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Re:China is becoming a data black hole, says short seller Aa... by Trow83949 on Monday October 23, 2023 @05:37AM (#37983431)
> Europe who conquered the world and colonized the so called new world

So China are the good guys? Racist white colonizers who genocided Native Americans, and enslaved millions of black people should perhaps take some lessons from China!

Re:China is becoming a data black hole, says short seller Aa... by Beijinger on Monday October 23, 2023 @05:43AM (#37983468)
Many South Americans seem to have died, unfortunately, from diseases.

"Today we think of the Amazon as a pristine rainforest, sparsely populated by indigenous communities. But in records from the 1500s, Spanish colonizers describe a densely populated region, crisscrossed by canals and sunken roads and dotted with bustling, fortified towns. Unfortunately, fortification couldn’t protect the towns’ inhabitants against European diseases, which devastated South American indigenous populations and left the fortified villages abandoned." https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/network-of-fortified...

"Some 5 million people may have lived in the Amazon region in AD 1500, divided between dense coastal settlements, such as that at Marajó, and inland dwellers. By 1900, the population had fallen to 1 million and by the early 1980s it was less than 200,000."

Re:China is becoming a data black hole, says short seller Aa... by stavros on Monday October 23, 2023 @05:53AM (#37983530)
Interesting how introducing new pathogens works. Does anyone know why the opposite didn't happen? Why didn't the European colonizers die to American diseases?
Re:China is becoming a data black hole, says short seller Aa... by iteria on Monday October 23, 2023 @06:10AM (#37983638)
The Europeans had endured some of the most devastating diseases that arose do to them choosing to live in close quarters with animals. The Americans just didn't have this habit. A lot of terrible diseases come from something that jumped species.
Re:China is becoming a data black hole, says short seller Aa... by voldacar on Monday October 23, 2023 @05:58AM (#37983569)
Syphilis may have originated in the Americas.
Re:China is becoming a data black hole, says short seller Aa... by inglor_cz on Monday October 23, 2023 @06:12AM (#37983653)
The Old World was a much larger "disease production lab", especially zoonotic one, where a disease jumps from an animal to a human. This transmission happens especially often between domesticated animals and people who are in everyday contact with them.

The New World people only domesticated a handful of animals, such as the guinea pig and the llama. So, fewer opportunities to catch something from them.

Still, they had a new disease that spread to the Old World: syphilis, which certainly killed several million Old-Worlders, only it took longer to run its course and could be prevented by, well, chastity.

An interesting idea: if you count victims of smoking towards the total death toll (tobacco is a New World plant), it may well be that the Old World suffered more deaths from the Columbian Exchange. But spread over a much larger population and a much longer time, these deaths didn't amount to destruction of entire civilizations.

Re:China is becoming a data black hole, says short seller Aa... by x3n0ph3n3 on Monday October 23, 2023 @06:10AM (#37983634)
Many of the most deadly pathogens to indigenous Americans were born from livestock or frequent cross-exposure between different populations spanning Europe and Asia.

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

Re:China is becoming a data black hole, says short seller Aa... by coldtea on Monday October 23, 2023 @06:25AM (#37983726)
>Many South Americans seem to have died, unfortunately, from diseases

And a huge number from forced labour, executions, and torture, well described by the colonizers themselves.

Re:China is becoming a data black hole, says short seller Aa... by justinclift on Monday October 23, 2023 @06:19AM (#37983695)
> Racist white colonizers who genocided Native Americans, and enslaved millions of black people ...

Bear in mind that the slaves weren't all black, and the slavers weren't all white.

Re:China is becoming a data black hole, says short seller Aa... by coldtea on Monday October 23, 2023 @06:26AM (#37983736)
No, but the millions that ended up in the US, and who couldn't even stay in the same hotels, go to the same schools, or eat at the same restaurants as "good" white folks until the 1960s, were...
Re:China is becoming a data black hole, says short seller Aa... by justinclift on Monday October 23, 2023 @06:33AM (#37983783)
Sure. That doesn't invalidate my point that it's not all simple black-vs-white though. ;)