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I think the implied logic is that if you're worried about pests destroying your supplies, it's a pretty crazy move to decide the way to fix the destruction of y

I think the implied logic is that if you're worried about pests destroying your supplies, it's a pretty crazy move to decide the way to fix the destruction of your supplies by, well, burning the supplies of your entire settlement to the ground. Regardless, I agree the logic is incomplete as stated. It's entirely possible if there was an easy way to replenish supplies (e.g. conducting such a burning right before harvest time or ample hunting/gathering grounds nearby) that such an approach would make sense.

IgorPartola 6y ago
If you had maggots living in your grain, would it be possible to save parts of the grain with primitive tech? Would it be possible to guarantee that the pest didn’t move from one side of the village to the other. Maybe they thought the old houses were C and the new ones would be Rust and this was the migration path :)
- kubanczyk 6y ago
  > Maybe they thought the old houses were C and the new ones would be Rust Or, maybe the old houses were JavaScript and the new ones would be JavaScript.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    Do you mean EcmaScript? Also, if it was JS they wouldn’t have houses. Everything would be stored in matchboxes.
jjoonathan 6y ago
Why is that crazy? Between eggs and pests "diffusing" into adjacent buildings only to "diffuse" back after a sweep, I can completely understand why a town would opt for the nuclear option after a few failed attempts to get rid of an infestation.
- dwohnitmok 6y ago
  Because without a ready-at-hand large-scale method of restocking (which granted is a very real possibility that such a dismissal of the fumigation theory seems to overlook, see e.g. my comment about harvest time) this is tantamount to suicide. The difficulty required to sustain the caloric needs of a town and rebuild after complete destruction of food stores and shelter is immense, especially with only the help of pre-Bronze Age technology.
  - jjoonathan 6y ago
    So if you overlook the probable reason why it wasn't suicide, it was suicide? Come on, that's not convincing.
    - dwohnitmok 6y ago
      I probably agree with you more than is coming across, but I do think it useful to steelman the fumigation argument. Burning down entire villages for fumigation even if you have a ready harvest is an extremely risk endeavor. It's no longer outright suicide, but you're still going to cause no shortage of hardship and potentially at least some lost lives. This is coupled with the fact that pests and parasites were a pretty constant fact of ancient life and so finding, e.g. bed bugs, was kind of just something people dealt with. Voluntarily and periodically razing entire towns for what amounts to sterilization is practically unheard of outside of the Burned House Horizon. Consider that even during various plague/Black Death breakouts, when disease was thought to be caused by various miasmas rather than infectious agents spread from person to person, and individual homes and personal property was readily burned, towns still were not being wholesale burned to the ground. That is even something as bad as a pestilence that could potentially kill half or more of your entire town's population still didn't warrant utter destruction of the town. It's not suicide. But only just.

IgorPartola 6y ago

If you had maggots living in your grain, would it be possible to save parts of the grain with primitive tech? Would it be possible to guarantee that the pest didn’t move from one side of the village to the other. Maybe they thought the old houses were C and the new ones would be Rust and this was the migration path :)

kubanczyk 6y ago
> Maybe they thought the old houses were C and the new ones would be Rust Or, maybe the old houses were JavaScript and the new ones would be JavaScript.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  Do you mean EcmaScript? Also, if it was JS they wouldn’t have houses. Everything would be stored in matchboxes.

jjoonathan 6y ago

Why is that crazy? Between eggs and pests "diffusing" into adjacent buildings only to "diffuse" back after a sweep, I can completely understand why a town would opt for the nuclear option after a few failed attempts to get rid of an infestation.

dwohnitmok 6y ago
Because without a ready-at-hand large-scale method of restocking (which granted is a very real possibility that such a dismissal of the fumigation theory seems to overlook, see e.g. my comment about harvest time) this is tantamount to suicide. The difficulty required to sustain the caloric needs of a town and rebuild after complete destruction of food stores and shelter is immense, especially with only the help of pre-Bronze Age technology.
- jjoonathan 6y ago
  So if you overlook the probable reason why it wasn't suicide, it was suicide? Come on, that's not convincing.
  - dwohnitmok 6y ago
    I probably agree with you more than is coming across, but I do think it useful to steelman the fumigation argument. Burning down entire villages for fumigation even if you have a ready harvest is an extremely risk endeavor. It's no longer outright suicide, but you're still going to cause no shortage of hardship and potentially at least some lost lives. This is coupled with the fact that pests and parasites were a pretty constant fact of ancient life and so finding, e.g. bed bugs, was kind of just something people dealt with. Voluntarily and periodically razing entire towns for what amounts to sterilization is practically unheard of outside of the Burned House Horizon. Consider that even during various plague/Black Death breakouts, when disease was thought to be caused by various miasmas rather than infectious agents spread from person to person, and individual homes and personal property was readily burned, towns still were not being wholesale burned to the ground. That is even something as bad as a pestilence that could potentially kill half or more of your entire town's population still didn't warrant utter destruction of the town. It's not suicide. But only just.