More on Horses

[Calm]

9 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

oomers and older GenX will remember that taught history looked like this

Not one of their catchier tunes.

[The Nehor]

11 hours ago, Hamilton Porter said:

Yeah this was explained in Guns, Germs and Steel. Since there are no big animals in Latin America and Africa, they didn't gain immunity to them. Europeans did. The chapter starts off with some dude who mated with his goats.

Wait, what? No. You don’t get immunity to big animals? What are you talking about?

There are few big animals in Africa or Latin America compared to Europe? So wrong.

No, the difference is in domesticated animals which increase potential disease exposure to a species jumping disease due to sustained proximity. In the Americas there are fewer useful animals to domesticate.

[The Nehor]

21 minutes ago, Calm said:

Not one of their catchier tunes.

“We need more living space” is not exactly a motto I would want to immortalize in song.

[mfbukowski]

12 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

Is it impossible that Europeans and Natives, by becoming Christian or Mormon, actually enriched their culture?

Of course it is possible, and I am sure it did enrich their cultures!

That is not the question!

The question is if we today we CAN be "adopted" into a culture so far removed in time and space that it might as well be Martian!   

Edited April 15, 2023 by mfbukowski

[Meadowchik]

12 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

That is how I see what Meadowchik is saying. I'm not exactly sure if you are picking up what I'm putting down, so FYI, I was being as sarcastic as you are being here.

Is it impossible that Europeans and Natives, by becoming Christian or Mormon, actually enriched their culture?

You're both projecting. Challenged for trying to frame whole civilisations in the Mormon box, you're saying you're being given unreasonable standards of "historical correctness" to follow.

The people who inhabited the Americas before Europeans came were people in their own right, regardless of how they fit into Western narratives. Mormons certainly weren't the only people with ideas about them being from the Lost Tribes--it was a very common idea then--but the obvious explanation for the BOM is that it was produced as a response to these common theories. It was intended to ride that wave.

There are messages of value in the Book of Mormon. I still appreciate ideas like 

1. Perfect love casteth out all fear.

2. Faith is belief in things unseen which are true.

3. More important to know good from evil versus good and evil.

And more.

However, there is an inherent disrespect in handing the Book of Mormon to a person saying this is their ancestral history. You might believe it is, you might feel really good about it, but that doesn't make it so. 

Every culture can be enriched by ideas that encourage valuing people as people. But valuing them as a fulfillment of your own beliefs isn't that.

PS It doesn't take much to know human beings from all over the world are connected together already in one human family. There are likely people from all over, wherever you live. Kindness is the connecting point. 

 

 

[Hamilton Porter]

On 4/14/2023 at 6:35 PM, ksfisher said:

The crudity seems unnecessary and sophomoric.  That aside, there are plenty of large animals in Latin America and Africa.  There plenty of large domestic animals in Africa.  The key point is the scarcity of new world domesticated animals.

Sorry, I omitted some essential details, and in doing so made my post seem frivolous and unnecessary.

The man actually had sex with his sheep repeatedly, and in doing so contracted some microbes that gave him pneumonia. Apologies again for forgetting this detail.

For Jared Diamond, this episode illustrated "the links connecting livestock and crops to germs."  Europeans were able to acquire immunity through domesticated animals. Introducing them to the new world...

For those with Guns, Germs, and Steel still on their shelves, it's in the opening of chapter 11, "The lethal gift of livestock." Happy reading.

Edited April 16, 2023 by Hamilton Porter

[Hamilton Porter]

On 4/14/2023 at 9:47 PM, The Nehor said:

There are few big animals in Africa or Latin America compared to Europe? So wrong.

Big animals also act as machines; they multiply work. You just need to domesticate them.

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, Hamilton Porter said:

Big animals also act as machines; they multiply work. You just need to domesticate them.

Depends on the animal. There are reasons we domesticated the horse and not the zebra. There are reasons we could domesticate elephants but didn’t find it that productive and helpful outside of some niche uses.

This is one thing I wonder about Nephite civilization. What labor animals did they have? Without something that can pull a wagon long range trade is quickly reduced to ultra-valuable and very light goods (the kind of stuff Europe traded with China). You quickly hit the problem that pretty much the entire wagon has to carry food for the draft animal and the handlers and there is nothing left at the end. 

The other methods are river and sea transport. Sea transport is cheapest but there isn’t any environment like the Mediterranean in the Americas. It was only with Hagoth that we hear of this being a thing. One of the confusing bits I found in the Book of Mormon was the Nephites moving moving wood via shipping. I mean it is doable but why were they colonizing areas where one of the most important resources was scarce? River trade is less efficient but still good but restricts you to where the rivers are. I assume there had to be some kind of transport or we wouldn’t hear about the Nephites moving around provisions for their armies but it is likely that the primary method of supplying Nephite (and Lamanite) armies was foraging which meant pillaging the area.

[Hamilton Porter]

17 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Depends on the animal. There are reasons we domesticated the horse and not the zebra. There are reasons we could domesticate elephants but didn’t find it that productive and helpful outside of some niche uses.

This is one thing I wonder about Nephite civilization. What labor animals did they have? Without something that can pull a wagon long range trade is quickly reduced to ultra-valuable and very light goods (the kind of stuff Europe traded with China). You quickly hit the problem that pretty much the entire wagon has to carry food for the draft animal and the handlers and there is nothing left at the end. 

The other methods are river and sea transport. Sea transport is cheapest but there isn’t any environment like the Mediterranean in the Americas. It was only with Hagoth that we hear of this being a thing. One of the confusing bits I found in the Book of Mormon was the Nephites moving moving wood via shipping. I mean it is doable but why were they colonizing areas where one of the most important resources was scarce? River trade is less efficient but still good but restricts you to where the rivers are. I assume there had to be some kind of transport or we wouldn’t hear about the Nephites moving around provisions for their armies but it is likely that the primary method of supplying Nephite (and Lamanite) armies was foraging which meant pillaging the area.

Yeah one of the arguments guns germs and steel makes is that not all animals are domestic able. 

At least one zookeeper dies every year.

[Hamilton Porter]

The horses they found aren't precolumbian because horses change cultures.