News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Ancient DNA sheds light on what happened to the Taino, the native Caribbeans. Parent comment

Re:Ancient DNA sheds light on what happened to the Taino, th... by dmix on Tuesday February 20, 2018 @02:32AM (#16418460)
You're conveniently implying that Europeans intentionally brought smallpox and other diseases to North and South America, as if it was a choice, which is ridiculous. That's like blaming the rats or the residents sanitary practices for spreading the black death which devistated European populations as well.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ancient DNA sheds light on what happened to the Taino, th... by alwillis on Tuesday February 20, 2018 @05:15AM (#16419175)
“The spread of disease from European contact was not always accidental. Europeans arriving in the Americas had long been exposed to the diseases, attaining a measure of immunity, and thus were not as severely affected by them. Therefore, disease could be an effective biological weapon.”

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

The quote is from the section Disease as a weapon against Native Americans

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ancient DNA sheds light on what happened to the Taino, th... by dmix on Tuesday February 20, 2018 @04:15PM (#16424271)
Just because it was used on a few isolated occasions, but even then it was already well advancing on it's own. It was already a natural phenomenon.

The westerns saw the absolute devastation by their mere presences was causing unintentionally and occasionally decided to use it to their advantage purposefully...but I highly doubt that absent those occasions that we would have seen much different outcomes.

Absent total non-contact for the next two centuries...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ancient DNA sheds light on what happened to the Taino, th... by jdminhbg on Tuesday February 20, 2018 @10:58AM (#16421264)
The second two sentences in that quote do nothing to support the first. It's a total non sequitur.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ancient DNA sheds light on what happened to the Taino, th... by ebbv on Tuesday February 20, 2018 @08:09AM (#16420017)
1. I am implying no such thing. I didn’t bring up what was deliberate vs what wasn’t or anything of the sort. I said we should look at the results of colonization and learn from it. That’s it.

2. As already mentioned in the other response to your comment there are multiple documented cases of deliberate infection, if that’s where you want to go.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ancient DNA sheds light on what happened to the Taino, th... by dmix on Tuesday February 20, 2018 @04:11PM (#16424247)
"Multiple documented cases" != the devastation of populations on every single island, and north and south America regions,

95-99% of the time they just had to show up for it to happen

[ Parent | on HN ]