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Writer's pictureDan Deutsch

2022-07-22 History Part II

I think a good jumping off point is around 1,000AD. I call this modern history. The Egyptians left us with some good stories and piles of rocks, the Greeks left us some pretty good science adn architecture and the Romans gave us roads and "Christianity." We are now writing lots of stuff down which adds to cumulative knowledge. Our technologies (physicality) gets better and better as a result. Better boats better tools, better weapons, glass, compasses and all kinds of stuff.


Let's also call the subsequent empires modern empires. England is pretty well established, Spain is well established as well. They both have a God that wants them to sally forth, kill pagans and take their shit. Pretty much up until the 1900s we have what I call brick and mortar empires. Invade, dominate, occupy and build a society largely like the one at home. Convert a bunch of locals to Christianity and when you have enough of them converted bingo, Job Done.


There have always been traders and explorers. It was pretty easy to find India, full of a very different looking people with different religion, but they are far away and hard to invade so for along time we traded with them - the spice trades. We also have the Arabian people pretty close by. And it always seems the farther we go the more shit we find that we would like to have for our own.


In the meantime we have really big kingdoms all around. We are all already Christians, they are really hard to invade and it would really fuck us both up.


Dogs

- Big dogs don't fight big dogs, cuz they can really do a lot of damage

- Little dogs fight little dogs because they can't really do much damage

- And little dogs never fight big dogs


So how do you stop big dogs from attacking each other and taking each other's shit? By intermarrying their daughters! I can't go invade France, the king's wife is a Mercian princess! This works for a little while but eventually just results in a brisk trade of assassinating royal children, brothers, cousins and so on. At some point some bright king with no male sons decides that it's OK to have a Queen run the place. I mean it's not like the king actually goes to battle any more. He's got knights and armies and boats and all kinds of other stuff to do that. And it's not like the king even has to hold court and settle disputes any more. He's got too many people to hear about one farmer stealing another farmer's cow. Or even if one Earl is land encroaching on another Earl. We have courts and laws now to handle that stuff.


But we've run out of stuff to get. What to do? We know there is stuff that traders have and there's probably other places out there that have stuff we'd want. Let's follow the traders home and see what's beyond them? So we start venturing further south eventually rounding Africa and finding India again. Push on and we find Asia and they have lots of cool stuff.


Let's also sail west like the Vikings and we eventually find North and South America. Eventually there is a circumnavigation and we find some Pacific Islands, New Zealand and Australia and lo and behold we are back to Asia and China. The world is round after all...


The Spaniards do a good job of finding Latin America. They missed the boat on North America and opened the door to the British to snag that one. Eventually They all get around enough so that Spain finds Asia, England finds Asia, the Dutch find Asia. England snatches up Australia and South Africa. Even the French are out there finding some places. So eventually we end up with China, which is really big and full of people like a lot of people. And they have shit like gunpowder and 5,000 year old vases and shit. Let's not fuck with them. The young Americans tried getting in their shit and Japan's shit but it was like kicking a hornet's nest and we gave up pretty quick.


But what about India? It had a bunch of people too? How di the British take that one over?


Really the British invaded over time. A period of about 150 years. The British had much better tech, organization and really experience controlling large tracts of land. Like the British of today, they came for the weekend and just stayed. Six months later they are sitting on the couch controlling your tv remote and you don't know how it happened?


The north American Indians, Aztecs, Aborigines, Indonesians, Vietnamese, Malayans didn't stand a chance. They are backward Pagans with low tech and so according to our God it is perfectly fine to move in and take their shit. But to make things stick, like the Romans, you have to move in and colonize the places.


The American colonies are a result of the fragmenting of British Christianity. Somehow (thanks Henry VIII) shot got out of control and basically folks were making a religion of the week buy 1600-1700. Sure me and all these Menonites will be happy to go to America, live there and get away from all these Protestants.


Australia was a little different. You went there because you were a criminal. It was a long way home after your 5 years sentence for stealing bread. Sydney is not a bad place to live either compared to dreary old England. Yup. I'm staying.


It's interesting that none of the British Asian empire got colonized and made white. Then there's Canada. But really it's like the "crust" of the American toast. England had it but the new America didn't really see a need to fight for it. After we kicked the Spaniards and French outta the south east it was pretty easy to just keep heading west wiping out Indians.


And things were good for a lot of empire builders up until like the late 1800's.


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Dan Deutsch
Dan Deutsch
Jul 23, 2022

Well my theories on the equatorial species is sorta a simple.


Israel is in a desert - A really fucked up environment. You fish and grow figs in the terrible soil. So I think Moses was looking for places that weren't so hard to live. The Israelites were fishermen which makes sense. But arid land can only support a population so big so you keep exploring. By the time you are living in fertile lands that have "season's" you are compelled to create canning, pickling, meat drying, root cellars and all kinds of stuff - you are compelled to invent.


In Australia you are cut off from the continent. You fish, there is a lot of game to hunt and…


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roryptg
Jul 23, 2022

FWIW the French and a lot of the European nations with pure Germanic history (eg Spanish, Germans) followed Salic Law which forbade women from inheriting (Pure Agnatic inheritance). England was a fusion of Germanic and Norse so got semi-Salic law - men were preferred but if the King had no sons then his daughters could inherit (Agnatic-Cognatic). Fun Fact - about two years ago the UK changed its inheritance law to "Pure Cognatic" succession, daughters and sons now stand equally in the succession. Thanks to Queen Lizzie and Princess Di being good breeders and having lots of sons first this didn't change the initial line of succession but it did make some changes down the line, eg Prince Edward …


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