Mad Man
Your lord and master
If i'm not mistaken, didn't the Aztecs have plumbing and public lighting in some of there cities?
New Forum Game: History Rewritten Development Thread
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Lord of Elves
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While the Aztecs did have a canal system, there is no conceivable way they could have had public lighting. It would have been documented.
Mad Man
Your lord and master
I didn't mean electric lighting, I was thinking something along the lines of torches and such.
ilduce349
(Financial, Philo)
Not really:
better trade systems
better hospital systems
better (larger) cities
Astronomy was the area the the Inca, Maya and Aztec killed the Europeans in (Proving the world was round, orbiting around the sun WAY before we did, the Mayans symbol for the universe is the galactic spiral shape. It was very possible that the Mayans discovered the shape of the galaxy in the 9th century. We didn't achieve that until the 20's.)
ilduce349
(Financial, Philo)
It was better then nothing, but not really that good. All I can say is theres a reason we colonized half the world and survived small pox
The difference in quality of medical care between Europe and the Americas (if any) had precisely nothing to do with the more devastating effect of smallpox in the Americas.
Smallpox was a Eurasian disease. The outbreak of smallpox in the Americas after 1492 was a case of a virgin-soil epidemic compounded by genetics. A virgin-soil epidemic happens when a population not previously exposed to a disease (and, by implication, not having a degree of immunity to it, unlike Europeans) encounter it for the first time. The result is a lot of people die, very quickly, in very large numbers. For Amerindians, this is compounded by their genetic homogeneity, which in this case leads to a weaker immune system. Before 1492, this was not much of a problem since the Americas lack the more deadly infectious diseases like smallpox or influenza or measles. After 1492, it ensured that every Amerindian societies suffered catastrophic population losses.
Think of the Black Death, a virgin-soil epidemic that killed a quarter or a third of Europe's population. The effect of a smallpox outbreak among Amerindians was similar. Now imagine that scenario repeating itself multiples times over years, decades and then centuries, for influenza, measles, plague, and repeated outbreaks of smallpox, due to Indians' weaker immune system.
ilduce349
(Financial, Philo)
Difference the the plauge and the pox:
Europe survived it and then went on to colonize half the world
Note: I said repeated epidemics and weaker immune systems. Medical practices had little, if anything, to do with it. Remember it wasn't just smallpox; even measles can kill off a good 10% of the population or more, and this was in the 20th century, when modern medical expertise was scarce but nevertheless available.
Let's see if you can imagine European civilization surviving intact after 3-4 Black Deaths with weaker immune systems while being invaded by people with superior weapons.
ilduce349
(Financial, Philo)
Really? then how come 200 years later half the world was under europes control, I don't call that barely intact.
Lord of Elves
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That's a pretty bad misconception of the period.
The Black Death was not just the death of thousands of people within Europe, but the death of the feudal system. The massive amount of deceased meant there was more land to go around, and allowed an emancipation of sorts of the European working man, and began the Renaissance. This, coupled with the discovery of the New World and the colonialism that followed set things up in Europe for the rise of the Enlightenment and the slow death of the Papacy's control over European affairs, as well as the education of the common person. The Black Death led into the Renaissance, which as literally a Rebirth, gave new light and thoughts to religious and political topics, and new interpretations of government and theology, and the Enlightenment which was perhaps the first movement to dare think that there was no God.
The reason the Native Americans suffered from the Bubonic Plague and smallpox is because these were diseases that originated in Europe, which the Native Americans had had absolutely no contact with and therefore no immunity to. With the increasing urbanization of European communities, disease began to fester and you either died, or developed some level of immunity, becoming a carrier of sorts of the germs and viruses necessary to propagate the disease in another region, in this case the Americas. The Native Americans, who still lived agricultural lifestyles and had limited urbanization had less immunity to disease in general thanks to the fact that their illness did not fester in the streets and alley-ways, but was restricted entirely to the mobility to persons, which in such a spread out society was limited. Thus, the European colonization movement inadvertently introduced European diseases (Bubonic Plague, smallpox) to the Native Americans, who having no immunity, died in the thousands.
Europe was indeed hardly intact following the Black Death. Its aftermath had thrown down the traditional way of life for the peasant and the noble and cut away at the pillars which held up feudal society. The re-ordering of life that followed was what enabled Europe to become a colonial power, and arguably had the Black Death not occurred, European development would have been set back by centuries.
ilduce349
(Financial, Philo)
Exactly, the black death helped Europe, as
1) It allowed them to start over
2) It made them figure out what they were doing wrong and how to fix it
All I am saying is if a disease helps them in the long term, it doesn't leave them barely intact.
1) It allowed them to start over
2) It made them figure out what they were doing wrong and how to fix it
All I am saying is if a disease helps them in the long term, it doesn't leave them barely intact.
Lord of Elves
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Addressing the bolded portion first; while the feudal system was oppressive and often violent, there was nothing "wrong", about it. It made sense for the demographics of the location and time period.
Europe was ruined by the Black Death. While it gave European society a chance to move on to the "next stage", of development it left a hole which resulted in wars, rebellions, et cetera. In the long run the Black Death was ultimately a positive thing for Europe, but in the short term, it brought civilization on the continent to its knees.
ilduce349
(Financial, Philo)
how did they get superior weapons :cough:Technology:cough:
In middle term (180 years) they invaded the Aztecs who some people claim were superior.
The plague benefited Europe
Lord of Elves
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Bolded: Happy accident. Gunpowder resulted from European innovation on a Chinese formula which the Chinese had failed to exploit for its full military purpose. Also, the iron age never occurred (at all?) to the extent that it did in Europe as far as the Native Americans were concerned.
Non-bolded: The Aztecs were not by any means a technologically superior culture. They were largely an iron-age society with the traits thereof.
ilduce349
(Financial, Philo)
That brings us back to the original discussion, was the new world as advanced as the old world. You basically agree with me in the discussion, yet you are arguing against me
