Best-selling author Jared Diamond argues in his latest book, The World Until Yesterday, that there are profound differences between so-called “traditional” societies and industrial or post-industrial societies in everything from the way we count to the way we meet strangers.

Today’s traditional societies represent a window onto the human world as it was until a mere yesterday, measured against a time scale of the 6,000,000 years of human evolution.  Traditional lifestyles are what shaped us and caused us to be what we are now; what can we learn from them as we negotiate the new challenges of the modern world?

Recorded  January 16, 2013                   See the Forum on YouTube

There’s been  reaction to Diamond’s ideas from Survival International:

Angry Papuan leaders demand Jared Diamond apologizes