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I mean, people from what is now the Republic of China sailed all over the pacific including landing in the Americas.
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Nov 21, 2020 13:56
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I never got why people don't like GGS. I mean, poo poo: it's better than The Bell Curve?
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Nov 21, 2020 14:07
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Fuschia tude posted:Hmm, so if Siberia had been fertile enough to support larger settlements, the isolation of the Americas after the last glacial period might never have happened in the first place. Yeah it's kind of a geological coincidence that the series of islands connecting the two continents is almost in the Arctic. But yeah, a little while ago I was reading a bit into Georg Wilhelm Steller, the naturalist on the first Russian expedition to Alaska. That whole expedition was a shitshow. They only actually made it to an island off the coast of Alaska. A large chunk of the crew died of scurvy and a consequent shipwreck. This was in the 1700s, nearly 250 years after Columbus. Even then, the infrastructure to be able to launch an expedition from Kamchatka had only just been put in place through massive spending by the Russian government. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Expedition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Steller Like, maybe Japan could have expanded up through the Kuril Island chain to establish a presence in Kamchatka and then somehow beaten the Europeans to the Americas. Except at the time the Ainu people were in the way. Edit: Mr. Nice! posted:I mean, people from what is now the Republic of China sailed all over the pacific including landing in the Americas. Do you have a reference for this? Edit 2: or do you mean the Polynesian peoples? Because they're not substantially more connected to China, either now or in 1492, than indigenous American peoples. Like at that point you may as well just say that the whole world was explored and colonised by people out of Africa. It's true, but not a useful statement in the context of modern history. Lead out in cuffs fucked around with this message at 14:29 on Nov 21, 2020 |
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Nov 21, 2020 14:09
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That is Gavin Menzies' theory which I gather is not attested to by actual facts of any kind. Unless that's about the Polynesians in which case yeah I believe they did hit South America.
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Nov 21, 2020 14:22
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Schadenboner posted:I never got why people don't like GGS. I mean, poo poo: it's better than The Bell Curve? Whenever an academic writes a book that has a popular breakthrough (and GGS did, in a big way), other academics are going to get salt about it. This effect is intensified when the book is interdisciplinary in subject (as GGS is) because it opens the author to accusation from each discipline that he touches on that he doesn’t understand the work we do in this department and is just cherry-picking and generalizing to suit his extraneous line of argument, etc. In this particular case, the book is also one big just-so story. Everything that happened to make you, the reader, rich and comfortable and literate enough to read this book, happened because of Big World Historical Theory and implicitly had to be that way.
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Nov 21, 2020 14:29
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Do you have a reference for this? Nessus posted:That is Gavin Menzies' theory which I gather is not attested to by actual facts of any kind. Unless that's about the Polynesians in which case yeah I believe they did hit South America. Yes, I meant the Polynesian people because they came from what is now the Republic of China.
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Nov 21, 2020 14:56
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Just say Taiwan, it's easier for everyone to understand.
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Nov 21, 2020 15:40
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Schadenboner posted:I never got why people don't like GGS. I mean, poo poo: it's better than The Bell Curve? I really can never truly get behind hating on that book, because its one of the things that helped my libertarian moron brain in 2002 connect the dots on how people can be immensely restricted or helped by their environments, e.g. privilege, forced into ghettos, etc. At its core, the whole point of the book is that racism is asinine because humans are all capable and inventive, and it was externalities that guided certain groups like the Chinese or the Egyptians or the Europeans to have GGS and end up in the extremely disparate situation in the period that led to mass colonialization. i know the actual nuts and bolts of the book have problems, but its a drat good intro for stupid people like I was.
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Nov 21, 2020 15:56
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WoodrowSkillson posted:i know the actual nuts and bolts of the book have problems, but its a drat good intro for stupid people like I was.  except I'm still dumb af?
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Nov 21, 2020 16:10
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Nothingtoseehere posted:Just say Taiwan, it's easier for everyone to understand. I knew, but I think it still counts as being obnoxious. Considering the "Republic of China" was founded in the 19th century, so the Polynesians definitely didn't come from a political construct which didn't exist back then. That's like telling people originating from Helgoland came "from Germany". It's technically not wrong, but purposefully confusing for no real reason.
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Nov 21, 2020 17:06
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Mr. Nice! posted:I mean, people from what is now the Republic of China sailed all over the pacific including landing in the Americas. For the record, I thought this was funny. Anyway I get the impression GGS is hated by anthropologists partly because it's a Big Ideas Popular Book but partly because Diamond strongly implies the two theses available to people are "my book" and "racism", and that if you disagree with one you're left only with the other. I'm no expert, though.
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Nov 21, 2020 17:22
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Nessus posted:That is Gavin Menzies' theory which I gather is not attested to by actual facts of any kind. Unless that's about the Polynesians in which case yeah I believe they did hit South America. Just for clarification Menzie's theory was that Zheng He traveled all over the pacific, including Australia and the Americas, and left behind colonists but this is all based on conjecture and outright lies that has been debunked by every Chinese history and archeology specialist in the world. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Nov 21, 2020 |
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Nov 21, 2020 17:23
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If I recall correctly there's an hypothesis that the neolithic farmers who brought the ancestor of Proto-Austronesian to Taiwan originated in mainland China. That is what wikipedia says happened anyway, I guess similar to how languages and genes spread along with agriculture in other parts of the world. Grevling fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Nov 21, 2020 |
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Nov 21, 2020 18:02
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Kanine posted:i know this is from months ago in the thread but i always assumed the reasoning was that its wayyy less feasible to get from eastasia to the americas by way of the pacific than to get to the americas from europe by way of the atlantic when you look at the difference in sheer distance I doubt that's it, Magellan made his trans-Pacific journey in the same type of ship that was used for Transatlantic journeys. The real key is understanding the route you have to take for an easterly journey; to catch the wind you have to come all the way up to the 38th parallel.
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Nov 21, 2020 18:28
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Guns/Germs/Steel has its problems but it's central premise is that European colonisation of most of the world is it not the result of a superior culture or genetics or whatever racist nonsense people sometimes use to explain it but of material conditions. Basically being in the right place at the right time. Pure blind luck.
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Nov 21, 2020 19:41
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There is material evidence that poo poo got traded into the Americas through Alaska/Siberia, but it is likely the result of multiple trading events along the length. I remember skimming an article years ago that also noted some linguistic weirdness with Californian coastal tribes and some Polynesian groups, mostly around words involving seafaring. But again this was like 7 years ago. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Nov 22, 2020 |
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Nov 22, 2020 00:37
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Yeah it's kind of a geological coincidence that the series of islands connecting the two continents is almost in the Arctic. Arctic expeditions are tougher than tropical ones because if you gently caress up and run out of supplies a lot of people are gonna die. Consider the "Terror" expedition and contrast it with Columbus's 3rd voyage or Cabeza de Vaca's expedition.
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Nov 22, 2020 05:09
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Can't think of a better place to ask; During the Peloponnesian War I recall a major military concern for Sparta was needing to keep enough warriors home in Sparta out of fear of a helot uprising. I also recall some story about a couple hundred Spartans trapped/captured or something and manpower was such a precious resource for Sparta they had to accept a bunch of disadvantageous situations rather then accept those troops as a loss. Was there anything more like that?
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Nov 22, 2020 05:42
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Fuschia tude posted:Couldn't you just hug the coast north and cross the Bering Strait? Is that path too icy even in summer? A lot of folks talked about how impossible this was to do until really modern times, but I also want to emphasize that there was really no point in doing this anyway. You'd have to know the Americas were there in the first place, which maybe only a small handful of northeastern Siberian people did, and you'd have to have..some weird interest in the Alaskan fur trade? There's no incentive to begin with. Even Russia couldn't wait to give Alaska away. Of course, I know you're asking hypothetically, but I think ideas and incentive as historical drivers are super important.
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Nov 22, 2020 07:13
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sullat posted:Arctic expeditions are tougher than tropical ones Maybe if you're british 
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Nov 22, 2020 10:10
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Alhazred posted:Maybe if you're british https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STzgXXU6GpI
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Nov 22, 2020 11:24
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pentyne posted:Can't think of a better place to ask; During the Peloponnesian War I recall a major military concern for Sparta was needing to keep enough warriors home in Sparta out of fear of a helot uprising. I also recall some story about a couple hundred Spartans trapped/captured or something and manpower was such a precious resource for Sparta they had to accept a bunch of disadvantageous situations rather then accept those troops as a loss. The way the Peloponnesian war went down really showed the weakness of any polis militarily over the long haul- the reliance on citizen soldiers(and thusly need for allies) to field armies of any size made it very difficult to conduct decisive war. Sparta in particular had a fairly strict notion of citizenship that led to their manpower always being a problem. Helot uprising wasn't the only reason many Spartan soldiers had to stay home, though, either- the Athenians tended to launch raids throughout Sparta and its allies using their fleet and there was always a need to be able to respond. In the hellenistic period, Sparta had to re-stock its citizens roll and eventually actually induct helots into its army formally to keep up their manpower, though the later reform came not long before they were subjugated by Rome.
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Nov 22, 2020 11:45
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Nothingtoseehere posted:Just say Taiwan, it's easier for everyone to understand. I just say "Our China" and "Their China." The defense of Taiwan was a big talking point in the first Nixon/Kennedy debate.
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Nov 22, 2020 16:56
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Beamed posted:A lot of folks talked about how impossible this was to do until really modern times, but I also want to emphasize that there was really no point in doing this anyway. You'd have to know the Americas were there in the first place, which maybe only a small handful of northeastern Siberian people did, and you'd have to have..some weird interest in the Alaskan fur trade? There's no incentive to begin with. Even Russia couldn't wait to give Alaska away. A bunch of northwest Canada was only mapped during/because of the search for the Franklin Expedition.
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Nov 23, 2020 03:28
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Anyone know of books that give an introduction to the beliefs and practices of Gnosticism?
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Nov 23, 2020 15:55
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Carillon posted:I know the blues and the greens are the famous demes, but that there were other colors as well. Did they still exist with supporters at the time of the Nika riots? Or had they been absorbed by the two major teams? Or was it the hipster choice, oh yeah I'm into the Reds, you wouldn't know their charioteers. According to the definitive source of information on Roman chariot racing, Circus Maximus, the colors were red, orange, green, light blue, yellow, black, white, brown, and purple. :strip_icc()/pic461799.jpg)
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Nov 23, 2020 16:57
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Cessna posted:According to the definitive source of information on Roman chariot racing, Circus Maximus, the colors were red, orange, green, light blue, yellow, black, white, brown, and purple. How can this be definitive when it bills itself as "A Game of Chariot Races" rather than "The Game of Chariot Races"? How can we have faith in it if it doesn't even have faith in itself?
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Nov 23, 2020 17:46
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Schadenboner posted:How can this be definitive when it bills itself as "A Game of Chariot Races" rather than "The Game of Chariot Races"? How can we have faith in it if it doesn't even have faith in itself? well that would be false advertising I think I've played a sixth, different, chariot racing board game too, I guess it's a popular enough theme
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Nov 23, 2020 18:04
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Chariot racing terrifies me for some reason. I'd rather go skydiving or cave diving or almost anything else risky.
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Nov 23, 2020 22:47
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Chariot racing terrifies me for some reason. More like Ben Hurrrr, ammirite?
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Nov 23, 2020 23:02
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pentyne posted:Can't think of a better place to ask; During the Peloponnesian War I recall a major military concern for Sparta was needing to keep enough warriors home in Sparta out of fear of a helot uprising. I also recall some story about a couple hundred Spartans trapped/captured or something and manpower was such a precious resource for Sparta they had to accept a bunch of disadvantageous situations rather then accept those troops as a loss. More specifically, the Athenians needled the Spartans by establishing a base at Pylos for escaping helots just to gently caress with the Spartans leading to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pylos when 120 Spartans all got trapped on an island and Sparta surrendered their navy as collateral for peace talks. When those talks fell through those guys got loving wrecked by a bunch of javelineer scrubs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sphacteria.
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Nov 24, 2020 00:45
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Spartan citizenry was a bit weird too, and may not match your intuition of what "citizen" means. In a place like Athens, the (male, adult) population was roughly 1/3 citizen, 1/3 free non-citizen (mostly immigrants and their descendants), and 1/3 slave. In Sparta, it was probably more like 1/6 citizen, 1/6 free non-citizen, and 2/3 slave (serf might be a closer translation, but some variety of non-free people). The citizenry of Sparta was closer to what we'd think of as an aristocracy: a small, subset of the population, membership in which was defined by a combination of wealth and birth. That 1/6 figure also decreased over time because Spartan law basically offered no way for a non-citizen to become a citizen: the only way for the citizen population to grow was for a child to be born the legitimate child of two citizen parents. During the period of Spartan empire, the death rate among the citizenry exceeded the birth rate, so the population declined, while the overall population of the geographic region containing Sparta was fairly stable. A hundred Spartan citizens captured by the enemy might have represented something like 1/30 of the "aristocracy" of Lacedaemon by that point. That's a serious crisis to the remaining aristocrats, and they're the decision makers.
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Nov 24, 2020 07:40
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It really seems like the Laconians lucked into dominance over a large swathe of very fertile Greek land. But they completely squandered that opportunity. No doubt the kings dreamt of empire. But they were so bad at it, so focused on maintaining elite privilege, that they relegated what would otherwise be a strong imperial core for any other state, to remaining a province.
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Nov 24, 2020 13:01
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Phobophilia posted:It really seems like the Laconians lucked into dominance over a large swathe of very fertile Greek land. But they completely squandered that opportunity. No doubt the kings dreamt of empire. But they were so bad at it, so focused on maintaining elite privilege, that they relegated what would otherwise be a strong imperial core for any other state, to remaining a province. The structure of the greek poleis in general limited their power to truly influence events. In the later period, most of the powerful poleis managed to scrounge up enough money to use mercenaries to extend their influence, but even this was rather limited compared to what a Macedonia could put together. That being said, Athens was always a threat with its ability to project naval power and there's a reason that the garrisons of the "fetters of Greece" that the diadochi set up were aimed primarily at Athens and not Sparta. Sparta remained "free" notionally but its power was so circumspect that it mostly ended up being a nuisance for others.
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Nov 24, 2020 13:46
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Phobophilia posted:It really seems like the Laconians lucked into dominance over a large swathe of very fertile Greek land. But they completely squandered that opportunity. No doubt the kings dreamt of empire. But they were so bad at it, so focused on maintaining elite privilege, that they relegated what would otherwise be a strong imperial core for any other state, to remaining a province. Well, they did win the war against the other big expanding power of Greece at the time. I don't know if you can just assume that everyone always wants foreign dominion, especially when the Spartan elites had their hands full maintaining local dominion. I also wouldn't think that Sparta is geographically much more suited to empire building than anywhere else. It's incredibly defensible, basically unassailable, but that's not really the highest priority for empire building. It's not like San Marino was poised for any empire building. Empires need to be able to project their own power to build an empire in the first place more than they need to defend their capitals from attack. If you're reaching the point where you constantly need to worry about the capital getting attacked, you're already on the decay empire-wise. I think it's pretty rare for empires to get knocked out by just an invasion of the capital.
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Nov 24, 2020 17:00
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Phobophilia posted:It really seems like the Laconians lucked into dominance over a large swathe of very fertile Greek land. But they completely squandered that opportunity. No doubt the kings dreamt of empire. But they were so bad at it, so focused on maintaining elite privilege, that they relegated what would otherwise be a strong imperial core for any other state, to remaining a province. In addition to what other people said, the kings of sparta were pretty limited for guys with the title of king. "Religious figure and military general" is more like their position. The ephors had the real decision-making power for matters of state, but even they had limited personal authority since they were only in for a year. Sparta is real weird. Their government & society functioned more on tradition & inertia than anything else. They were insanely religious by the standards of the time. And the one word for their national character would have to be "paranoid". Their foundation myth was that they were hated invaders that the helots and everybody else wanted to get rid of. And they were 100% aware of their own weakness, such as the fact that their population was declining. SlothfulCobra posted:Well, they did win the war against the other big expanding power of Greece at the time. Sparta's period of maximum political dominance was way more about the meddling of Persia than their own ambitions. The Persians wanted the greeks weak and disunited, and they wanted Ionia back. They had an easier time dealing with Sparta than the rest, because Sparta didn't give a poo poo about Ionia. Persia was the big empire. The greeks write all their history about themselves as if they're the main characters, but really they were the land of two-bit cities with big ideas.
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Nov 24, 2020 17:37
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Phobophilia posted:It really seems like the Laconians lucked into dominance over a large swathe of very fertile Greek land. But they completely squandered that opportunity. No doubt the kings dreamt of empire. But they were so bad at it, so focused on maintaining elite privilege, that they relegated what would otherwise be a strong imperial core for any other state, to remaining a province. What's the point of ruler an empire if you can't be an ultra-privileged elite?
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Nov 24, 2020 18:30
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Also one of the first times the Spartan elite went on an extended campaign, they found out that their wives had a bunch of kids waiting for them when they returned that weren't there when they left...
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Nov 25, 2020 01:46
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sullat posted:Also one of the first times the Spartan elite went on an extended campaign, they found out that their wives had a bunch of kids waiting for them when they returned that weren't there when they left... Didn’t someone (Plutarch?) say that Spartan men were OK with their wives banging strapping young men to produce strong children?
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Nov 25, 2020 01:55
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PittTheElder posted:What's the point of ruler an empire if you can't be an ultra-privileged elite? look you can still remain an ultra-privileged elite, but you could have even more power and privilege and the title of king of kings if you had the wisdom to invite other people into the privileged pool as they bring in their own provincial resources
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Nov 25, 2020 02:02
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