Oh the unused potential.

I love stereotyping. Stereotyping is good. An unfortunate stereotype that I see is of people with serious lack of resources and access to knowledge and information. These are unfortunate people and perhaps the only way for them to progress is by sheer luck. They can be very hardworking in offering human sacrifices to secure their crop but they will most certainly fail. They have an empty or perhaps regressive feedback loop which encourages them to sacrifice harder next year, contemplate on their sins more and create more rigorous rituals. Unless there is someone born with serious mental mutation to generate the idea of the century, or someone comes and teaches them from outside, they will not progress. Not for centuries.