As if to imply that mankind has entered its next stage of evolution, leveled up as if in some sort of game or opened its third eye and transcended into the ubermensch , many people proudly declare that human beings are substantially more intelligent and better informed today than they were hundreds and thousands of years ago. Thus, comparisons between us and the slack-jawed Cro-Magnon are inappropriate. Intelligence may be able to construct better roads, create better vehicles, and reduce the infant mortality rate, but it does not make us substantially different from our ancestors. In fact, we are still tethered to our predecessors in all of the truly relevant ways. We are still vexed by the same problems. Not the issues of how do we prevent this river from flooding or how can we prevent disease , but the truly human problems that arise in all cultures in every time all over the world. Problems like the terrors of war, unrequited love, perils of pursuing vengeance, death and old age...