Native Americans vs Europeans and disease

[superpunch]

Europeans had become resistant to many diseases because they had domesticated so many varieties of animals so long ago. Native Americans didn’t domesticate any animals to my knowledge. Not in North America. I think only llamas had been domesticated in South America.

I’m not positive but l believe this is the reason.

And because they never had much livestock, they never invented the wheel for travel purposes. And so their civilizations never were advanced enough for international communication

 

[superpunch]

There is a correlation between the resistance and the plagues right now but it is not valid because it is dependent on the plagues being viral in the past. I am saying it is an interesting hypothesis but the plagues being bacterial is far more established as a theory and if it turns out that academics disprove that and they are indeed viral, that aforementioned correlation becomes far more valid.

I want to stress that it seems like a good induction but it needs to be worked out more before claiming it as fact.

They cured a dude with HIV using that info

Timothy Ray Brown (born 1966) is an American considered to be the first person cured of HIV/AIDS.[1][2] Brown was diagnosed with HIV in 1995 while studying in Berlin, Germany, giving him the nickname The Berlin Patient.[3]
...
In 2007, Brown, who was HIV positive, underwent a procedure known as hematopoietic stem cell transplantation to treat leukemia[4] (performed by a team of doctors in Berlin, Germany, including Gero Hütter). From 60 matching donors, they selected a [CCR5]-Δ32 homozygous individual with two genetic copies of a rare variant of a cell surface receptor. This genetic trait confers resistance to HIV infection by blocking attachment of HIV to the cell. Roughly 10% of people of European ancestry have this inherited mutation, but it is rarer in other populations.[5][6] The transplant was repeated a year later after a leukemia relapse. Over the three years after the initial transplant, and despite discontinuing antiretroviral therapy, researchers could not detect HIV in Brown's blood or in various biopsies.[7] Levels of HIV-specific antibodies in Timothy Brown's blood also declined, suggesting that functional HIV may have been eliminated from his body.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Ray_Brown

 

[IIIIIIII]

How come so many Native Americans died from European diseases, yet Europeans were not eradicated by diseases from the Americas?

1/3 of all europeans died during the black plague due to diseases brought in from asia. a lack of exposure is probably the reason.

 

[superpunch]

Many believe now that peanut allergies are a result of too 'sterilized' food and that by giving small amounts of peanuts/peanut butter to small children when they are young will actually help prevent having a peanut allergy later in life. Also, look at farmers -- they practically never get sick since living on a farm they are exposed to so much bacteria that their immune systems are incredibly robust.

In the US and really everywhere outside of Europe/ Aus/ Japan/ SK, they're probably just too poor to go to the doctor. Or going to the doctor is a pain in the ass since it's too far away -- that applies to all farmers in the world.

 

[superpunch]

I feel like what you're talking about is training wild animals to become domestic within a single generation and what I'm talking about is a selective breeding program to a domestic sub-species. I'm not sure we know about the process of domesticating the horse but wild horses are aggressive as fuck, much like the zebra, and I would think present the same challenges.

I think it's just too much of a coincidence that every animal that can't be domesticated is in one or two specific parts of the world. And every animal in those parts of the world all have the same evil can't be domesticated personality.

And in other human civilizations in other parts of the world, every animal is capable of being domesticated. All the animals are just nice animals there.

What amazing coincidences. I think not. It's just a rationalization because no one wants to admit that some civilizations were better than others.

 

[Beechwood]

The same thing happened to the Australian aborigines. There are towns in Australia where you have them staggering around the streets, drunk all day. It's similar to the diseases: not enough time for adaptation.

The European cultures that grew up with their alcohols learned to adapt and live with drinking for thousands of years. Whoever genetically predisposed to uncontrollable/dysfunctional drinking were slowly weeded out for generations. Now their societies have adapted to living with their alcohols.

The native cultures like the American Indians and the Australian Aborigines did not have this long of a time to be adapted to the the European substances. They're living out their 'weeding out' process as we speak. Had they have enough time to develop their own alcohols and become genetically adapted to them it would be another story.

These things always happen when a sophisticated culture meets an unsophisticated one.

Along these lines, in North America, the natives also viewed alcohol differently. To a Native if a crime was committed while intoxicated the crime was often forgiven. The reason given, alcohol caused a person to act differently than when sober. Even murder while intoxicated was forgiven.

The early European colonials quickly noticed this. The Native Indians when sober were often friendly. When the natives had been drinking, the natives acted entirely different. They frequently, it was reported, began killing themselves and colonists when drinking.

As a result, many colonies began passing laws making it illegal to sell alcohol to the native Indians. (Canada reportedly still has laws on the books making it illegal to sell alcohol to Native Indians. The law is not enforced today though.)

In European culture alcoholics, in the eyes of the law, historically have been treated the same as the sober that commit crimes. If a European murdered someone while intoxicated he/she was likely to be hanged.

 

[tramendous]

I feel like what you're talking about is training wild animals to become domestic within a single generation and what I'm talking about is a selective breeding program to a domestic sub-species. I'm not sure we know about the process of domesticating the horse but wild horses are aggressive as fuck, much like the zebra, and I would think present the same challenges.

Wild horses can be easily domesticated within a single generation. That's a good point that the domesticated animals can usually be domesticated within a single generation. I read more about zebra domestication and people have tried and failed.

Galton uses the zebra as an example of an unmanageable species, stating that the Dutch Boers repeatedly tried to break zebra to harness. Although they had some success, the wild, mulish nature of the animals would frequently break out and thwart their efforts.

http://theconversation.com/why-zebra-refused-to-be-saddled-with-domesticity-65018

 

[RIPWarrior]

@RIPWarrior @Seano @goldennirvana

Could it be possible that this entire thread proves that diversity is somehow a strength?

 

[RIPWarrior]

. Can you imagine a group of charging armored rhinos?
.

 

[tramendous]

Probably the most disappointing scene in the movie and funny how they only had 1.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Wild horses can be easily domesticated within a single generation. That's a good point that the domesticated animals can usually be domesticated within a single generation. I read more about zebra domestication and people have tried and failed.

Galton uses the zebra as an example of an unmanageable species, stating that the Dutch Boers repeatedly tried to break zebra to harness. Although they had some success, the wild, mulish nature of the animals would frequently break out and thwart their efforts.

http://theconversation.com/why-zebra-refused-to-be-saddled-with-domesticity-65018

Yup. Guns, Germs, and Steel touches upon this as well.

The author mentions that if it was just Eurasians' intelligence in breeding and selecting- and Americans' and Africans' inability to do the same with the big mammals in their continents- that caused the former to domesticate horses and cattle and thus giving them a huge edge, then we would expect them to do the same after 1492, when they started colonizing Africa and America.

But to this day none of the big, wild mammals in the Americas or Africa have been able to be domesticated. By Europeans or anyone. So Eurasians were just completely and totally lucky that their areas had animals that were able to be domesticated.

He also mentions the difference between domesticating and taming. Can't remember the details but the North American buffalo can be tamed enough to run around a football field at University of Colorado football games, but that's not really domestication.

One of the GOAT books, without a doubt. Should be required reading in every high school

 

[JadeOwl]

But the Natives, and Native descent in Latin Murica is still huge in population. Most are Mestizos, but from the looks of them I sure they are still mostly native. Are all these mestizos, and natives descended from only a handful of survivors? Also did the Conquistadors not use mostly natives as the labor force? Which is why black population is not that high like in Mexico, central America etc, etc.

I can't speak for the whole of the Americas, but according to my history classes in college, the indigenous population of what used to be the Inca Empire was around 20 million people and it continued to shrink throughout all the colonial period and didn't bottom out until republican times in the 19th century at about 2 million people, before it started to climb back up again.

A significant factor was that the Spaniards, bastards though they may have been, had a vested interest in keeping the local population alive to work the mines and haciendas. In North America the toll of decease was worsened by the settlers deliberate effort to get rid of the natives.

Over here you can spot a racist when you hear someone complaining that we were colonized by the Spaniards instead of the English, because the implication is that the English would've finished off what the plagues started.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

I can't speak for the whole of the Americas, but according to my history classes in college, the indigenous population of what used to be the Inca Empire was around 20 million people and it continued to shrink throughout all the colonial period and didn't bottom out until republican times in the 19th century at about 2 million people, before it started to climb back up again.

A significant factor was that the Spaniards, bastards though they may have been, had a vested interest in keeping the local population alive to work the mines and haciendas. In North America the toll of decease was worsened by the settlers deliberate effort to get rid of the natives.

Over here you can spot a racist when you hear someone complaining that we were colonized by the Spaniards instead of the English, because the implication is that the English would've finished off what the plagues started.

Interesting. Some were able to withstand the ravages of the germs. Did you history classes mention anything about a breeding program to increase indigenous population?

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Sometimes I think the whole Native Americans dying from diseases was a slight exaggeration to take away from the fact that Europeans slaughtered a whole load of Native Americans.