Quote from: Pat on March 12, 2021, 12:01:12 AM
One of the main reasons they were one trick ponies is because they didn't know each other existed. That's another serious limitation of the Americas -- it lacks a Silk Road equivalent, an east-west path along a very long stretch of the continent. The reason that's important is because migration of flora and fauna tends to be along bands of latitude where the climate and other conditions are roughly comparable, and that has a major influence on the spread of civilization because they're heavily dependent on their domesticated animals and crops to support their populations and empires. That kind of interchange happened easily happened across Afroeurasia, but there's nothing equivalent in the Americas, which stretch north and south not east and west, narrow to a tiny bottleneck in the middle, and have massive natural barriers. The major pockets of early American civilization -- for instance the Inca in the south, the Aztecs in the middle, and the various nations in the north -- were never able to set up trade with each other, and didn't even seem to realize each other existed. It's amazing the civilizations in the Americas got as far as they did, because the biggest multiplier of learning and technology is interaction with more people, and they were stuck in tiny pockets.

We have an example in real history of how that might play out, in one respect:  The development of the Cherokee alphabet.  The Cherokee didn't need much lead time once exposed to the idea of an alphabet to run with it.  Sequoya saw the value almost immediately.  Problem was that they needed more lead time than they had for it to spread.  Or for Sequoya to be born much earlier.  And of course Sequoya was able to build it because he was a bright guy that got to immerse in another culture. 

So another way to introduce a plausible alternate history is have the Vikings go a little further south into the Iroquois nations (northern relatives of the Cherokees with regular trade and communication with them, unusual for the Americas), make friends long enough for a few Iroquois to go back to Europe, immerse, and then go home.  The odds of getting someone of Sequoya's insight are low, but then in a fantastical alternate history, that is the serendipity that you need to make it stick. 

Quote from: Brigman on March 12, 2021, 04:50:38 AM
I may disagree with some of the Pundit's politics, but he's earned my respect as a free-speech advocate, and (in my opinion) a man of integrity.  Free speech doesn't mean tolerating or advocating hate speech, and he doesn't.  Or I wouldn't be here.

The very concept of "hate speech" is antithetical to the idea of free speech. But that crap doesn't belong in this forum, either.

Quote from: jhkim on March 11, 2021, 10:57:29 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 11, 2021, 08:20:12 PM
The Japanese had Buddhism at least. But the point is that the gods of the Aztecs (and to a lesser extent, the Incas) were monstrous motherfuckers. They had no advanced philosophies of the types of concepts presented by Confucius, Lao Tzu, Buddha, the patriarchs of Judaism, Zoroaster, the greek philosophers, and Christ. 

Assuming you magically gave them the resources what you'd have is essentially the most unimaginably evil empire in human history, bathing the world in blood, unless you change them to be more European in values. Which essentially destroys the notion that they were better off without the evil-white-man.

First of all, I think the extent of American Indian philosophies is largely unknown, since they didn't have writing. But you're contradicting yourself here. You note Confucius, Lao Tzu, and Buddha as advanced philosophies -- but then you claim that Europe is the only possible source of advancement. I think figures like Buddha shows that Europe is *not* required. *If* the Americas were to have many centuries of advancement with no European contact, then it's possible that they would develop writing on their own - and then have philosophers like Lao Tzu and/or Buddha.

The Aztecs were bastards (widely considered so even by other peoples of the area), but I don't think the Incans were particularly worse than the ancient (pre-Christian) Assyrians, Saxons, Mongols, or many other peoples of Eurasia.

No, I never claimed that only Europe could be a source of advancement. I claimed (well, its more of an obvious fact than a claim) that Europe ended up creating both the most technologically advanced and the most humane civilization of all time. Any human culture with the right resources and enough time could theoretically develop an advanced civilization, but certain regions had the benefit of more beneficial resources in abundance to allow them the amount of time of civilizational stability to develop advanced ideas. The west was especially lucky due to a combination of events that all contributed to the development of a sufficiently advanced culture that it could develop concepts of human rights that no other civilization did; but in theory had things gone a bit differently for China, India or the Middle-East, they could have done so as well. They just didn't (India had a variety of small setbacks that prevented it, while in my opinion the main factor that ruined China and the Middle-East chances was the unbelievably devastating effect of the Mongol invasions.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 11, 2021, 11:28:02 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on March 11, 2021, 08:00:50 PM
There's an argument to be made that the political system and philosophy of England (which definitely drove the emergent political systems of North America) owes something to the Norse/Germanic Althing and other concepts.  The Normans brought a blend of European and northern ideas which can be argued to have been vital to the growth of the quintessential English "character."  And England was, in many ways, the father of American culture.  So the Germanic cultures had more influence that you give them credit for...

That's pretty much the angle I was coming from. The early kings of Europe were Germanic chieftans who adopted Christianity and various Roman elements.

One of the clearest signs of Germanic influence is how many English words derive from German, including the names of the week (Tyr's day, Woden's day, Thor's day, Fria's day). A secondary sign is the familiarity of Germanic mythology falling just slightly behind Greco-Roman mythology and the Bible in terms of familiarity (to the point that it was something Tolkien felt comfortable pulling from in creating Middle Earth).

Also, even though it's not the reason I mentioned them, I also wouldn't discount the value of tearing down the corrupt and over-centralized Roman power centers and the resulting benefits to society from more localized power and the necessity and freedom to innovate. Clearing out corruption often requires the political equivalent of a forest fire to clear away all the rotten dead wood so that new growth can occur.

This doesn't mean they're the biggest element of the European potpourri; but I'd definitely put them at numer three after Judeo-Christian and Roman cultural elements.

Which is the other element that makes the racist idiocy of games like this one we've been discussing so tone deaf... their ridiculous notion that European culture is some "always has been, always will be" monoculture that arose all on its own instead the truth that European (and, by extension, American) culture is actually a fusion of multiple cultures into a whole greater than the sum of its parts (basically Scott Adams' Talent Stack on a societal level).

Of all the European cultures, the one that became the most advanced, and became the largest proponent of the Enlightenment ideals that made the West morally better than any other civilization, was the Anglo-Saxon/Norman culture. So obviously, one small part of the recipe for that was the influence of the Saxons. But you could equally point to the Norman influence; and neither of these were as important as the influence of Greco-Roman thought and the particular development of English Christianity.

Quote from: Spinachcat on March 12, 2021, 04:39:29 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 11, 2021, 07:27:12 PM
This fucking site: every day I get a handful of reports of people bitching about how they didn't like something someone said to them, like I would give a fuck, and yet not one report on the neo-nazi bullshit.

This is a free speech site. Nobody needs to be bitching to you, nor reporting wrongthink.

And you can keep banning all the "neo-nazi bullshit" and your detractors will keep calling you a naughty nutzi forever and ever.

Good thing that's not why I do it, then.

The theory I have is that you have to have several factors, in the right place at the right time, to get a civilization progressing beyond the basic hunter-gatherer stage. Environmental pressures, access to certain resources, and a limit on friction with competing neighbors (lest said neighbors wipe you out or absorb you).

Much like cooking, in a way. If you don't have the right factors in the right place, your souffle -- or your nascent civilization -- collapses.

Pundit, what else would need to change for the Native Americans to flourish beyond stone age and form a power bloc to oppose any colonization? You've mentioned the lack of draft animals and crops. I have a seed of an idea but I wanna cook it a bit first.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 12, 2021, 10:19:05 AM
The theory I have is that you have to have several factors, in the right place at the right time, to get a civilization progressing beyond the basic hunter-gatherer stage. Environmental pressures, access to certain resources, and a limit on friction with competing neighbors (lest said neighbors wipe you out or absorb you).

Much like cooking, in a way. If you don't have the right factors in the right place, your souffle -- or your nascent civilization -- collapses.

Pundit, what else would need to change for the Native Americans to flourish beyond stone age and form a power bloc to oppose any colonization? You've mentioned the lack of draft animals and crops. I have a seed of an idea but I wanna cook it a bit first.

I would strongly recommend the Origins of Political Order by Francis Fukuyma. It lays out his thesis for the development of society from huntergather groupings to tribes, nation states and so on.

Interestingly despite being a liberal atheist himself he posits that religion was a crucial ingredient.

Very simplistically, ancestor worship and especially mythical common ancestors for wide groups (think Romulus) allow wider cooperation than just immediate family. However religions need to continue to develop and become more sophisticated as well to allow a culture to develop further.

Eventually an organised religion that you can convert people who aren't related to you allows very wide cooperation and loyalty not possible in a tribal system.

He also argues that along the way the theological amd metaphysical principles of your religion also matter and directly link to political and economic developments.  For example an omnipotent God that judges you naturally encourages the idea of rule of law to develop through personal morality. Essentially it is an internal check and balance regardless of an individuala political status.

Personal salvation of your soul (rather than simply protecting your ancestors and tribe) encourages the idea that you are ultimately responsible for your own wellbeing. This encourages individualism, personal liberty and property ownership rather than tribal ownership.

In short the old cliche of religion being the cause of all war is true. But only in so much as it is also the cause of everything.

He also heavily favours geography as another key component of the development of cultures. Essentially Europe had the perfect georgraphy to allow centralised kingdoms and empires to form but that would constantly face opposition, rebellion and eventually insurmountable challenges and inevitably decline. This allowed overall advancement across the continent without the technological and culture stagnation that China faced after a centralised state was formed.

Once you get into what we would consider modern nation states basically having a population that actually believes in the basic cultural principles combined with a government that avoids systemic corruption is crucial. 

On this basis I'd say North America's big problem is geographic. Early on if a bronze age warlord sets himself up as King anyone who disagrees has plenty of space to just up and leave without needing to fight. Pretty difficult to create a centralised state with specialist job roles in those circumstances.

Quote from: TJS on March 12, 2021, 02:59:36 AM

Quote from: jhkim on March 12, 2021, 02:41:09 AM
Yes, this is very close to the "Ezcalli" timeline from GURPS Alternate Earths that I mentioned in a previous post. This allows introducing the Columbian exchange much earlier, when the differential between Europe and the New World was not as great. They also noted that introducing the potato could throw a wrench into European development. The potato doesn't require mills or large-scale organization of harvest and threshing, so it allows fragmenting into smaller tribes and clans.

James C Scott writes about this in "The Art of Not Being Governed" (It's about South East Asia and talks about Sweet Potatoes but the principle is the same).

Basically states like big monocultures of grains like wheat or rice that have to be stored.  This makes them easy to keep track of and to tax.

Root vegetables are grown in the ground, are a lot easier to hide, and can be eaten after you dig them up.  They're a lot harder to keep track of.  Scott writes how in South East Asia states would often have trouble maintaining their population as people would flee to marginal land such as hills or swamps where the state had a lot of trouble projecting it's authority and grow sweet potato.  They were thus free from taxes and generally had a better diet (less monoculture). This in turn lend to  cycle of states engaging in war partly in order to capture slaves and maintain their population.

Yeah, that describes the effect more pointedly. So in Europe, that would make it less likely for a Charlemagne and other large states to develop. If one is developing a realistic alternate history, it's an intriguing possibility.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 12, 2021, 10:19:05 AM
The theory I have is that you have to have several factors, in the right place at the right time, to get a civilization progressing beyond the basic hunter-gatherer stage. Environmental pressures, access to certain resources, and a limit on friction with competing neighbors (lest said neighbors wipe you out or absorb you).

Much like cooking, in a way. If you don't have the right factors in the right place, your souffle -- or your nascent civilization -- collapses.

Pundit, what else would need to change for the Native Americans to flourish beyond stone age and form a power bloc to oppose any colonization? You've mentioned the lack of draft animals and crops. I have a seed of an idea but I wanna cook it a bit first.

I agree that conditions for advancement are necessary for progress. However, calling the Native Americans "stone age" is extremely deceptive. The big American civilizations were far more developed than anything in the Eurasian stone age. Particularly in Mesoamerica and the Andes, they had advanced plant agriculture, growing crops to feed huge cities. In 1500, Tenochtitlan had a population of 400,000 -- when the largest city in Europe at the time was Paris at 225,000. They had irrigation, pottery, textiles, road-building, math, calendars, and more. Incan textiles were just as advanced as Europe's, for example, where cotton weaving was just getting started in 1500.

One important clarification - I said I didn't think draft animals were necessary for advancement, which I think is true. However, I do think more domesticated animals would be necessary to oppose Eurasian colonization. The key is disease. Living in close contact with a variety of animals leads to the development of more diseases - like anthrax from sheep and so forth. Far moreso than iron and guns, what killed off Native Americans in the real world were Eurasian diseases. The horse is also very important militarily, but disease is far more important.

For the Americas, they were long past hunter-gatherer. I think Pat's had a great point earlier about their limitation in further advancement:

Quote from: Pat on March 12, 2021, 12:01:12 AM
One of the main reasons they were one trick ponies is because they didn't know each other existed. That's another serious limitation of the Americas -- it lacks a Silk Road equivalent, an east-west path along a very long stretch of the continent. The reason that's important is because migration of flora and fauna tends to be along bands of latitude where the climate and other conditions are roughly comparable, and that has a major influence on the spread of civilization because they're heavily dependent on their domesticated animals and crops to support their populations and empires. That kind of interchange happened easily happened across Afroeurasia, but there's nothing equivalent in the Americas, which stretch north and south not east and west, narrow to a tiny bottleneck in the middle, and have massive natural barriers. The major pockets of early American civilization -- for instance the Inca in the south, the Aztecs in the middle, and the various nations in the north -- were never able to set up trade with each other, and didn't even seem to realize each other existed. It's amazing the civilizations in the Americas got as far as they did, because the biggest multiplier of learning and technology is interaction with more people, and they were stuck in tiny pockets.

I largely agree. The interchange between civilizations is vital to developing innovations.

Quote from: jhkim on March 12, 2021, 11:53:37 AM
I largely agree. The interchange between civilizations is vital to developing innovations.

I also agree with Ghostmaker that draft animals were vital because they were labor multipliers. That could be worked around, sure, but it made it a lot harder. Same with crops. The various features of potatoes that TLS describes would make large empires harder to maintain, since the only crop in the Americas that had a high calorie density and was easy to tax collectors to find was corn, and when exactly did corn grow to reasonable size? Because it started as thumb-sized cobs that were useless for intensive agriculture. Eurasia by comparison had many grains, and they were domesticated and turned into useful forms much earlier. Ghostmaker's theory of several factors is essentially the Anna Karenina principle, named from Tolstoy's famous line: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." The basic idea is that, for certain things, success requires a whole host of factors to go right, and if even one is missing the endeavor is doomed to failure. It may not be a perfect analogy to the development of civilization, but it's a good one. Afroeurasia had everything going for it, while the Americas lacked many. And while it didn't completely forestall the emergence of civilization, it definitely slowed it down.

Greetings!

Hmmm. I don't agree with the hypothesis that the America's lacked resources in which to support the growth and development of civilization. In past research that I have done in regards to life in pre-Columbus America and the early Colonial Period, numerous primary sources and testimony from journals, articles, interviews and such like, discuss the American rivers practically covered shore-to-shore with huge fish of every kind; the banks and estuaries off the north-eastern seaboard contained unimaginable numbers of Cod, numerous varieties of fish, as well as great whales. The amount and supplies of fish were so enormous as to cause wholesale revival of long-since depleted food industries throughout Europe. Historians and such have painted a picture of many of the great rivers in Europe at the time were sad, mud and sewage-choked arteries, having been severely depleted of their native fish populations.

Furthermore, the Americas--primarily relating to testimonies and descriptions of people in North America--had vast forests *filled* with every kind of game animal in enormous abundance--as well as later encountered ocean-like herds of buffalo and deer on the Great Plains. Long before encountering the Great Plains environment in a settler-manner, American Colonial fur trappers had developed and built an enormously profitable fur-trading empire which supplied Europe with eagerly-sought fine furs--which Europe had not experienced any such like for many long centuries. Then, there is the fact that the Cherokee, for example, had already developed abundant farming crops--which were *superior* in yield and quality to anything the neighboring white colonials were engaged in. (This is one of the deeper reasons for the United States animosity towards the Cherokee Nation, and the driving insistence from local Governors and common people alike, maintaining that the Cherokee Nation must be crushed, and driven out; This, of course led to the infamous "Trail of Tears" where the Cherokee tribes were marched from the Carolinas and parts of Georgia to live on wasteland reservations in the Oklahoma Territory. Scholars have noted that the Cherokee had long-since harnessed and developed the best, fertile land, and had developed superior agricultural techniques compared to the Europeans, and subsequently, Americans).

Beyond such resources of freshwater fish, ocean fish and whales, vast numbers of game animals and buffalo, enormous supply of animal furs, there were skies *filled* with clouds of game birds--again, absolutely unimaginable for people in Europe. There were plenty of crops not just in the Cherokee areas, but in many other regions as well. Scholars have noted how the Iroquois, and more than a few other tribes that also engaged in agriculture, did so with virtually endless provision of excellent crops, plentiful vegetables, and more. The Native Americans certainly did not lack for agricultural abundance. Oh, and besides all of those resources, we also know that the woo and timber logged in America also astounded Europe, revitalizing products and industries in Britain and other areas of Europe that had long since hacked down much of their own native European forests, and in addition to the overwhelming quantity and supply of wood to Europe, the age, strength, and quality of such woods and timber also surpassed anything the Europeans had encountered in many lifetimes.

I remember reading where the texts described what the early Europeans found in North America must have seemed like an unimaginable paradise on earth--an astounding, and seemingly endless provision of natural resources of every kind. Riches in gold, silver, and iron were not immediately discovered by early European settlers, and would take American settlers and explorers some time before those riches too, would be found in America. I recall several tangents of resource knowledge, not just from History books, but also from Geography Professors, Anthropologists, Geologists, and Oceanographers--some of these scholars had vast and particular knowledge of early Colonial, as well as Pre-Columbian Americas in regards to rivers, minerals and metals, forests and plant life, fish and animals, as well as a wide variety of agricultural traditions and techniques embraced by the Native American tribes.

So, I'm not buying the idea that the Americas didn't have the key natural resources to advance and grow civilization. The Americas had plentiful and staggering supply of natural resources, far beyond anything the Europeans ever dreamed of. The Native American tribes certainly did not have certain particular technological innovations--like the wheel, or gunpowder, nor did they have the same variety of domesticated animals, such as the noted horse, and pig. The Americas however, possessed a huge variety and vast supply of natural resources. Huge urban civilizations and empires didn't develop much in the Americas, but such failed to develop over the Americas as a whole for several reasons--but lack of natural resources, food, and such provision isn't one of them.

As to some of those "other" foundational reasons, some of which have been noted by Pundit and others, which are accurate. The lack of te horse severely reduced the capacity for long-range travel and exchange of ideas, as an overall dynamic. I think it must be acknowledged that the Native Americans most certainly had a different Pagan religion, but also a religion that simply did not emphasize the same things and value the same things, in the same manner or scope that Christianity did as it was established in Europe. The Native Americans for the most part--obviously, the Aztecs, Incas, amongst others--lived organized differently, but many of the tribes especially in North America, *liked* living the way they had been, for generations, forever. Their culture, their religion, in whatever ways, did not push them to expand, build, and somehow achieve more and more and more. One of the reasons materially which heavily shaped their native philosophy is they possessed vast abundance of everything they needed to be happy and prosperous--there was not an absence, or a condition of deprivation or limit that required them to somehow do whatever different. So, the Native American cultures embraced different philosophies, different priorities, and different ways of living than the Europeans. The Native Americans didn't need to live like the Europeans. They didn't need filthy cities, greedy merchants, and imperious nobles and kings telling them how to live. They didn't need the endless materialistic drive for more profits, for more of everything...because. The Native Americans created a society that was far less materialistic, and far more independent and self-contained than the European cultural model.

The Native Americans possessed a wide range of social and tribal models, styles of government and leadership, and their Native religion also influenced them deeply on different priorities. While such seems obvious, some of the seemingly subtle aspects have an enormous impact when coming into conflict with a civilization that is in the Renaissance Age, and on the cusp of the Industrial Age, when the Native Americans were essentially in a kind of Nomadic and Agricultural Age. It isn't simple to define them in general terms, because the environment and geography had such a huge impact on shaping the different Native societies. Certainly, there were huge differences between the tribal societies of North America, and the more state-level cultures that grew to develop in Central and South America. Even across the enormous expanse of North America, there were huge differences in cultures, economies, and ways of life. Many Native tribes were warlike savages, this is true. However, as a broad culture, their philosophy, economy, and social organization was distinctly different from the European model, and also of Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Exactly where does geography, animals, technology, time and space, culture, all combine to shape the dynamics of how a culture grow and develops is extremely broad. In shorthand, the Native American tribes could not change their culture in the face of onrushing opposition and war in a few centuries what Europe and Asia had been transitioning through over a period of roughly 1200 to 1500 years. It isn't pretty when a less technologically advanced culture gets invaded by a more technologically advanced culture. Diseases from Europe--which because of their isolation, caused by being separated by two vast oceans--made the Native American tribes more susceptible to diseases such as smallpox and more. That is merely a consequence of geographical and physiological isolation. Some scholars have maintained that from the time of Columbus to 1650 or so, 90% of the Native tribal populations had been wiped out by disease. I remember reading the commentary of a Spanish explorer that traveled from Florida to Mexico, traveling through entre Native villages, where hundreds and more people were all dead--from plagues that had already reached the tribes living in the interior and along his travel route, that had become exposed from Native traders and such that had already had contact with the Spanish, and unknowingly, going back to their tribal areas, or trekking off to bring the incredible news of strange visitors to other neighboring tribes.

People can engage in "What Ifs" all they like, but the conflict between Europe and the Native Americans was an enormous clash of civilizations in different stages of development. Such differences were vast, and encompassed everything from animals, social organization, religious values, individual identity, concepts of wealth, materialism, and land ownership and land usage, and so much more. It is a whole range of factors--not merely a single factor or aspect.

It should also be noted, politically and philosophically, the Founding Fathers in the United States and Americans in general, were significantly influenced politically, philosophically, and socially, through their ongoing contact and experience with the Native American tribes and Nations. The Iroquois, the Cherokee, and many others, were definitely not strangers to the concepts of Democracy, individualism, personal rights and freedoms, as well as tolerance and acceptance for differences, as well as an attitude which could be surprisingly embracing of the "foreigner" and offering acceptance to "The Stranger". Many Native Tribes had ancient traditions and customs which strictly limited the power and authority of any chieftains, elders, and so on, while also making strong provisions which honored individual rights, freedom, and identity. While ancient Greece and Rome rightfully have a foundational place in the philosophy of America and subsequent Western Civilization, as well as enormous foundational pillars of Christianity and also from Jewish traditions and culture, I would not casually dismiss the contributions and salient influence from the Americans exposure and experience with the Native Americans for four hundred and more years. While it is certainly true that the Native Americans did not have a Lao Zhu, or an Aristotle--that Western Europeans would recognize at any rate--they influenced Benjamin Franklin, amongst other dignitaries and leaders of the time--as well as countless influences through trading, intermarrying and having families, speaking with local captains, mayors, governors and town councils, as well as preachers and other clergy, in addition to traders, trappers, soldiers and explorers from all walks of life, from the early 1600's in the beginning of the colonies, throughout the centuries of dealing with each other in ways both large and small.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on March 12, 2021, 08:06:53 PMHuge urban civilizations and empires didn't develop much in the Americas, but such failed to develop over the Americas as a whole for several reasons--but lack of natural resources, food, and such provision isn't one of them.

Maybe it wasn't lack of resources, maybe it was abundance of resources that held them back.

My theory of human development is that we're driven by our weaknesses. Because we lack fur, we had to figure out how to make shelter and clothing. Because our young can't take care of themselves until 12 or so, we had to co-operate as tribes. And so on.

If your area is rich in wild animals to hunt and berries to pick and all that, why would you bother creating agriculture? Grizzly Adams didn't plant crops. If your area is completely bleak, of course, then you also won't farm. So to get farmers, you need an area which is poor enough otherwise to make it worth the trouble, but rich enough that farming will work.

And then the farming - if hoeing with a stone hoe gets you twice the food you and your family need, why would you bother upgrading to bronze?

Just some thoughts.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on March 12, 2021, 08:28:18 PM

Quote from: SHARK on March 12, 2021, 08:06:53 PMHuge urban civilizations and empires didn't develop much in the Americas, but such failed to develop over the Americas as a whole for several reasons--but lack of natural resources, food, and such provision isn't one of them.

Maybe it wasn't lack of resources, maybe it was abundance of resources that held them back.

My theory of human development is that we're driven by our weaknesses. Because we lack fur, we had to figure out how to make shelter and clothing. Because our young can't take care of themselves until 12 or so, we had to co-operate as tribes. And so on.

If your area is rich in wild animals to hunt and berries to pick and all that, why would you bother creating agriculture? Grizzly Adams didn't plant crops. If your area is completely bleak, of course, then you also won't farm. So to get farmers, you need an area which is poor enough otherwise to make it worth the trouble, but rich enough that farming will work.

And then the farming - if hoeing with a stone hoe gets you twice the food you and your family need, why would you bother upgrading to bronze?

Just some thoughts.

Greetings!

Excellent points, Kyle! I agree. I think the whole *abundance of resources* was a huge factor in shaping how the Native cultures developed--and didn't develop, as you point out.

Very true. I remember reading a section where many American colonials were complaining that the "Indians wasted the land!" The Native tribes had all of these animals, all of this land, all of these resources--and were not doing a damned thing with much of any of them. The colonials however, desperately needed all of this. For social structure--the way Europeans build families, organize land, resources, inheritance--and growing from all that, how social hierarchies are organized, and how class, social status, and personal identities are all shaped and defined--all of that was TOTALLY different within Native American tribes. When asked, a Native Chieftain explained, "Why do we need to "Profit" like you do, and gain more? Every member of the tribe has plenty of clothes and furs, their own lodge, abundant food for everyone. Our wives and children are all happy, and grow strong. Why must we do more? Why must we abandon the traditions of our ancestors and live like the white man?" I'm paraphrasing, but various Native figures said these things, asked these questions--and the white people that interacted with them, well, none of them had a very satisfactory answer to anything the Natives said. In all honesty, as I've read or understood everything involved, the white colonials couldn't even comprehend the questions. Their identity, their economy, their society, their religion, their technology, their money, all of it--they simply could not comprehend a life that didn't include such things and concepts. For the Natives, they also could not comprehend the materialism, the social organization, that expected, and demanded always more, more of everything, for everyone, continuously. The whites also had a different kind of social and class structure, built on entirely different concepts and priorities. The Natives were not all "Kum By Yah" peaceful, and stupid, but they did not have the same kind of materialistic based culture that the whites possessed. Natives essentially were equal, with very basic social hierarchies based on skill, knowledge, spirituality, or tradition, though not really based on materialistic conditions or dynamics. You basically had the chieftain, a group of elders, a group of shamans, and then everyone else. The degrees of difference within the social strata amongst Native cultures were not as vast as the differences and distinctions within European social structures. These cultural differences also would have profound and deep influence on relations between white Europeans and Natives, because such concepts form the "furniture" of their cultural reference, of how they view and define reality. Huge differences, unfortunately, and they could not be overcome easily or quickly.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on March 12, 2021, 08:06:53 PM
Hmmm. I don't agree with the hypothesis that the America's lacked resources in which to support the growth and development of civilization. \

That's not the argument anyone seems to be making, though. It's not about a lack of a general category of things called "resources". No, it's that there appear to be a number of specific factors that all have to be present before a highly advanced civilization will emerge. You can have all the resources you need in other categories, but if you're missing one of the key ones, in a sufficient quantity, it just won't happen. My addendum is that these key factors don't seem be as binary as that suggests, but they do seem to have a dramatic effect on the rate at which those civilizations will emerge.

The Americas had vast resources, which as Kyle pointed out could have been a negative. Agriculture allows much higher population densities, but the first wave of agriculture tends to lower living conditions. Why would people who live lives of abundance and plenty give that up for some hypothetical benefit they probably couldn't even conceive in, in future generations? But while the Americas did have many resources, they lacked key ones. For instance, domesticated animals. They lacked goat, pigs, sheep, chickens, horses, cattle, yaks, camels, and more. Llama aren't really a replacement, meaning they had to rely on human muscles for clearing rocks from fields, plowing low qualify land, transport and trade, and more. The Americas also lack all the high calorie grains of Afroeurasia, like barley, wheat, rice, and on and on. All they had was maize, and that took a very long time before it was bred into a form that was highly productive. They did have other alternatives like potatoes, but as we noted those might discourage rather than encourage empires. Seasonal grains that require communal effort and are easy to find and tax force high levels of cooperation and lead to more complex social and political structures. Other examples are the lack of east-west routes, which make trade and expansion difficult, and geographical bottlenecks or barriers like the Panama isthmus, the Rocky Mountains, and the deserts of the American SW which do the same. The pockets of civilization that emerged were thus isolated, and lacked the feedback loop of interaction with other peoples that seems to drive a lot of human innovation.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on March 12, 2021, 08:28:18 PM
Maybe it wasn't lack of resources, maybe it was abundance of resources that held them back.

My theory of human development is that we're driven by our weaknesses. Because we lack fur, we had to figure out how to make shelter and clothing. Because our young can't take care of themselves until 12 or so, we had to co-operate as tribes. And so on.

If your area is rich in wild animals to hunt and berries to pick and all that, why would you bother creating agriculture? Grizzly Adams didn't plant crops. If your area is completely bleak, of course, then you also won't farm. So to get farmers, you need an area which is poor enough otherwise to make it worth the trouble, but rich enough that farming will work.

And then the farming - if hoeing with a stone hoe gets you twice the food you and your family need, why would you bother upgrading to bronze?

Just some thoughts.

There was actually a documentary I watched recently proposing pretty much the same theory; among other things when noting where civilizations evolved they noted that, in general, they occurred most often in slightly sub-optimal conditions where actual labor would be needed to produce sufficient food, but not so suboptimal that the labor would threaten your health... the most common trends were subpar rainfall (requiring irrigation) and temperatures cool enough that you wouldn't overheat while laboring.

So yes, an overabundance of easy to acquire food does actually hinder development; the Native Americans didn't need advanced farming techniques or metal tools to acquire all the resources they needed to survive... so they never developed them.

There's an interesting book The Decadent Society which essentially says the technological and economic progress in the West has plateaued. I'd suggest that we're at a level of prosperity where we don't really have a drive to come up with anything more. The prosperity of the 1950s and 60s was probably enough to allow for decadent contentment, but the hardship of the 1930s and 40s was fresh in people's minds and probably drove them. But by the 1980s they were retired or dead, and the Western world was being run by people who had only ever known peace and prosperity.

In other words: we got fat.

I think this proposed game is a very interesting demonstration of this:

QuoteFat Self Care is a solo journaling game where you play Rowan, a fat person, as they go through a day of fun and fulfilling activities. At each point during the day, you will have several choices of which activity you want to do next, and each activity will provide several questions for you to shape Rowan's inner life, relationships, and self-image. Each activity ends with two affirmations - reclaiming the word fat and giving you and Rowan a truth that is commonly denied to fat people.

In other words, you're roleplaying a person who is completely content as they are. You have no drive to change yourself, to build your career or relationships, and you are not suffering in any way whatsoever. A life with neither suffering nor ambition, in a world of "fun and fulfilling activities", is pretty much the definition of decadence.

Some suffering and privation is probably necessary to encourage technological and economic development - and social changes, too. For example, the massive loss of life of the Black Death led to positive social changes, as serfdom was reduced or ended, labourers could move where they liked and got paid more, and so on. I don't think it's a coincidence that the daughters of the women who worked in munitions factories during WWII ended up in second wave feminism.

Absent suffering and privation, people are content, and nothing changes. And some may even embrace this idle contentment. Fat Self Care is a celebration of decadence.