Archaeologists have it pretty rough. They can spend months or years looking for an important historic site. Then months or years excavating that site. Then months or years studying what they have dug up and STILL never know the true historical or social relevance of what they so painstakingly unearthed. But what they do is unbelievably important. As humans, we seem to be strangely obsessed with our own species. Where did we come from? What is our purpose on the Earth? Why did a certain species like us die out? All questions we ask thinking the answers will help us sleep better at night. We can try to predict the future if we study the past. We can uncover patterns. As humans, we have become especially good at detecting patterns...but we also have a habit of creating or completing patterns when they don't exist. We want things to be predictable. We want to feel safe. So I imagine being an archaeologist would be terribly frustrating if, after a lifetime of work classifying and docum...
Explaining fandom from an evolutionary point of view.