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When Orcs Were Real

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Re: When Orcs Were Real

#71

Post by ikurei »

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?

(Not an expert, I just happen to have read a fair bit about the topic, grain of salt highly recommended)

Cities. Very deadly pandemics generally come from diseases that jump from another species to humans.

It is not advantageous for a virus to have a very high lethality, for any parasite there is no advantage in killing large numbers of your host. It's the diseases that are kind of new to the host that can be more lethal.

This jump of a disease from one species to another happens more easily when there is a lot of close contact between them. Large cities where humans lived with animals, and in not-very sanitary conditions, were a perfect ground for this.

In America cities appear to be less dense, and animal husbandry was way less extended (AFAIK, llamas and alpacas are the only animals domesticated in America).

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#72

Post by beaconstudios »

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…

Why not both? The Conquistadors had guns and steel armour and swords, versus the Mesoamericans' copper, bronze and obsidian weapons plus bows & atlatls. Technologically, the Spanish had the advantage, and won militarily. In addition, the indigenous population was ravaged by disease brought by the colonisers.

Having better weapons is not an argument to ethnic superiority. It comes down to geography and history. The myth that needs to die is that the Mesoamerican civilisations were inferior because they didn't use wheeled transport; that's a Eurocentric idea based on the idea of the wheel as "fundamental" technology, even though they help on Europe's mostly-flat land and not Mesoamerica's mountainous and heavily forested territory.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#73

Post by poisonarena »

shakow wrote: post #69
poisonarena wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Oh boi, not this horrible and flawed argument again" Starting out with your point written like this seems aggressive and patronizing. "This idea of "Europe won because it is good at tech" really needs to die. " Because you don't like it? I disagree. Spanish Conquistadors were some of the greatest and most experienced warriors in all of history, and were trained veterans of the reconquest of Spain from the Moors. Why…

> and were trained veterans of the reconquest of Spain from the Moors Cortes was 7 y.o. when the Reconquista ended...

Who trained Cortes? The Spanish developed tactics for decades and decades, building knowledge from previous wars and conquests.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#74

Post by DoingIsLearning »

henearkr wrote: post #63
rebuilder wrote: post #10

Why do we have to posit non-human monsters as explanations for these myths? After all, there were (and still are) real monsters out there that would kill, rape, kidnap and torture people - people from other communities. Strange danger was serious business back in the day, why could that not evolve into all kinds of boogeymen?

This is what I thought when was evoked cannibalism: what if those were the traces of sapiens festing of neanderthalis (and not neanderthalis eating neanderthalis, as seems to be supposed in the text)?

As far as I understand Neanderthal genes in Humans don't actually exist in the Y chromosome.

That means that only female Neanderthals transmitted their genes down the Sapiens gene tree. This could mean all sort of things.

Maybe Neanderthal Males with Female Humans didn't generate viable off-spring. Maybe Our selection process favored non-Neanderthal genes and it was phased out of the Y chromosome gene pool? Maybe as you said Sapiens have a much darker past?

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#75

Post by beaconstudios »

mynegation wrote: post #31
jgilias wrote: 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")

Didn't Tenochtitlan have a famously-large population for the era?

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#76

Post by Folcon »

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…

"Guns, Germs, and Steel" is a good book, really enjoyable read. But speaking to historian friends of mine has given me the impression that it's not highly regarded in those circles.

Unfortunately I can't give any criticisms beyond that because it has been a long time since I had those discussions and the details just don't come to mind, so I guess really what I'm saying is though it's a popular and enjoyable read, perhaps take the narrative it gives with a pinch of salt, perhaps dig into the current historical perspective and see where it differs?

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#77

Post by archi42 »

henearkr wrote: post #63
rebuilder wrote: post #10

Why do we have to posit non-human monsters as explanations for these myths? After all, there were (and still are) real monsters out there that would kill, rape, kidnap and torture people - people from other communities. Strange danger was serious business back in the day, why could that not evolve into all kinds of boogeymen?

This is what I thought when was evoked cannibalism: what if those were the traces of sapiens festing of neanderthalis (and not neanderthalis eating neanderthalis, as seems to be supposed in the text)?

I agree, lots of possibilities there, making the "widespread cannibalism" theory indeed pretty weak overall: It's quite possible that neanderthals only reverted to cannibalism in times of severe famines - which are not that unlikely to happen regularly over these huge time span. And I think that would still hold for modern humans (I think some air plane crash survivors did that).

Or maybe there was some cult/religion/tradition that demanded that specific enemies (or relatives) shall be eaten to harvest their "power". Again, some of our contemporary, modern humans still did that until quite recent (IIRC there was something with brains on HN recently, and how those who ate them [primarily that societies women] contracted brain diseases from their dead).

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#78

Post by dash2 »

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…

Thucydides has entered the chat:

"Now he that by the arguments here adduced shall frame a judgment of the things past and not believe rather that they were such as the poets have sung or prose-writers have composed, more delightfully to the ear than conformably to the truth, as being things not to be disproved and by length of time turned for the most part into the nature of fables without credit, but shall think them here searched out by the most evident signs that can be, and sufficiently too, considering their antiquity: he, I say, shall not err....

"To hear this history rehearsed, for that there be inserted in it no fables, shall be perhaps not delightful. But he that desires to look into the truth of things done and which (according to the condition of humanity) may be done again, or at least their like, he shall find enough herein to make him think it profitable. "

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#79

Post by 7952 »

rebuilder wrote: post #10

Why do we have to posit non-human monsters as explanations for these myths? After all, there were (and still are) real monsters out there that would kill, rape, kidnap and torture people - people from other communities. Strange danger was serious business back in the day, why could that not evolve into all kinds of boogeymen?

I think this tendency may be related to theory of mind. A monster isn't just a danger, it is something that we have attributed with intent, desire and emotions. Those emotions just happen to be malicious. That trait helps us to conceptualise the threat, but often goes into to over-drive. And that ability is not dependent on threat, it is just intrinsic to humanity. Children in safe and happy homes still make up monsters.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#80

Post by notahacker »

rebuilder wrote: post #10

Why do we have to posit non-human monsters as explanations for these myths? After all, there were (and still are) real monsters out there that would kill, rape, kidnap and torture people - people from other communities. Strange danger was serious business back in the day, why could that not evolve into all kinds of boogeymen?

Think this applies to a lot of searching for accuracy in mythology. It's a bit like the attempts to connect rather abstract and ahistorical flood myths with specific post Ice Age deluges. Maybe the Epic of Gilgamesh was a >10,000 year old oral tradition describing the end of the Ice Age... or maybe it was just that massive flood was about the most tangible way for humans building civilisations on flood plains to imagine the gods destroying everything.
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