While We Wait: Part 2

[Lord_Iggy]

It is quite possible that NESing's 'Absolute victory at all Costs' mentality has skewed some of our opinions on Warfare. Though that's by no means the only variable.

 

[Luckymoose]

It is quite possible that NESing's 'Absolute victory at all Costs' mentality has skewed some of our opinions on Warfare. Though that's by no means the only variable.

I do not fight war like that. If I am losing I usually surrender if things are going bad. My enemies are the ones who refuse realistic peace. Sometimes a war does not end with the loser being annexed ok. Most of the time they don't end that way.

 

[das]

Wars historically tend to induce the first and second, so...

Indirectly so, yes. But wars are far from the only conceivable cause, and far more people died for reasons that had little to do with war. Especially when we talk about seriously decimating a population.

To be honest, NESers don't pursue total war all that often nowadays, though they do it often enough for it to remain an issue.

 

[Symphony D.]

Soldiers pillage local resources for sustenance until a fairly Industrialized time period, and they are also foreigners from distant parts (yes, even if they are from adjoining countries like France and Germany) where there will be a different set of infections making them optimal disease vectors. There is a reason disease was the number one leading cause of death in all military campaigns prior to World War I/II. Such illnesses did not simply strike down soldiers. I refer you to the Spanish Flu--the most deadly epidemic in all human history.

You combine their depletion of local resources with the diseases they import while on campaign, and add in the actual devastation they might cause in the process of conducting a war, and they are every single bit as devastating as a natural disaster.

This is the same sort of thing that occurs in such disasters; for example, an earthquake causes fires, killing more people, and in the subsequent chaos sanitation declines dramatically, leading to spike in pestilence, and simultaneously the destruction of infrastructure leads to shortages of supplies and food. The net result in either case: lots of people die.

To call it "indirect" is the exact same as saying those "secondary" and "tertiary" killers in a natural disaster--the ones that generally cause by far the most casualties--are "indirect." They would not occur without the "primary" cause--be it a roving Army or a flood or hurricane or whatever--and as such they are direct results. War is just as bad a killer as most other things, precisely because it brings most of those other things with it.

 

[das]

It didn't bring the Black Death with it though, and that one was far more damaging. The smallpox epidemic in the New World would've spread just as well without any conquistadors. The Shaanxi Earthquake can't really be linked to war neither.

 

[Symphony D.]

It didn't bring the Black Death with it though, and that one was far more damaging. The smallpox epidemic in the New World would've spread just as well without any conquistadors. The Shaanxi Earthquake can't really be linked to war neither.

Because more people die in big flashy disasters that every so rarely kill a few tens to hundreds of thousands or millions and make for good history instead of in small, isolated incidents that kill hundreds or thousands and occur constantly. This is why, for example, 1 in every 237 people in the United States will die in a car accident while 1 in every 124,936 will die from an explosion of a pressurized device, or perhaps 1 in every 500,000 from an asteroid strike. Big disasters don't kill that many people relative to whole populations.

The previous ten years saw an average of 62,000 global deaths per year from natural disasters. That's far less than the tolls taken by famine, disease and war.

And this is in a day and age where most wars are localized and fairly small affairs and diseases are relatively contained amongst people with the technology to fight them. Don't give me that crap. What do you think contributed to cause 20% of Germany's population to die in the Thirty Years War? Here's a hint. War accelerates other vectors of death by synergizing with them.

Sure, Old World diseases would have been pretty bad if Europeans hadn't showed up by the boatloads to invade, kill and enslave all the survivors. But they did. So the diseases kept reoccurring (and mutating), and there was no time for the indigenous societies to recoup their strength because they were under constant physical assault from both types of invaders.

War kills lots of people. Typically by germs and starvation. Those germs and famines do not show up at the same times, as often, or as repeatedly if there are not armies marching to and fro to spread them or cause them by eating or burning crops. Black Death killed a paltry 75 million people over the course of 20 or so years and then became more or less like a particularly bad Flu for centuries. Malaria today kills about 1 - 3 million people annually. Smallpox killed 300 - 500 million people in the 20th Century alone. It's just nobody cares because they were always there killing a few hundred thousand people at the time annually instead of appearing from the blue and decimating whole populations. It wasn't remarkable. People do not generally record things perceived as ordinary. Take the Flu, for example:

Flu spreads around the world in seasonal epidemics, killing millions of people in pandemic years and hundreds of thousands in non-pandemic years.

You get the sniffles. A couple cities worth of people in China and India die. Doesn't pop up on the news though, does it? World used to be a lot more static than now though. What was one of the few times when large groups of infected foreigners would show up one day on your doorstep? Invasion? You guessed it.

What is the chief vector of spreading disease other than foreign traders? Foreign armies. What is the chief cause of societal upheaval and marked declines in living standards over prolonged periods of time other than climate change that weakens populations to disease? War, civil or foreign. War transmits disease, and often causes starvation. It also wrecks conventional destruction. In so doing it assists and spreads all three. Discounting it as a major source of human death through time, even if only as something of a courier, is opposed to all facts of history. I do not think probably the 10% - 15% of Germans that did not die from direct combat during the Thirty Years War of the 20% or so that did would just have up and died in quite the same numbers if that war hadn't been going on concurrently and doing things leading to their demise. Or that the Inca Empire would have collapsed in quite such a spectacular fashion or at all if smallpox had shown up but there had been no Pizarro behind it. Or the same with the Caribs. Or any of a thousand other cases.

There is a good reason the Four Horsemen are Death, Deprivation (Pestilence and Starvation), the Antichrist, and War.

 

[North King]

Black Death killed a paltry 75 million people over the course of 20 or so years and then became more or less like a particularly bad Flu for centuries.

Or that the Inca Empire would have collapsed in quite such a spectacular fashion or at all if smallpox had shown up but there had been no Pizarro behind it. Or the same with the Caribs.

I agree with most of your post, but I must take issue with these points. First of all, the Black Death was far more devastating than the Spanish Flu ever was, because while the absolute numbers were fairly close, the Black Death killed a much higher percentage of the population--not just in Europe, either.

As for smallpox, Pizzaro was merely in the right place at the right time. The Incas had already been brought nearly to their knees by disease and the subsequent civil war. Pizzaro just happened to waltz into the right man's camp (the Emperor), and take him hostage--it was not particularly premeditated, and he would have had no idea that he was going to paralyze an entire nation. In this particular case, smallpox did far more than the conquistadors ever would have been able to dream of doing, and the Incas probably would have collapsed from the diseases alone. It's rather hard to keep an empire going when 95%+ of your people die.

 

[Symphony D.]

I agree with most of your post, but I must take issue with these points. First of all, the Black Death was far more devastating than the Spanish Flu ever was, because while the absolute numbers were fairly close, the Black Death killed a much higher percentage of the population--not just in Europe, either.

Obviously. Body count is the typical measure of deadliness however, not ratio of infected population--that's mortality rate. Spanish Flu incurred more casualties--it is therefore the biggest killer. Black Death was, at its time, probably more virulent, and with a higher mortality rate and lethality.

As for smallpox, Pizzaro was merely in the right place at the right time. The Incas had already been brought nearly to their knees by disease and the subsequent civil war. Pizzaro just happened to waltz into the right man's camp (the Emperor), and take him hostage--it was not particularly premeditated, and he would have had no idea that he was going to paralyze an entire nation. In this particular case, smallpox did far more than the conquistadors ever would have been able to dream of doing, and the Incas probably would have collapsed from the diseases alone. It's rather hard to keep an empire going when 95%+ of your people die.

I am well aware of what occurred at Cajamarca. Pizarro's disposition is immaterial to this argument.

The scenario put forward by das is that it would be just as bad had there been no Conquistadors to exploit the weakness amongst the native population. I dispute that. 95% of the New World did not instantaneously become incapacitated by Smallpox, virulent as it is. In fact, Atahualpa was fighting for the throne with Huascar precisely because Huayna Capac had died from it, or maybe Malaria. In either event, obviously neither of them was dying from it, nor was the bulk of either of their armies, as they were quite capable of fighting a civil war to see who would succeed him.

It is not a superbug. It does not just kill 50%+ of all people it encounters like Ebola or Captain Trips. It rolls around for awhile amongst the population, picking people off generally over several years if there are many people to infect. If it's just a single incidence--no other infections or subsequent mutant waves of it appear--it is possible for a large population--particularly one with as stringent restrictions on travel as the Inca--to take quite awhile for it to pass through and kill. It's generally smaller, more isolated societies (like Inuit villages or Amazonian chiefdoms) that suffer more and get wiped out totally, not large scale societies. Strength in numbers.

If there were no Conquistadors, there would be no follow-up diseases immediately, or they would be drastically limited, there would be no outside force conspiring to destroy the Inca empire, and eventually, everyone who got Smallpox would either survive or die. Some would be left, maybe the Empire would collapse or contract, and if it did eventually it would recover or a successor state would emerge as always.

Again, it is a combination of factors. Instead, as many people died from Smallpox as would have otherwise, more died in the war and resistance against the Spanish, yet more died from the immediate drop in quality of life this second factor added to the already bad parts of the first, and then on top of that still more died from exploitation by the Spanish.

More people died from the fact there was a military invasion--and a continued , permanent European presence due to conquest--than would have died with just the disease alone. Going to prove my point: war is a purveyor of death, even if in this capacity it's largely transport for microbes and a strain upon local resources.

It is the combination of all these factors together by war that makes it as deadly as isolated, independent examples of either. Call it a Catalytic Infection Vector.

 

[Dachs]

You people terrify me. I'm going back to watching Pulp Fiction on BRAVO.

 

[North King]

Obviously. Body count is the typical measure of deadliness however, not ratio of infected population--that's mortality rate. Spanish Flu incurred more casualties--it is therefore the biggest killer. Black Death was, at its time, probably more virulent, and with a higher mortality rate and lethality.

Well, sorry, but that's silly. Mortality rate is far more important.

The scenario put forward by das is that it would be just as bad had there been no Conquistadors to exploit the weakness amongst the native population. I dispute that. 95% of the New World did not instantaneously become incapacitated by Smallpox, virulent as it is. In fact, Atahualpa was fighting for the throne with Huascar precisely because Huayna Capac had died from it, or maybe Malaria. In either event, obviously neither of them was dying from it, nor was the bulk of either of their armies, as they were quite capable of fighting a civil war to see who would succeed him.

Precisely--it killed their emperor, and would have killed more if the Spanish hadn't intervened. And alas, the statistics do bear out--it's impossible to say if smallpox had 95% of the kills, but 98% of the Native American population was killed by disease. Obviously not instantaneously, but quite quickly nonetheless: it only took about a century. Keep in mind that these mortality rates bear out even in fairly benign colonies like the French.

It is not a superbug. It does not just kill 50%+ of all people it encounters like Ebola or Captain Trips. It rolls around for awhile amongst the population, picking people off generally over several years if there are many people to infect. If it's just a single incidence--no other infections or subsequent mutant waves of it appear--it is possible for a large population--particularly one with as stringent restrictions on travel as the Inca--to take quite awhile for it to pass through and kill. It's generally smaller, more isolated societies (like Inuit villages or Amazonian chiefdoms) that suffer more and get wiped out totally, not large scale societies. Strength in numbers.

Incorrect. To unexposed and genetically vulnerable (Native American immune systems were more oriented towards fighting parasites), it was exactly that--a superbug, with mortality rates of around 80% in the first thirty years of Mesoamerica's exposure. Normally you would be correct, however, Native America is a special case of a highly isolated, massive ecosystem. Yet this special case resulted in the deaths of around a hundred million people, so I think it's worth considering.

If there were no Conquistadors, there would be no follow-up diseases immediately, or they would be drastically limited, there would be no outside force conspiring to destroy the Inca empire, and eventually, everyone who got Smallpox would either survive or die. Some would be left, maybe the Empire would collapse or contract, and if it did eventually it would recover or a successor state would emerge as always.

If there were no conquistadors at all, then we can assume that there was no Spanish landing, and therefore no smallpox whatsoever. However, if we do assume something like a random injection of smallpox into the population, then the Inca empire still probably would have collapsed. There probably wouldn't have been a successor for a long time, either; nothing significant, at least. The area would have been utterly devastated. Smallpox is this deadly, and it is well documented.

More people died from the fact there was a military invasion--and a continued , permanent European presence due to conquest--than would have died with just the disease alone. Going to prove my point: war is a purveyor of death, even if in this capacity it's largely transport for microbes and a strain upon local resources.

The military invasion killed comparatively few--a few tens of thousands compared to tens of millions who died in epidemics. Almost all other examples of wartime diseases bear out your point--Native America is not one of them. As I said, I agree with most of your points, but this case is an unusual one, and using it as an example is weakening your point.

 

[Symphony D.]

I would suggest that attributing almost the entirety or even the majority of North America's casualties to Smallpox is highly biased toward that disease. It is not a superbug, regardless of how isolated the Americas may have been (yes, I've read Jared Diamond too). Your analysis of its effects ignores other diseases every bit as contagious as it--Influenza, Syphilis, Hepatitis, Yellow Fever, Measles... all of which would be every bit as lethal to a previously unexposed population.

Native American populations were decimated because they were exposed to an entire witch's brew of highly developed and virulent European pathogens simultaneously (repeatedly and in waves--new mutant versions arriving with colonists continually), not simply due to one single cause. Smallpox was just one killer among many, and to claim otherwise is again to ignore the facts.

Adding on top of these diseases direct military action and repeated military excursions results in more people dying, no matter how you slice it. If it's just one person more than the disease would have killed on its own, that's completely immaterial: more people still died than otherwise would have. Unique example or not, as you have said, my point is already made, and already stands, and it stands here as well: had Europeans not been invading the Americas at the time of first transmission of these diseases and they had instead been isolated incidents the effects upon the local populations would have been reduced overall, even if only marginally.

 

[das]

had Europeans not been invading the Americas at the time of first transmission of these diseases and they had instead been isolated incidents the effects upon the local populations would have been reduced overall, even if only marginally.

Marginally, perhaps (are you sure that various Incan warlords and cannibalistic mercenary armies duking it out without any interference would've been much better for the demographics? Because that wasn't an unlikely scenario for the Incan Empire post-smallpox - Andean civilisations had collapsed that way before). But what does it matter? Diseases still killed far, far more than the actual military action, which is my point. I never said that military action doesn't kill many people - merely that our greatest death tolls didn't really come from them.

 

[Symphony D.]

Except it is the military campaign that by and large transfers the disease. Disconnecting the two is like saying car crashes or explosions kill people yet cars and explosives are not involved--which is my point.

 

[North King]

I would suggest that attributing almost the entirety or even the majority of North America's casualties to Smallpox is highly biased toward that disease. It is not a superbug, regardless of how isolated the Americas may have been (yes, I've read Jared Diamond too). Your analysis of its effects ignores other diseases every bit as contagious as it--Influenza, Syphilis, Hepatitis, Yellow Fever, Measles... all of which would be every bit as lethal to a previously unexposed population.

Native American populations were decimated because they were exposed to an entire witch's brew of highly developed and virulent European pathogens simultaneously (repeatedly and in waves--new mutant versions arriving with colonists continually), not simply due to one single cause. Smallpox was just one killer among many, and to claim otherwise is again to ignore the facts.

I never said it was just smallpox, but the majority of it seems to have been done with smallpox. As I said, the vast majority of Mexico's population (some 18.9 million, according to some research I've seen) mostly died of smallpox (there may or may not have been some measles mixed in, but the majority of cases were smallpox). It was after that that hantavirus, plague, influenza, measles, and so on took their toll, taking down another 5 million or so. So, going by your own reasoning (absolute death counts as opposed to mortality rates), smallpox was far more devastating. In reality, both smallpox and the potluck took down about 80% each, but smallpox alone would have been a devastating killer no matter how you look at it.

Adding on top of these diseases direct military action and repeated military excursions results in more people dying, no matter how you slice it. If it's just one person more than the disease would have killed on its own, that's completely immaterial: more people still died than otherwise would have.

This is still a simply stupid line of reasoning to use. Yes, and if someone committed another murder in London during the Black Death, more people would have died than without the murder. Thus we should give significance to the murder? I don't follow.

 

[Symphony D.]

This is still a simply stupid line of reasoning to use. Yes, and if someone committed another murder in London during the Black Death, more people would have died than without the murder. Thus we should give significance to the murder? I don't follow.

Was the murder the ultimate cause of the arrival of the Black Death into London? Probably not. Were military campaigns the ultimate cause of the arrival of Old World diseases into the New World? Definitely. Were repeated waves of disease unleashed and propagated by repeated military incursions over extended time periods throughout the New World, and subsequent colonization efforts? Definitely. Are diseases therefore a proximate cause of death as a result of military incursion into the New World, and therefore a secondary effect of said incursions? Yes.

Nuclear fallout can kill far more people than the blast of a nuclear weapon itself. One does not say the one is unassociated with the other. The scale of the infections into the New World, the number of diseases transmitted, and the repeated transmission of them, are a direct consequence of military action chiefly launched by the Spanish. They then went on, through other secondary means, chiefly direct combat, enslavement, famine, and so on, to further decimate the population.

Pathogens are a secondary effect of the Spanish invasion. The ultimate cause of the death--the cornerstone, the start point, the kickoff--was therefore war of conquest, even if that itself did not produce all or even most of the casualties, which is my whole damn point--it is exactly the same as any other distribution of disease during war, no matter that the Native Americans were particularly susceptible. That the Spanish then went on to do extra damage on top of that in various ways is icing. That it was a direct result of their attempts at conquest that diseases arrive and spread, the ultimate cause of those deaths, intentionally or unintentionally (say, manslaughter or negligent homicide) can be laid squarely at their feet, and the wars they started.

QED, viral decimation of the Americas is a result of war, not just biological infection that happens to be associated with the same event. If traders had shown up, infected people, and left, the effects would not have been as greivous, because those additional damages done by the invaders would be absent, and the death toll would be to some degree lesser. How much is matter for speculation.

All of this going back to my point that war promotes and synergizes various high-casualty forms of death and as their "distributor" cannot be separated from them when it is the cause of their release. You cannot draw a line between "This man was stabbed by a Spaniard" or "This man drowned in his own fluids from Virus X that he caught from a Spaniard"--they are both casualties of the same event. The weapon may be different, and the incidence may be accidental, but it's the same event.

 

[North King]

Were military campaigns the ultimate cause of the arrival of Old World diseases into the New World? Definitely.

No. Exploration missions were the ultimate cause, not the military campaigns.

Were repeated waves of disease unleashed and propagated by repeated military incursions over extended time periods throughout the New World, and subsequent colonization efforts? Definitely.

Certainly, but the damage had been done.

Are diseases therefore a proximate cause of death as a result of military incursion into the New World, and therefore a secondary effect of said incursions? Yes.

No. Diseases were the primary cause of death; exploration missions were their cause. To use your oft repeated analogies, you're arguing that the roads (not even roads, since military campaigns were only a sidenote--instead, onramps) are causing the car accidents.

One does not say the one is unassociated with the other. The scale of the infections into the New World, the number of diseases transmitted, and the repeated transmission of them, are a direct consequence of military action chiefly launched by the Spanish.

Incorrect again. It was exploration efforts, not military efforts. As we can note with the Inca, the military campaigns came after the smallpox. In Amazonia, total collapse of society came long before any conquistadors arrived, hence everyone's unwillingness to believe there was an Amazonian civilization at all. Ponce de Leon was one example where the disease were spread by a military expedition, and the Aztecs would be another, but that was definitely not the case with the Inca.

They then went on, through other secondary means, chiefly direct combat, enslavement, famine, and so on, to further decimate the population.

Again, fairly minor compared to the diseases. It takes a lot less to reduce a million to a few hundred thousand than ten million to a million.

QED, viral decimation of the Americas is a result of war, not just biological infection that happens to be associated with the same event. If traders had shown up, infected people, and left, the effects would not have been as greivous, because those additional damages done by the invaders would be absent, and the death toll would be to some degree lesser. How much is matter for speculation.

It is not a result of war; it is a result of hemispheres colliding. Again, I agree with your point in almost every other instance, but you're weakening your argument by trying to use Native America to back it up. Or not weakening it, but distracting from it. The point is that when you have a completely unexposed, genetically vulnerable population numbering in the hundreds of millions, disease will spread like wildfire, whether or not you have the military expeditions. The fact that Columbus crossed the ocean--THAT was the ultimate cause. In fact, it is exactly as you seem to deride: the conquistadors arriving at the same time as disease usually is just timing; in other instances, as I have cited above, they arrive at nowhere near the same time.

Like I said, you're point is good for 99% of cases, but trying to apply it universally is just going to get you killed.

 

[Symphony D.]

Incorrect again. It was exploration efforts, not military efforts.

If you consider Pizarro and Cortez et al to be exploratory parties I suppose Star Trek's Enterprise is an Exploratory Vessel and not in fact a Battlecruiser? If they are not the very definition of a military expedition, and if they did not behave exactly like one, I don't know what is.

In Amazonia, total collapse of society came long before any conquistadors arrived, hence everyone's unwillingness to believe there was an Amazonian civilization at all.

Wrong. Francisco de Orellana and the search for El Dorado. He recorded several cities and peoples. Most of them died after he came through. You might call him an explorer, since he didn't set out with the express purpose of looting and conquering (although that might just be because he didn't find what he was looking for).

The fact that Columbus crossed the ocean--THAT was the ultimate cause.

Ah. So it wasn't the road's fault, it was Henry Ford's!

Like I said, you're point is good for 99% of cases, but trying to apply it universally is just going to get you killed.

Fine, whatever. I don't genuinely care anymore.

 

[North King]

If you consider Pizarro and Cortez et al to be exploratory parties I suppose Star Trek's Enterprise is an Exploratory Vessel and not in fact a Battlecruiser? If they are not the very definition of a military expedition, and if they did not behave exactly like one, I don't know what is.

As I said, Pizzaro did not bring smallpox. He came in its wake.

Wrong. Francisco de Orellana and the search for El Dorado. He recorded several cities and peoples. Most of them died after he came through. You might call him an explorer, since he didn't set out with the express purpose of looting and conquering (although that might just be because he didn't find what he was looking for).

Oh, I'm well aware that some people did venture through it, but not many, and no, what did you call it?... consistent military presence. Yet the population died, and the civilization collapsed, with nary a major military expedition and only the briefest contact.

Ah. So it wasn't the road's fault, it was Henry Ford's!

I was blaming the car. Mr. Ford would be analogous to Henry the Navigator.

 

[Luckymoose]

The need for a modern nes that is realistic is bugging me. Anyone care to mod one that has updates on a weekly or monthly scale.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The need for a modern nes that is realistic is bugging me. Anyone care to mod one that has updates on a weekly or monthly scale.

I've been thinking about a weekly NES based on the Napoleonic Wars. But given that time scale it would probably be just about a single campaign.