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Why aren't Pokemon on an equal technological level to humans? There are definitely enough species of Pokemon that are equally intelligent.
While yes, most aren't bipedal and can't use tools, there are many Pokemon could still use psychic powers and a multitude of other things that would be much more useful than just using one's hands. So why?
I recently came across a comparison between Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens. We interbred with and outcompeted them for several reasons - one of the theories proposed in "The Sixth Extinction" by Elizabeth Kolbert is that Sapiens Sapiens had a specific "insanity" gene that our cousins did not have.
>"From the archaeological record, it’s inferred that Neanderthals evolved in Europe or in western Asia and dispersed from there, stopping when they reached water or some other significant obstacle... "[Archaic humans like Homo erectus] never came to Madagascar, never to Australia. Neither did Neanderthals. It’s only fully modern humans who start this thing of venturing out on the ocean where you don’t see land.""
One of modern human's defining characteristics is Faustian restlessness.
>"But there is also, I like to think or say, some madness there. You know? How many people must have sailed out and vanished on the Pacific before you found Easter Island? I mean, it’s ridiculous. And why do you do that? Is it for the glory? For immortality? For curiosity? And now we go to Mars. We never stop."
It seems as though humans hold an inherent drive for more power and knowledge that our genetic cousins simply didn't have before they were out-competed and replaced. A small issue being that we haven't found the place in our DNA that gives us this... and it's another mountain to sequence the entire Neanderthal genome from what little we've got.
Not to mention that I always remember PMD games being in a more primitive setting. So while Pokemon are smart, they just don't have the drive to know like humanity does.