more about the field and its internal politics than the commenters here.

I'm not entirely distrusting this idea- do you have sources for this coordination?

> The BBC has been colonised by woke people, like other organisations like Scientific American or US top Universities.

I don't live in the USA, can you clarify what "woke" means exactly?

> Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination". Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of LGBT rights. Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and reparations for slavery in the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke

Here’s an explanation of wokism from the YouTube channel Carefree Wandering, which is an underrated channel imo:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=GnUqrF9mAA8

That depends on who you ask. The term itself tends to be defined by extremes.

Some say that woke are those who consider police brutality a problem.

Others say that woke are those who believe that if you are victim, everything you do is justified, and that your ethnic/sexual/cultural identity is the most important thing about you.

If you want to get better idea of how divisive the whole issue is look up comedian Bill Maher on youtube. He is pretty left, but he's very anti-woke.

> If you want to get better idea of how divisive the whole issue is look up comedian Bill Maher on youtube. He is pretty left, but he's very anti-woke.

He’s a libertarian, which is definitely not left wing.

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