5 ms·

Vikings killed loads to people and nicked stuff, British Empire killed loads of people and nicked stuff, American settlers killed loads of people and nicked stu

by thorin 6y ago

Vikings killed loads to people and nicked stuff, British Empire killed loads of people and nicked stuff, American settlers killed loads of people and nicked stuff. Are you starting to see a pattern here? Now you have to enslave people by restricting their access to cheap mobile devices.

ekianjo 6y ago
> American settlers killed loads of people and nicked stuff The diseases brought by settlers did more ravage than actual confrontation.
- watwut 6y ago
  The displacement of whole groups did actually quite a lot. The Indian Removal Act was an actual policy, not an accident. There was whole ideology and policies around who gets to have which rights in the states.
- Communitivity 6y ago
  When they deliberately gave diseased blankets to indigenous peoples, I think that checked off both boxes. Curiously, the Viking are often portrayed as bloodthirsty brutes raping, pillaging, and burning their way through towns. The reality is different. There was brutality, but it was generally limited. Vikings were more likely to conquer and settle than to burn things down to the ground. They were vengeful though, so any killing of Viking captives or civilians could result in a disproportionate and brutal retaliation. For example, Aella, the King of Northumbria killed Viking King Ragnar Lothbrok not by combat, but by having him thrown into a pit of poisonous snakes. As a result, when Ragnar's son Ivar the Boneless sought revenge and captured Aella a quick death wasn't deemed appropriate. Instead, Ivar created the Blood Eagle ritual and used it on Aella. It was a gruesome and painful method of execution, but one the Viking probably felt justified in using giving the cowardly death Aella gave Ragnar. This is not to say they weren't brutal, but much of what we know about the Vikings comes from their enemies, which colors the history. Some links for more information, the first is a really good rundown by a history professor specializing in Vikings: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dzioe8/were_vikings_really_that_violent_or_is_it_just_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dzioe8/were_... https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26431858 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26431858 https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/140926-vikings-norse-raiding-berserkers-scandinavia-winroth https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/140926-vi... My own amateur research shows England and English-colonies had the most violent behavior (Norman raids, Irish subjugation, Botany Bay, violence against Indians, American violence against indigenous peoples (including trail or tears, smallpox blankets, etc.), etc. Essentially, any time a culture sets up a belief in itself as superior to all others a violence against those believed inferior often occurs, sometimes even in the name of helping those believed inferior. E.g., we'll take these poor children from them and give them to god-fearing Christian homes - I could be talking about events during colonial times with native americans, or I could be talking about separating of children at the detention centers.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    > When they deliberately gave diseased blankets to indigenous peoples, I think that checked off both boxes That's certainly horrific, but the diseases that the colonists brought killed 90% of the indigenous population at the time, most of whom died without ever setting eyes on a European. As for "which people group was the most evil", that seems like an exercise in subjectivity and bias or worse, so I don't see what good could come from debating it, but I am a little surprised you don't locate it anywhere in the 20th century with its hundreds of millions of deaths between fascism and communism.
    - AlotOfReading 6y ago
      This is incorrect and not really supported by the literature. Europeans were intimately involved with most regions that had high fatality rates and moreover, actively created conditions that made these diseases endemic. The "90%" numbers are also highly speculative and include all causes of mortality, including European warfare over a period of centuries. It's not just diseases.
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        Not according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_epidemics#Effect_on_population_numbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_ep... > The loss of the population was so high that it was partially responsible for the myth of the Americas as "virgin wilderness." By the time significant European colonization was underway, native populations had already been reduced by 90%. This resulted in settlements vanishing and cultivated fields being abandoned. Since forests were recovering, the colonists had an impression of a land that was an untamed wilderness
        AlotOfReading 6y ago
        The page you've linked says as much (though it's quite misleading without background knowledge). > Many Native American tribes suffered high mortality and depopulation, averaging 25–50% of the tribes' members lost to disease. The line you've linked is discussing the Northeastern colonization and it links to Denevan, who isn't looking at the actual mechanics of depopulation, but rather the pristine myth. Luckily we can look at this with some simple modeling. Assuming persistent epidemics with constant 25% mortality every 10 years and no developed immunity (big assumptions), while maintaining a 2% growth rate in-between (this is low), over 2 centuries the population would shrink by 88%. At that point, the epidemics stop and populations begin to recover. Using the same numbers, it would recover to pre-epidemic levels in only 85 years. If the growth rate is merely 3%, population actually grows the whole time. Let's pay closer attention to the Mexican population graph though. Notice the 3 waves of disease? Two of those, labeled "cocolizti", are thought to be (at least partially) Salmonella. You know, that disease of failing sanitation infrastructure? Hopefully it's clear why sanitation issues might have surfaced around then.
koheripbal 6y ago
False equivalence.
- gumby 6y ago
  How so? The author invited explanation of why they might or might not be the same. You simply asserted that they were not.
vixen99 6y ago
Not to forget the French (Norman) invasion and complete takeover of the British (Anglo Saxons) by William in 1066. The effects of that invasion are still with us as pointed out by Gregory Clark. Analysis of Norman Surnames and their predominance in elite families in Britain today, has shown that "Rich families stay rich and poor families stay poor, according to a new study that finds that English people whose ancestors were elite in the 1100s are still likely part of the upper crust today. The study echoes work in other countries that has found that social status budges little over generations, even in the face of massive social changes"
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Be honest, that's in a culture that holds the Nobility as a different kind of human being above everyone else. This worshipful attitude is a huge factor, not just economics. And not all the rich, stay rich. That's a mainstay for every British comedy ever. But the ones who do stay rich, are very often those that are held in higher regard than the 'common folk'.
  - iguy 6y ago
    Clark finds this pattern in most societies, IIRC Sweden and China have (in his data) almost identical rates of status persistence. It's not a quirk of English manners. What varies more is the degree to which ordinary people today descend from the nobility in (say) 1100. In some societies they had many more surviving children than average, e.g. it's easy for them to double every generation, within a basically static total population, implying that their offspring make up a high proportion of people after a few centuries. But in other societies, they did not. His books are pretty readable, BTW, interesting data.
    - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      Interesting choice - those two societies also have 1000 years of respect for nobility? It seems to be a strong factor then.
      - 6y ago

by thorin 6y ago

ekianjo 6y ago

> American settlers killed loads of people and nicked stuff The diseases brought by settlers did more ravage than actual confrontation.

watwut 6y ago
The displacement of whole groups did actually quite a lot. The Indian Removal Act was an actual policy, not an accident. There was whole ideology and policies around who gets to have which rights in the states.
Communitivity 6y ago
When they deliberately gave diseased blankets to indigenous peoples, I think that checked off both boxes. Curiously, the Viking are often portrayed as bloodthirsty brutes raping, pillaging, and burning their way through towns. The reality is different. There was brutality, but it was generally limited. Vikings were more likely to conquer and settle than to burn things down to the ground. They were vengeful though, so any killing of Viking captives or civilians could result in a disproportionate and brutal retaliation. For example, Aella, the King of Northumbria killed Viking King Ragnar Lothbrok not by combat, but by having him thrown into a pit of poisonous snakes. As a result, when Ragnar's son Ivar the Boneless sought revenge and captured Aella a quick death wasn't deemed appropriate. Instead, Ivar created the Blood Eagle ritual and used it on Aella. It was a gruesome and painful method of execution, but one the Viking probably felt justified in using giving the cowardly death Aella gave Ragnar. This is not to say they weren't brutal, but much of what we know about the Vikings comes from their enemies, which colors the history. Some links for more information, the first is a really good rundown by a history professor specializing in Vikings: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dzioe8/were_vikings_really_that_violent_or_is_it_just_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dzioe8/were_... https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26431858 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26431858 https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/140926-vikings-norse-raiding-berserkers-scandinavia-winroth https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/140926-vi... My own amateur research shows England and English-colonies had the most violent behavior (Norman raids, Irish subjugation, Botany Bay, violence against Indians, American violence against indigenous peoples (including trail or tears, smallpox blankets, etc.), etc. Essentially, any time a culture sets up a belief in itself as superior to all others a violence against those believed inferior often occurs, sometimes even in the name of helping those believed inferior. E.g., we'll take these poor children from them and give them to god-fearing Christian homes - I could be talking about events during colonial times with native americans, or I could be talking about separating of children at the detention centers.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  > When they deliberately gave diseased blankets to indigenous peoples, I think that checked off both boxes That's certainly horrific, but the diseases that the colonists brought killed 90% of the indigenous population at the time, most of whom died without ever setting eyes on a European. As for "which people group was the most evil", that seems like an exercise in subjectivity and bias or worse, so I don't see what good could come from debating it, but I am a little surprised you don't locate it anywhere in the 20th century with its hundreds of millions of deaths between fascism and communism.
  - AlotOfReading 6y ago
    This is incorrect and not really supported by the literature. Europeans were intimately involved with most regions that had high fatality rates and moreover, actively created conditions that made these diseases endemic. The "90%" numbers are also highly speculative and include all causes of mortality, including European warfare over a period of centuries. It's not just diseases.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      Not according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_epidemics#Effect_on_population_numbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_ep... > The loss of the population was so high that it was partially responsible for the myth of the Americas as "virgin wilderness." By the time significant European colonization was underway, native populations had already been reduced by 90%. This resulted in settlements vanishing and cultivated fields being abandoned. Since forests were recovering, the colonists had an impression of a land that was an untamed wilderness
      - AlotOfReading 6y ago
        The page you've linked says as much (though it's quite misleading without background knowledge). > Many Native American tribes suffered high mortality and depopulation, averaging 25–50% of the tribes' members lost to disease. The line you've linked is discussing the Northeastern colonization and it links to Denevan, who isn't looking at the actual mechanics of depopulation, but rather the pristine myth. Luckily we can look at this with some simple modeling. Assuming persistent epidemics with constant 25% mortality every 10 years and no developed immunity (big assumptions), while maintaining a 2% growth rate in-between (this is low), over 2 centuries the population would shrink by 88%. At that point, the epidemics stop and populations begin to recover. Using the same numbers, it would recover to pre-epidemic levels in only 85 years. If the growth rate is merely 3%, population actually grows the whole time. Let's pay closer attention to the Mexican population graph though. Notice the 3 waves of disease? Two of those, labeled "cocolizti", are thought to be (at least partially) Salmonella. You know, that disease of failing sanitation infrastructure? Hopefully it's clear why sanitation issues might have surfaced around then.

koheripbal 6y ago

False equivalence.

gumby 6y ago
How so? The author invited explanation of why they might or might not be the same. You simply asserted that they were not.

vixen99 6y ago

Not to forget the French (Norman) invasion and complete takeover of the British (Anglo Saxons) by William in 1066. The effects of that invasion are still with us as pointed out by Gregory Clark. Analysis of Norman Surnames and their predominance in elite families in Britain today, has shown that "Rich families stay rich and poor families stay poor, according to a new study that finds that English people whose ancestors were elite in the 1100s are still likely part of the upper crust today. The study echoes work in other countries that has found that social status budges little over generations, even in the face of massive social changes"

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Be honest, that's in a culture that holds the Nobility as a different kind of human being above everyone else. This worshipful attitude is a huge factor, not just economics. And not all the rich, stay rich. That's a mainstay for every British comedy ever. But the ones who do stay rich, are very often those that are held in higher regard than the 'common folk'.
- iguy 6y ago
  Clark finds this pattern in most societies, IIRC Sweden and China have (in his data) almost identical rates of status persistence. It's not a quirk of English manners. What varies more is the degree to which ordinary people today descend from the nobility in (say) 1100. In some societies they had many more surviving children than average, e.g. it's easy for them to double every generation, within a basically static total population, implying that their offspring make up a high proportion of people after a few centuries. But in other societies, they did not. His books are pretty readable, BTW, interesting data.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    Interesting choice - those two societies also have 1000 years of respect for nobility? It seems to be a strong factor then.
    - 6y ago