The "noble savage" thing also annoys me because it acts like if not for that dastardly white man these other people would be ruling the world instead. Umm we weren't the only ones with way more technological progress in less time, the arabs had quite the head start on the europeans and didn't have the setback of the bubonic plague but they did ruin themselves with Islam and then the Chinese might have fared better in the colonial period if not for the habit of killing off all the scholars every time a new emperor came into power. Meanwhile most of these "aboriginals" hadn't even invented the damn wheel of all things and who says they really would have progressed that much if left completely isolated for another few centuries?
The "noble savage" thing also annoys me because it acts like if not for that dastardly white man these other people would be ruling the world instead. Umm we weren't the only ones with way more technological progress in less time, the arabs had quite the head start on the europeans and didn't have the setback of the bubonic plague but they did ruin themselves with Islam and then the Chinese might have fared better in the colonial period if not for the habit of killing off all the scholars every time a new emperor came into power. Meanwhile most of these "aboriginals" hadn't even invented the damn wheel of all things and who says they really would have progressed that much if left completely isolated for another few centuries?