The downside is that maize isn't as nutritious as wheat or rice and needs to be more heavily supplemented with proper protein from meat or pulses - or the human being becomes malnourished.
>Easily obtained, what is more, for maize has always been a crop that demands little effort. The archaeologist Fernando Marquez Miranda has given us an excellent account of the advantages enjoyed by peasants cultivating maize: it required them to work only fifty days in the year, one day in seven or eight, according to season. They were therefore free, perhaps a little too free. The maize-growing societies on the irrigated terraces of the Andes or on the lakesides of the Mexican plateaux resulted in theocratic totalitarian systems and all the leisure of the peasants was used for gigantic public works of the Egyptian type. (It is arguable whether the cause was indeed maize, or irrigation, or the dense population of societies which became oppressive from sheer weight of numbers.)[One]
[One]https://archive.org/details/BraudelFernandCivilizationAndCap... p161
...it was most definitely worse than others.
I am pretty sure if you came "to visit" aka a tourist, you likely would not have lived too long there to settle down.
Unless you brought some modern day magic, like a gun or a smartphone, to convince them you are send from the gods and not to be sacrificed just yet.
They literally murdered babies regulary. Why would one want to visit those, except for hardcore anthropologic studies?
And subsistence farming probably did differ, depending how far away the next empire was. Some lived in total slavery and dependency and some quite undisturbed pretty much on their own (there are some villages in remote greece areas for example, claiming to never have been conquered.).
"I would have loved to live in ancient Maya or Aztec times. Playing ōllamalitzli with the boys, cracking open some cocoa, in the evening watch a proper offering to the sun god. Maybe a bit more violent and shorter than modern life but definitely more exciting."
The thread was literally about people wanting to enjoy human sacrifice and I expressed my disgust with that.
I am not anti-mayan, nor anti aztec, nor anti historic-german tribes who practiced human sacrifice, too (which would be my heritage). There are many interesting things in their way of life. But I am anti to people who like those cultures today, because of the blood and gore.
So anyway, expressing interest in human sacrifice, is ok here, but not expressing discomfort with that, because this might cause flame wars? Well, good to know.
Perhaps it would be helpful to explain how this becomes a moderation issue. It's because we can't play both indignation games and curiosity games at the same time. The former very quickly drowns out and burns up the latter. HN is supposed to be for curiosity games. Therefore when people start playing indignation games (and that is certainly not just you—the temptation is ubiquitous) we try to get them to stop and to return to the intended spirit of the site.
Yes, maybe I should have just asked, what exactly does he mean by "proper offering to the sun god" in the combination of "maybe a bit more violent" but "definitely more exciting".
Because that just sounds like human sacrifice in that context to me. Along with other quotes like that in that thread. "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29129436" So clear, that I did not see much point in asking. So yeah, I got a bit "agitated" with that. Still, in my perception I got the mod warning, for expressing disconcern with peoples lust with human sacrifice. And those people did not, because they expressed their desire in soft terms.
It is allright. I probably just seek more other places now again.
So if this was the norm:
"Some other sacrifice related practices include burning victims alive, dancing in the skin of a skinned victim, taking head trophies, cannibalism, drinking a deceased relative's bathwater, and sprinkling sacrificial blood around sanctuaries"
then the only reason for them to not sacrifice babies regulary (but I am pretty sure they did so on occasion, too) would be, if they would not deem them worthy enough. So my point kind of still stands: why would you want to visit such folks?
People are arguing that my baby sacrifice point might be exaggerated and they might be right, so?
Wikipedia has a nice article on Mayan human sacrifice [2]. It all sounds so brutal, but then again, so is Squid Game.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entheogenics_and_the_Maya
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Maya_cultur...
I'll offer that was probably not any more common in Mayan life than ours now and those glyphs and stories are a sort of example used to keep folks in check or aggrandize the rulers of the day and in regards to those not much has changed.
We’ve invested a LOT into immersing people into past worlds - think Jurassic park for dinosaurs, plenty of TV and movies about Roman times etc. VR would make all that seem so dated and boring.
Work up a sweat running from a T-Rex - quick shower and off to work!
A non-significant plot detail involves organisms being fitted with neural capture devices to record full sensory stimuli, before being killed/eaten by other organisms. These neural recordings are then sold to wealthy buyers who want to experience novelty.
Modern day countries participating in human sacrifice and mass murder would similarly be invaded and the history of their actions would be altered. See: Germany in WW2.