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When Orcs Were Real

treeofwoe.substack.com

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Re: When Orcs Were Real

#31

Post by mynegation »

jgilias wrote: post #28
soapdog wrote: post #24

> Europeans defeated indigenous peoples throughout history, by superior technology and numbers. Oh boi, not this horrible and flawed argument again. People have learned nothing from recent research into the impact of diseases in that history? Popular books like "Guns, Germs, and Steel", and "1491" give you a view into these matters and provide one with references for their sources for research. This idea of "Europe w…

A serious question. Why didn't the opposite happen? Why wouldn't the arriving Europeans drop like flies after encountering foreign pathogens thus killing off the entire conquest?

"Guns, germs snd Steel" book makes an argument that European population evolved higher levels of immunity to the pathogens because of population density, especially in the cities.

Population density and wars for land and resources, book argues, also propelled the development of warfare tech ("guns and steel")

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#32

Post by roenxi »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #12
roenxi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Proves" and "refutes" are both pretty vague words in a historical context. In my experience when historians say "I will prove this to you" they typically mean "not only is it a good story, but unusually I have at least 1 piece of actual evidence". So in the loose world of history where nobody has any idea, maybe the idea is refuted. Realistically, probably both posts are wrong but we'll never know about which aspect…

The article linked by the parent is very clear about when things are unknown or suspected but unproven (from real but inconclusive archaeological evidence). In contrast, it shows that the book in question is completely speculative (not based on any archaeological evidence whatsoever) while presenting itself as unequivocally correct. There is no need to beat around the bush. The linked article fully refutes the origin…

The book is a work of history. Of course it is completely speculative. The point of historical books is to convince people to read them, typically they have a fairly thick dose of spice and storytelling. Thucydides wasn't trying to bore people.

The first "evidence that they may have had the technology to make sewn garments" link [0] looks like some dude ran a model. Now it is certainly possible to claim that as conclusive evidence. But probably only in a debate between historians, I wouldn't bank on it.

50,000 years ago is a long time. There is not a lot of confidence about how things happened, and reality defies mixing generalisation and truth.

[0] https://anthropology.net/2009/06/26/neanderthals-dried-fresh...

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#33

Post by BeniBoy »

jgilias wrote: post #28
soapdog wrote: post #24

> Europeans defeated indigenous peoples throughout history, by superior technology and numbers. Oh boi, not this horrible and flawed argument again. People have learned nothing from recent research into the impact of diseases in that history? Popular books like "Guns, Germs, and Steel", and "1491" give you a view into these matters and provide one with references for their sources for research. This idea of "Europe w…

A serious question. Why didn't the opposite happen? Why wouldn't the arriving Europeans drop like flies after encountering foreign pathogens thus killing off the entire conquest?

I read that it was because Europeans lived in wider settlement so they were more exposed to serious pathogens and had the opportunity to develop immunity. When they met society that lived in scarce group, they exposed them too quickly, which resulted in mass deaths.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#34

Post by HelloNurse »

jgilias wrote: post #28
soapdog wrote: post #24

> Europeans defeated indigenous peoples throughout history, by superior technology and numbers. Oh boi, not this horrible and flawed argument again. People have learned nothing from recent research into the impact of diseases in that history? Popular books like "Guns, Germs, and Steel", and "1491" give you a view into these matters and provide one with references for their sources for research. This idea of "Europe w…

A serious question. Why didn't the opposite happen? Why wouldn't the arriving Europeans drop like flies after encountering foreign pathogens thus killing off the entire conquest?

Maybe a smaller pool of diseases: nasty ones like pox, black death and cholera were from Europe and nearby parts of Africa and Asia. Accumulated "wealth" in the immune system.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#35

Post by hazbot »

jgilias wrote: post #28
soapdog wrote: post #24

> Europeans defeated indigenous peoples throughout history, by superior technology and numbers. Oh boi, not this horrible and flawed argument again. People have learned nothing from recent research into the impact of diseases in that history? Popular books like "Guns, Germs, and Steel", and "1491" give you a view into these matters and provide one with references for their sources for research. This idea of "Europe w…

A serious question. Why didn't the opposite happen? Why wouldn't the arriving Europeans drop like flies after encountering foreign pathogens thus killing off the entire conquest?

CGP Grey has a interesting video on this:

Americapox: The Missing Plague - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYh5WACqEk

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#36

Post by brian_cloutier »

soapdog wrote: post #24

> Europeans defeated indigenous peoples throughout history, by superior technology and numbers. Oh boi, not this horrible and flawed argument again. People have learned nothing from recent research into the impact of diseases in that history? Popular books like "Guns, Germs, and Steel", and "1491" give you a view into these matters and provide one with references for their sources for research. This idea of "Europe w…

This comment is worded in such a way that I initially disbelieved it. After all, two of the three items in "Guns, Germs, and Steel" are technologies. I remember the book spending a lot of time on diseases, but also remember a lengthy description of Cortes' conquest of the Aztec's who had far superior numbers.

Apparently I remembered incorrectly, and the parent comment is correct. Here's a quote from the book:

> The importance of lethal microbes in human history is well illustrated by Europeans' conquest and depopulation of the New World. Far more Native Americans died in bed from Eurasian germs than on the batlefield from European guns and swords. Those germs undermined Indian resistance by killing most Indians and their leaders and by sapping the survivors' morale. For instance, in 1519 Cortes landed on the coast of Mexico with 600 Spaniards, to conquer the fiercely militaristic Aztec Empire with a population of many millions. That Cortes reached the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, escaped with the loss of "only" two-thirds of his force, and managed to fight his way back to the coast demonstrates both Spanish military advantages and the initial naivete of the Aztecs. But when Cortes's next onslaught came, the Aztecs were no longer naive and fought street by street with the utmost tenacity. What gave the Spaniards a decisive advantage was smallpox, which reached Mexico in 1520 with one infected slave arriving from Spanish Cuba. The resulting epidemic proceeded to kill nearly half of the Aztecs, including Emperor Cuitlahuac. Aztec survivors were demoralized by the mysterious illness that killed Indians and spared Spaniards, as if advertising the Spaniards' invincibility. By 1618, Mexico's initial population of about 20 million had plummeted to about 1.6 million.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#37

Post by soufron »

Every article that begins with "Every human culture" should be considered as BS right away...

edit: But after reading, even if most of the article is heavily biased, not prudent, etc. It's still interesting and thought-provoking. I might give the book a go.

edit2: A better and most interesting point of view can be found in Julien d'Huy "Cosmogonies", which parallelized the corpus of myths and legends to genetic migrations - with the help of a bit of AI. Once you validate the theory that myths survive better than languages, and that they evolve with time, it's super interesting.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#38

Post by ginko »

jgilias wrote: post #28
soapdog wrote: post #24

> Europeans defeated indigenous peoples throughout history, by superior technology and numbers. Oh boi, not this horrible and flawed argument again. People have learned nothing from recent research into the impact of diseases in that history? Popular books like "Guns, Germs, and Steel", and "1491" give you a view into these matters and provide one with references for their sources for research. This idea of "Europe w…

A serious question. Why didn't the opposite happen? Why wouldn't the arriving Europeans drop like flies after encountering foreign pathogens thus killing off the entire conquest?

Well there was/is syphilis which is theorized to originate in the Americas and killed millions when it broke out in Europe. Apparently was more also infectious in the beginning and only turned into an STD later-on.

But Eurasia had a far larger landmass and population so there was a larger chance for nasty diseases to develop.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#40

Post by throwanem »

roenxi wrote: post #32
quietbritishjim wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article linked by the parent is very clear about when things are unknown or suspected but unproven (from real but inconclusive archaeological evidence). In contrast, it shows that the book in question is completely speculative (not based on any archaeological evidence whatsoever) while presenting itself as unequivocally correct. There is no need to beat around the bush. The linked article fully refutes the origin…

The book is a work of history. Of course it is completely speculative. The point of historical books is to convince people to read them, typically they have a fairly thick dose of spice and storytelling. Thucydides wasn't trying to bore people. The first "evidence that they may have had the technology to make sewn garments" link [0] looks like some dude ran a model. Now it is certainly possible to claim that as concl…

Do you mean to construct a defense of the "cannibal rapist Neandertal orcs" idea on the post-factualist basis that, well, there's no actually knowing anything, so we may as well pick whatever just-so story we like?

That's a pretty weak defense, is why I'm asking. Almost anything else would be more convincing. So maybe it's worth asking whether you've got anything else to offer.

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