16 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
bigmattystylesOct 2022Strongly recommends
Expanding on this, CGP Grey had this amazing video ( ▶ this video ) of why European diseases in the Americas were so bad on the people that were already here when the two worlds met but you hardly heard of Europeans getting any super contagious illness from the people living in the Americas. Meaning European genomes had some adaptations (as well as antibodies?) from dense and unsanitary living, as well as animal farming in European prior to contact whereas that type of living setup was rarer in the Americas.
in “How the ‘black death’ left its genetic mark on future generations” · View on HN
vinceguidryNov 2015Strongly recommends
> So any theory of "geographical stunting" would need to explain what changed in the geography after 1492. What changed was technology. Once you have ships going back and forth across the Atlantic, everything changes. Europeans introduced cows, sheep, pigs, chickens. The New World's only domesticable native animal is the llama, which is the main reason why civilizations sprung up in Central and the northern parts of South America, that's where llamas were. Now, to the Europeans, with vastly superior farming technology, the Caribbean and North America were veritable cornucopias of geopolitical possibility. Islands sheltered plantations. Europe could project real power only very closely to the shore, where the big naval guns could reach. The reason was supply. To maintain a group of soldiers requires not just food but adequate clothing, weapons, ammunition, and horses to carry all of that. It took over a century of growth for a colony to get to the point to where it could maintain and supply an army for deeper treks inland. By that time the colonies would have been deeply entrenched in native political systems. Because the warships protecting your colony could only hang around for so long, colonies were quite vulnerable to native military action, or even just having them hang around outside the settlement and killing whoever goes outside, say, to chop wood. It made sense for settlers to be nice to the locals, at least at first. CGPGrey just put out a fantastic video comparing t
in “The New China Syndrome: American business meets its new master” · View on HN
akerl_Aug 2023Recommends
▶ this video is a good watch here, if you're curious why Europeans didn't catch reciprocal plagues when traveling to the Americas. Spoiler: it's what the adjacent comment said, the Americas didn't have the factors for plagues.
in “FDA Approves First Oral Treatment for Postpartum Depression” · View on HN
HokusaiOct 2021Recommends
CGP Grey has a great video about this topic: Americapox: The Missing Plague - ▶ this video TL;DR; You need big cities to keep plagues ongoing.
in “Vikings lived in North America by at least the year 1021” · View on HN
seph-reedOct 2021Recommends
CPG Grey has a great video on this exact subject: ▶ this video In short, you need cities to develop these types of viruses. Cities where the virus can just keep killing, without ever hitting a dead end.
in “Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021” · View on HN
krrrhOct 2021Recommends
If a disease native to the Americas emerged and became endemic, it would have infected Europeans when they arrived. There’s a good CGP Grey video on this called Americapox. ▶ this video
in “Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021” · View on HN
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majewskyFeb 2021Recommends
Epidemics are a relatively new phenomenon as far as human evolution is concerned. Within a purely human set of hosts, germs don't feel evolutionary pressure to become more deadly. If anything, it's advantageous for a germ to be less deadly. The most successful viruses are the common cold viruses, not SARS or Ebola. Epidemics only really became a thing once we started domesticating animals and therefore being around live animals for prolonged periods of time. This allowed germs originally adapted to these animals the opportunity to jump over to human hosts, for which they may be more dangerous than for the original host animal. For more details on this point, I can recommend this video on why the native Americans were killed by diseases imported by the European conquerors, but the conquerors didn't bring any deadly diseases back to Europe: ▶ this video
in “Coronavirus Mutants Are Spreading Fast” · View on HN
reallydudeAug 2019Recommends
CCP Makes a pretty good case regarding livestock - ▶ this video America did offer a new disease that ravaged Europe. Syphillis.
in “How a 6k-Year-Old Dog Cancer Spread Around the World” · View on HN
squirrelicusJan 2019Recommends
I remember being struck by his anecdotes of Papua New Guineans seeming just as smart as anyone else as supposed evidence of... What exactly? I don't think Neil Diamond is wrong but it's kind of baby's first reading on the differences between groups in the world. I think CGP Grey does a great job at communicating the actual meat of Guns, Germs, and Steel here ▶ this video
in “Germs and ancient migrations help explain our world of 'haves' and 'have nots'” · View on HN
partycoderJun 2017Recommends
I recommend the following video by CGP Grey, largely based on the book "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond: ▶ this video Now, history doesn't give a lot of merit to natives. The largest battle in the Americas, the siege of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, was won with the help of 80,000 to 200,000 Tlaxcalan natives, which amounted for 99% of the infantry used.
in “Native Intelligence (2005)” · View on HN
valarauca1Oct 2016Recommends
>Indians had no trouble crisscrossing America Well yeah there weren't any human infectious illness where... there aren't any humans. This video explains the history of man kind's infectious illness very well ▶ this video
in “Barack Obama: America Will Take the Giant Leap to Mars” · View on HN
JumpCrisscrossJul 2024Cites it
> Some of the scariest viruses of the 20th/21st century emerged in large-scale farming operations Before that they emerged from small-scale farming. “Whooping cough comes from pigs as does flu as well as from birds; our friend the cow alone is responsible for measles, tuberculosis and smallpox” [1]. Proximity, to humans and animals, drives disease. [1] ▶ this video
in “CO poultry workers test positive for bird flu after outbreak at egg facility” · View on HN
LeifCarrotsonMar 2020Cites it
Yes. Two other sources for this are the book Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, [1] and the video Americapox by CGPGrey. [2] [1]: [link] [2]: ▶ this video
in “Farming gave us salmonella, ancient DNA suggests” · View on HN
slavik81Mar 2020Cites it
It's not the same. Live ocean creatures are isolated from each other. They're stored in water-tight containers by necessity. By contrast, live land animals are stored in cages and often stacked on top of each other. Vox has a video explaining "Why new diseases keep appearing in China" [1]. They include footage of Chinese wet markets around the 2:00 mark. I think they make an excellent case for strictly regulating, or even outright banning wet markets. Long ago, Europe had the same problem. The cities were full of wet markets, and were basically the perfect conditions for creating new plagues. There's a nice CGP Grey video on this, "Americapox: The Missing Plague" [2]. [1]: [link] [2]: ▶ this video
in “Time to Ban Wet Markets” · View on HN
bigbugbagMar 2017Cites it
Cholera only existed in the old world and is a byproduct of animal domestication and urbanization[1]. [1]: ▶ this video
in ““Alcohol and caffeine created civilization”” · View on HN
jack9Apr 2016Cites it
> the primary reason for greater productivity of European settlers compared to native inhabitants of Americas would be culture More likely, simple domestication. The "culture" of cities are born of the variety of euro-domestication. Horses, Sheep, etc. ( ▶ this video )
in “School Is to Submit” · View on HN