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When Orcs Were Real

treeofwoe.substack.com

41–50 of 231 posts

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#41
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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")

The book mentions population density but quickly discards population density as the primary factor. Instead it focuses on domesticated animals. Eurasians had many domesticated animals and often lived in close quarters with them. The New World had an extreme paucity of domesticable animals and therefore much less exposure to disease vectors and therefore no major disease capable of wiping out populations. (pg 212-213)

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#42
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…

True, but from what I understand the Europeans would probably have won anyway. In 1500 AD, indigenous Americans had about the same level of technological development that Europeans had had in 1500 BC, so I suspect that unfortunately even had diseases not played a role, it probably would just have been a matter of time before the Europeans managed to bring over enough people to overrun the Americas. It would have take…

You might enjoy reading 1491 and learning more about the cultures of the Americas. There is way more there than "tech from 1500 BC", and I don't feel like just quoting from the book because I want people to go read it.

It is important to realise that there are recent estimates that mention 9 out of 10 people all over the Americas dying of diseases. Remember that diseases travel faster than European invaders, so by the time they arrive at those locations the population is already in kind of chaos and traumatised.

There were a lot of people living in the Americas. A lot. The first chronicles mention large cities and populations, other chroniclers passing the same regions some years later see nothing. In certain areas, such as the Amazon, where people built things out of wood, almost nothing remains.

It is also important to remember than in many cultures, part of the healing process for a disease involved family and loved ones doing wakes and staying close to the afflicted. This causes a havoc as contagious diseases such as pox spread and claimed whole families, and then the next family, and so on. Pox was not common, nor was flu.

Many variations of pox are associated with use beasts of burden, most of the indigenous cultures didn't use them. So no resistance to cowpox, smallpox, etc

> I doubt that the indigenous Americans would have been able to adopt European technology fast enough to succeed in beating the Europeans back.

Please, read that book. You'll see the indigenous population of North America adapting quite fast to European technology to the point of managing sailboats. Also, sidenote the Spanish first met the Inca not on land but on the sea, they bumped into one of their large sailboats. Europeans adopting indigenous technologies in South America because theirs didn't work. This happened everywhere. Everyone was adapting.

Many of us learned different stuff in school and uni, mostly because it takes a very long time for research to trickle into school curriculum, and also because of the bias of those telling the stories who century after century create a narrative that favours them.

There a lot of recent research that throws away a lot of what was taught to me in school. Unfortunately, the usual reaction from people is that "this is not what I was taught, so it must be wrong!" and then proceed to repeat fairy tales about technology superiority which is a positivist way of seeing things that is very flawed.

"Beating Europeans back" is not the only possible outcome. It is not about beating people back to the other side of the Atlantic. If so many native people had not died of diseases, the Americas would look much different today.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#43
post #37

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 migra…

[deleted]

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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")

The book mentions population density but quickly discards population density as the primary factor. Instead it focuses on domesticated animals. Eurasians had many domesticated animals and often lived in close quarters with them. The New World had an extreme paucity of domesticable animals and therefore much less exposure to disease vectors and therefore no major disease capable of wiping out populations. (pg 212-213)

Yes, that is key! The lack of beasts of burden and domesticated animals in the Americas. People often overlook this when talking about "how could a whole continent be wiped out by pox"

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#45
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…

Acknowledging the weight of passive factors (disease) shouldn't be at the cost of disqualifying the role of active ones like technology (military, political, administrative, trades).

The Spanish had plenty of military engagements in the early colonization of the Americas that were easily solved purely because of their overwhelming technological advantages.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#46
post #28
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 somewhere that disease prevented European colonizers from overtaking larger parts of southern Africa. I cannot remember the source though.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#47
post #38
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's really a function of the amount of species that can be domesticated, the Americas has only few of them. Domesticated species end up living in close proximity to humans and create a perfect environment for disease.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#48
post #28
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?

There were diseases in the Americas, they were deadly too. One thing to consider is how they spread and if they are contagious between humans. Malaria is horrible, but you don't catch it from other people, pox on the other hand will spread between humans. This is just one example. Being mostly exposed to nasty diseases that are not contagious will lead a culture to have different behaviour when dealing with the sick. These practices will often involve taking close care of the sick. Such practices will prove horrible for dealing with highly lethal contagious diseases from Europe.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#49
post #38
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Most very dangerous transmittable diseases (like covid, TB, small pox), all moved from animals to human. Virus' in general evolve to not be particularly deadly, they can't spread if they kill the host. So the ones that do kill you, basically jump from one species to ours, and turn out to be very deadly. Bovine TB isn't a huge deal for cows, in the same way a cold isn't for us, but it'll really mess a person up.

Eurasia had much better options for domesticating a wide variety animals, so in general people lived in closer proximity to lots of animals, and generally unhygienic to boot. Which all lead to more diseases spreading over.

The America's only had a few domesticated species that deadly viruses could hop from.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#50
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> there's no actually knowing anything, so we may as well pick whatever just-so story we like?

What do you think is going on here? There isn't enough evidence to create an accurate truth, we've got no way of deciding if an accurate truth has been uncovered and it doesn't matter at all anyway. The process by which "truth" is found has a heavy bias towards good storytelling and typically strong political overtones.

Do you feel HN is upvoting the story because anyone feels that accurately depicting the neanderthal lifestyle will have profound bearing on the course of the modern world? I doubt even the historians think that. Maybe something will come of it, but realistically everyone is in this for the fun of imagining what might have happened, and the joy of arguing about it confidently from flimsy evidence.

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