People of an old civilisation travelled for months by bullock cart
People of an old civilisation travelled for months by bullock cart. Tanu says they were foolish — why didn't they just use a bus or train? Is it fair to judge that era by today's means?
Who do you think is right? Pick one.
The answer: No — those means did not exist yet
Why
Tanu's comparing them to us, and by today's standard a bullock cart does seem slow — but that's judging the past with the present's tools. Buses and trains simply DIDN'T EXIST then; they couldn't choose what hadn't been invented. Given what they HAD, a bullock cart was clever engineering. To understand people of any age, you weigh their choices against THEIR options, not ours — otherwise everyone in the past looks foolish just for living before our inventions, which isn't fair or true. Test: a hundred years from now, people may find OUR phones clumsy — that won't make us stupid, only earlier. Tanu's not right: those means didn't exist yet, so they weren't foolish — history is judged by each era's own options, not by what came long after.
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