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When Orcs Were Real

treeofwoe.substack.com

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Re: When Orcs Were Real

#161

Post by moate »

jgilias wrote: post #137
jillesvangurp wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supplement the list provided in the article by more modern boogeymen such as Negroes, Jews, Arabs, etc. and you have a nice explanation of recent history. I realize this may be deeply offensive to some of the readership here and emphasize that I don't look at the world in these terms. However, recent history is full of people that actually do demonize these groups of people; no matter how irrational that is. Nothing…

We should be careful not to chastise people from the past from the viewpoint of our comfy and safe lives. It's easy to sneer at our ability to divide people into 'us' versus 'them' over meaningless differences, when it's not you worrying about a night raid where you get scalped and your wife raped.

Meh. The vast majority of people subscribed to some religion or another and all the major religions say don't do rape or murder. I think it's reasonable to point out the moral failings of the past relative to their own morality.

Seems perfectly reasonable to say "these people did bad things". If you want to then go a step further and say "they did bad things because reasons" that's fine, but the bad things were still done and pretending that providing some context justifies it is just as flawed an analysis as saying it doesn't. The world is nuanced AF.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#162

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

poisonarena wrote: post #159
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the majority were civilians incapable of putting up a fight.

How do you even know that? Text says they were armed with knives. And what do you mean "civilians" in this context? The article lists them as armed belligerents.

Well, I'm going by what the Wikipedia article says, that they were "Atahualpa's counselors, commanders, and unarmed attendants". According to the article the "armed host" was stationed outside the city and fled when the emperor was killed.

Edit: sorry, captured, not killed.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#163

Post by taneq »

jacobolus wrote: post #152
midjji wrote: post #94

It makes for a good story to be sure, but probably little else. Much like the popular myth of the noble savage influencing academics of the time, contemporary popular disdain for the people and cultures of the past colors many contemporary academics. Another weird thing, So we have found evidence of the feathers of dinosaurs, but not the fur of something from 40k years ago? that seems rather unlikely. In this case, t…

> chimps and gorillas for millenia and they are furry, cannibalistic, violent tribal monsters Gorillas are largely vegetarian, and generally peaceful. Humans are much better example of “violent tribal monsters” than gorillas. Cf. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1977/12/25/t...

Are they? http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161128-groups-of-gorillas-h...

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#164

Post by evilduck »

gpm wrote: post #100
midjji wrote: post #94

It makes for a good story to be sure, but probably little else. Much like the popular myth of the noble savage influencing academics of the time, contemporary popular disdain for the people and cultures of the past colors many contemporary academics. Another weird thing, So we have found evidence of the feathers of dinosaurs, but not the fur of something from 40k years ago? that seems rather unlikely. In this case, t…

> So we have found evidence of the feathers of dinosaurs, but not the fur of something from 40k years ago? that seems rather unlikely Does it? Dinosaurs existed for hundreds of millions years, that's a lot of time for things to be preserved. Neanderthals for hundreds of thousands of years, that's not nearly as much. Sure, fur/feathers is less likely to be preserved for 65 million years (+ however far into the mesozio…

In addition, dinosaur feathers that have been discovered have been in fossils where it's obviously still part of the animal, or preserved in amber where feathers were unexpected and it raised questions.

Who's been looking for neanderthal fur at any scale? It could be hiding in plain sight. AFAIK, geologists and archeologists don't try to run DNA tests on every bit of biological matter they come across. Humans are known tool users and clothing (and fur) wearers. If someone found fur near a hominid and it wasn't on their head, would anyone be jumping to this conclusion?

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#165

Post by nobodyandproud »

abakker wrote: post #135
Mikhail_Edoshin wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese dragons may be a better depiction of what could be the source of the myth. A Chinese dragon is like a flying snake, although I'm not sure they ascribe fire-breathing to it. But if you combine a flying snake and fire-breathing then there was an ancient device that looked very much like such a creature. Some ancient armies used long cloth bags as flags or banners, to impress the enemies or maybe to signal the p…

13th warrior?

Upvoted, for doubly-applicable reference.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#166

Post by You_All_R_Cunts »

whakim wrote: post #155
midjji wrote: post #94

It makes for a good story to be sure, but probably little else. Much like the popular myth of the noble savage influencing academics of the time, contemporary popular disdain for the people and cultures of the past colors many contemporary academics. Another weird thing, So we have found evidence of the feathers of dinosaurs, but not the fur of something from 40k years ago? that seems rather unlikely. In this case, t…

The fur thing just isn't compelling. Hominims lost their fur prior to developing tools in order to develop sweat glands all over their body, allowing them to expel heat better than their prey (and so hunt by literally chasing an animal until it got hyperthermia). Neanderthals may have been hairier to help in colder climates, but it's pretty remiss of the article to not mention that losing fur was one of the key devel…

Meaning fur was lost before we split from neanderthals, so they would have had to lose their sweat pores and regrown that hair? Seems like a large mutation to take place.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#167

Post by Rohpakle »

Orcs were the primary foot soldiers of the Dark Lords' armies and sometimes the weakest (but most numerous) of their servants. They were created by the first Dark Lord, Morgoth, before the First Age and served him and later his successor in their quest to dominate Middle-earth and you cannot convince me otherwise.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#168

Post by SamBam »

I feel like either I am very confused about something, or the author is:

> the population of humans dropped to as few as 50 individuals. Something terrible happened to the human race.

> When did this population bottleneck occur? A number of teams have analyzed mutation rates to find out. The mutation rate in our Y chromosomes suggests the bottleneck occurred 37,000 to 49,000 years ago.

Is the author really suggesting that the human population was down to 50 individuals 50,000 years ago?

How on earth does this square with human migration? Humans were already spreading near Australia 50,000 years ago, let alone Europe and Asia.

Is he suggesting that all the fossils throughout Eurasia and near Oceania were deposited by earlier humans, then nearly every human on the planet died at the same time, and then the survivors all re-spread to those areas, without leaving any archeological evidence of this?

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#169

Post by projektfu »

mattkrause wrote: post #127
projektfu wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The suggestion that Neanderthal had a tapetum lucidum is also weird as that is a feature that has been lost in almost all extant primates, including nocturnal ones, except the bush baby.

I believe some tarsiers have it too, but yeah...this whole part seems like evolutionary fan-fiction.

I was wrong, some lemurs also have tapeta but, oddly, tarsiers don’t, in spite of having many more adaptations to low light.

What’s weird is that the advocate of the orc theory just throws in details without even considering whether they’re plausible. A full hair coat? Easy, we already have hair, and most of our “relatives” have full coats. Larger teeth? Sure. A gain of function that’s been lost to an entire phylum, including the apes he references? Unlikely.

Re: When Orcs Were Real

#170

Post by emmanueloga_ »

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?

"people from other communities" ... from other communities? How about just "people".
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