LogFAQs > #956653111

OhhhJa posted...

Yeah it was good times back then. Ya know, dying of diseases that would be easily treatable now as well periods of famine. Women dying during childbirth. Children dying of things that would be easily treatable now. Barbaric warfare and massive amounts of unchecked rape

Pandemics were not as common in pre-Columbian USA because civilization in the western hemisphere was not organized the same way it was in the east (lower population densities + large distances between civilizations = slower spread, and they also did not have chickens/cows/pigs, so the western hemisphere had fewer infectious diseases- syphilis is the most famous one). Modern medicine aside (as it is definitely a large point in favor of the modern era being best), it's ridiculous that you think the modern era is somehow significantly better in terms of war/rape, particularly when it comes to the Americas (the history of post-Columbus Americas is just a non-stop onslaught of genocide and war, be it on this soil or shipping our folks out to butcher people overseas), and particularly when it comes to the indigenous peoples, who even today have some of the worst statistics in terms of being victims of violence in the country in great part owing to a Supreme Court ruling that made it impossible for tribes to prosecute non-tribe members who committed crimes against them *googles* Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe (1978).

But to be honest, I was not thinking in those terms; my chosen metric was that indigenous Americans utilized resources more sustainably, and as we teeter on the cusp of irreversible climate damage and a non-stop barrage of global superbug pandemics, it seems a bit silly to act as though this is some sort of inarguable truth that the modern day was better than the pre-Columbus Americas. After that time, the western hemisphere's history can be summarized thusly: genocide -> colonialism -> non-sustainable industrialization -> climate change + global pandemics with highly resilient superbugs + unending waves of multi-nation wars and economic crashes.

None of that leads to long-term stability/sustainability, and I do tend to prioritize that over modern conveniences, though that's definitely a YMMV thing. It's really not a matter of any era being particularly great. While they all have their ups and downs, you're basically trying to pick out which is the "least shit."

You also completely ignored the part where I said that it's basically either pre-columbian era... OR today. Any spot between those two points means that you're compromising both of the best aspects those two points offer- sustainability and fewer pandemics vs modern medicine and conveniences.

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Hi