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This is an issue that gets repeated through history over and over again. The group that develops tech, ends up totally screwing over the group that doesn't. So

This is an issue that gets repeated through history over and over again. The group that develops tech, ends up totally screwing over the group that doesn't. So while, before the encounter the group that did not develop the tech, may have a better quality of life, once they encounter each other, the group without the tech gets screwed over. For example, dolphins and orcas have been screwed over by humans whether getting captured and sent to live in tanks, or entangled in fishing nets, or having their food sources over fished. It happens in the human realm too. A big example is the the Spanish Conquistadors and the Native Americans. Prior to them meeting, the Native Americans probably had a better quality of life than the Spaniards. But after the meeting, they got totally screwed over.

tuatoru 6y ago
> A big example is the the Spanish Conquistadors and the Native Americans. Prior to them meeting, the Native Americans probably had a better quality of life than the Spaniards. But after the meeting, they got totally screwed over. That had nothing to do with technology levels. The native Americans were wiped out by novel diseases. The conquistadors were helped greatly by the based-on-fact rumours of people dying a while after coming into contact with them. Factionalism and partisanship, various groups thinking they could use the chaos to grab power, made things worse too.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  Even Columbus screwed over the Indians on the islands, even before disease had a chance to wreak havoc. Just the fact that they sailed in ships, wore armor, and had steel swords and rudimentary firearms gave a huge advantage to the Spanish.
  - lxmorj 6y ago
    It’s an interesting alternative history idea though - what if the disease pressure was flipped but the technology was left as is?
    - RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
      You had something like this during the European partitioning of Africa into colonial Empires. Africa was known as the “white man’s graveyard” due to various tropical diseases. In the end, for the most part, technology won, and Europe carved up Africa into various colonial Empires.
      - iguy 6y ago
        But it did take 400 years more technology than what Cortez had. The Zulu army was not a walk-over in the mid-19th C, although 50 years later (with gatling guns) it would have been.
  - upinsmoke1980 6y ago
    Europeans hardly acted like saints, but it's still true that orders of magnitude more natives - perhaps as many as 90% - were killed by disease than by direct action of the colonists. I highly recommend the book 1491 by Charles Mann which talks about this (and much else). He explains how scientific estimates of the pre-Colombian population of the Americas keep getting revised upwards as we discover more evidence of just how many natives were wiped out by disease. It took Europeans hundreds of years to explore the entire continent; by the time they arrived in, say, the American West, the land was largely empty and the Indian population was very low. Only more recently have we started to figure out that European diseases spread through the continent much faster than European settlers did. It's likely that some of these "sparsely populated" areas were in fact much more populated in 1492, but the population collapsed through disease many generations before Europeans came into contact. I don't think we can fault Europeans too severely for this; the germ theory of disease wasn't understood until the late 19th century, and Europeans suffered greatly from epidemics too (when Colombus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 it was only about 150 years after the Black Death had killed a third of the population of the Europe.) But it's a fascinating book, and it's mysterious and sad to think that so many complex societies were devastated and erased while leaving so little trace of their existence.
    - gnarbarian 6y ago
      No no! white people bad and evil! 1619 project!!!
    - Retric 6y ago
      Even without germ theory Europe still used diseased blankets for attempted genocide on at least one documented instance in 1763. https://www.history.com/news/colonists-native-americans-smallpox-blankets https://www.history.com/news/colonists-native-americans-smal... Excerpts: Amherst wrote on July 16, 1763, "P.S. You will Do well to try to Inocculate the Indians by means of Blankets, as well as to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race. I should be very glad your Scheme for Hunting them Down by Dogs could take Effect,..." Bouquet replied on July 26, 1763, "I received yesterday your Excellency's letters of 16th with their Inclosures. The signal for Indian Messengers, and all your directions will be observed." Smallpox was highly contagious among the Native Americans, and — together with measles, influenza, chicken pox, and other Old World diseases — was a major cause of death since the arrival of Europeans and their animals.[27][28][29] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biological_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biological_warfare What’s interesting about this is it wasn’t clear it actually worked. However, the approach suggests a better understanding of disease spread than a lack of germ theory would suggest. Plenty of evidence suggests biological warfare was common across European history. The last known incident of using plague corpses for biological warfare occurred in 1710, when Russian forces attacked the Swedes by flinging plague-infected corpses over the city walls of Reval (Tallinn).[18] However, during the 1785 siege of La Calle, Tunisian forces flung diseased clothing into the city.[17]
- globular-toast 6y ago
  Loads of them were intentionally killed by the Europeans.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    Far far more were killed by other native groups, groups either hired or who saw the coming of europeans as an opportunity to topple the dominant group.
    - globular-toast 6y ago
      Divide and conquer. It's a classic technique.
      - sandworm101 6y ago
        Or liberate and enlist. Some of these tribes were what we would today call 'oppressed peoples'.
ironmagma 6y ago
> The group that develops tech, ends up totally screwing over the group that doesn't. That's how natural selection created us. If we have a biological or technical advantage, we use it to a large extent, enough to put our species (or group) at a strategic advantage, which allows us to grow faster. If we didn't use it, we wouldn't advance as much. That's hardly a problem, it's just life.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bromuro 6y ago
  Natural selection would make people help each others, not killing each others.
me_me_me 6y ago
> For example, dolphins and orcas have been screwed over by humans whether getting captured and sent to live in tanks, or entangled in fishing nets, or having their food sources over fished. Don't google Japanese dolphin slaughter if you are squeamish.

tuatoru 6y ago

> A big example is the the Spanish Conquistadors and the Native Americans. Prior to them meeting, the Native Americans probably had a better quality of life than the Spaniards. But after the meeting, they got totally screwed over. That had nothing to do with technology levels. The native Americans were wiped out by novel diseases. The conquistadors were helped greatly by the based-on-fact rumours of people dying a while after coming into contact with them. Factionalism and partisanship, various groups thinking they could use the chaos to grab power, made things worse too.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
Even Columbus screwed over the Indians on the islands, even before disease had a chance to wreak havoc. Just the fact that they sailed in ships, wore armor, and had steel swords and rudimentary firearms gave a huge advantage to the Spanish.
- lxmorj 6y ago
  It’s an interesting alternative history idea though - what if the disease pressure was flipped but the technology was left as is?
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
    You had something like this during the European partitioning of Africa into colonial Empires. Africa was known as the “white man’s graveyard” due to various tropical diseases. In the end, for the most part, technology won, and Europe carved up Africa into various colonial Empires.
    - iguy 6y ago
      But it did take 400 years more technology than what Cortez had. The Zulu army was not a walk-over in the mid-19th C, although 50 years later (with gatling guns) it would have been.
- upinsmoke1980 6y ago
  Europeans hardly acted like saints, but it's still true that orders of magnitude more natives - perhaps as many as 90% - were killed by disease than by direct action of the colonists. I highly recommend the book 1491 by Charles Mann which talks about this (and much else). He explains how scientific estimates of the pre-Colombian population of the Americas keep getting revised upwards as we discover more evidence of just how many natives were wiped out by disease. It took Europeans hundreds of years to explore the entire continent; by the time they arrived in, say, the American West, the land was largely empty and the Indian population was very low. Only more recently have we started to figure out that European diseases spread through the continent much faster than European settlers did. It's likely that some of these "sparsely populated" areas were in fact much more populated in 1492, but the population collapsed through disease many generations before Europeans came into contact. I don't think we can fault Europeans too severely for this; the germ theory of disease wasn't understood until the late 19th century, and Europeans suffered greatly from epidemics too (when Colombus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 it was only about 150 years after the Black Death had killed a third of the population of the Europe.) But it's a fascinating book, and it's mysterious and sad to think that so many complex societies were devastated and erased while leaving so little trace of their existence.
  - gnarbarian 6y ago
    No no! white people bad and evil! 1619 project!!!
  - Retric 6y ago
    Even without germ theory Europe still used diseased blankets for attempted genocide on at least one documented instance in 1763. https://www.history.com/news/colonists-native-americans-smallpox-blankets https://www.history.com/news/colonists-native-americans-smal... Excerpts: Amherst wrote on July 16, 1763, "P.S. You will Do well to try to Inocculate the Indians by means of Blankets, as well as to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race. I should be very glad your Scheme for Hunting them Down by Dogs could take Effect,..." Bouquet replied on July 26, 1763, "I received yesterday your Excellency's letters of 16th with their Inclosures. The signal for Indian Messengers, and all your directions will be observed." Smallpox was highly contagious among the Native Americans, and — together with measles, influenza, chicken pox, and other Old World diseases — was a major cause of death since the arrival of Europeans and their animals.[27][28][29] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biological_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biological_warfare What’s interesting about this is it wasn’t clear it actually worked. However, the approach suggests a better understanding of disease spread than a lack of germ theory would suggest. Plenty of evidence suggests biological warfare was common across European history. The last known incident of using plague corpses for biological warfare occurred in 1710, when Russian forces attacked the Swedes by flinging plague-infected corpses over the city walls of Reval (Tallinn).[18] However, during the 1785 siege of La Calle, Tunisian forces flung diseased clothing into the city.[17]
globular-toast 6y ago
Loads of them were intentionally killed by the Europeans.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  Far far more were killed by other native groups, groups either hired or who saw the coming of europeans as an opportunity to topple the dominant group.
  - globular-toast 6y ago
    Divide and conquer. It's a classic technique.
    - sandworm101 6y ago
      Or liberate and enlist. Some of these tribes were what we would today call 'oppressed peoples'.

ironmagma 6y ago

> The group that develops tech, ends up totally screwing over the group that doesn't. That's how natural selection created us. If we have a biological or technical advantage, we use it to a large extent, enough to put our species (or group) at a strategic advantage, which allows us to grow faster. If we didn't use it, we wouldn't advance as much. That's hardly a problem, it's just life.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bromuro 6y ago
Natural selection would make people help each others, not killing each others.

me_me_me 6y ago

> For example, dolphins and orcas have been screwed over by humans whether getting captured and sent to live in tanks, or entangled in fishing nets, or having their food sources over fished. Don't google Japanese dolphin slaughter if you are squeamish.