"Really? More than the Mayans? More than the Aboriginal people? More than the Navajos? What are your statistics, or are you pulling this out of your ass?"
Ever tried reading a book before you open your mouth?
While most parts of the world has known alcohol in some form, what I wrote was that "Europe has - for many centuries - produced stronger alcohol and consumed more of it than any other part of the world".
This is not a fact disputed by historians - but apparently it's unknown to you.
See for instance:
"Consumption of distilled beverages rose dramatically in Europe in and after the mid-14th century, when distilled liquors were commonly used as remedies for the Black Death. Around 1400, methods to distill spirits from wheat, barley, and rye beers, a cheaper option than grapes, were discovered."
Europe was historically defined by fierce competition by many small but densely populated states. Innovation was high and the developments spread quickly.
Life was short and brutish for most people and the invention of distilling much stronger liquor then mere fermentation could provide was an instant success.
The people you talked about didn't discover the distillation of that strong alcohol before the Europeans reached them, and the mention of the Navajo is especially erroneous by you as they hadn't even discovered basic fermentation before Europeans reached them:
"Many of the pre-Columbian Indians of North America were also exceptional in lacking alcoholic beverages until they were introduced by Europeans, with explosive and disastrous consequences."
So yes really - I know what I'm talking about, while you evidently don't.
"That is Eugenics talk. You are suggesting that Europeans that got sloshed after one drink have died out generations ago due to genetics is completely ridiculous and not how genes work."
Certainly not. But the widespread misuse of alcohol in Europe at least a century (or in most cases several centuries) before they came into contact with indigenous people of course had consequences.
People who are the most susceptible to drink succumb to it first of course. They become addicted, spend what money they have on drink, can't hold down a job, can't provide for either themselves or their family if they have any and can't even form one if they don't (who wants to marry and start a family with someone who can't stay sober and be a productive partner?).
This was long before any social welfare programs - people who couldn't stay sober in a European society where strong alcohol was widely available at a price anyone could afford would simply be viewed as useless and left to fend for themselves.
Which they couldn't - so they'd where less likely to carry their genes on.
Especially in the case of alcoholism in women, the fetal alcohol spectrum disorders must have been rampant. No one knew the dangers of alcohol and pregnancy back then and child birth was a dangerous business even if the woman was strong and healthy.
But with the European population back then being plagues by all manner of diseased (including the actual plague!), malnourishment, impure water sources and poor living conditions - adding alcohol abuse on top of that certainly must have ended millions of pregnancies, and probably killed hundreds of thousands of mothers in child birth throughout the centuries.
We can't know any of this for sure, as the genetic material is no longer available (just as the complicated interconnections of genes are not at all fully known yet) - but it's a quite plausible theory to explain part of the difference between European descendants and indigenous peoples later on in history.
Every single individual, highly susceptible to alcoholism, that dies off without producing offspring in 15th century Europe, would have been the ancestral forefathers to thousands if not tens of thousands of later descendants.
Just as in the case of the plague or other illnesses - the people who did manage to survive, where obviously more likely to be the bearers of beneficial genes in the environment they lived - when they had been subjected to the disease.
At least that's a perfectly plausible theory, worth studying further, as you can see here:
And while some claim alcoholism should be viewed as a disease, we can all at least agree it's a poison. And all humans simply aren't equally susceptible to it.
Sure - of course we still have alcoholic's in Europe today, so it's not like it's all controlled by one simple gene, and all the carriers of it died.. But it stands to reason that the most susceptible individuals where not able to carry on their genes as successfully as less susceptible individuals where.
"Unless the Greenlanders are like the Japanese and have a gene that makes them allergic to alcohol, which they don't, then your point is moot. You are arguing that the lack of alcohol created a gene or a lack of a gene that makes the Greenlanders unable to handle their alcohol, and you use the American Somoa, a completely DIFFERENT society and an example using McDonald's to try to prove your point. Apples and oranges."
We simply don't know all there is to know about the human gene yet, so neither you nor anyone else can say you KNOW anything about this.
I included the example with the so called "thrift gene" found in almost half of Samoans - an article from only two years ago - to show that this is still being researched.
Scientist are working along different hypothesis to see if they can prove or disprove old theories - but we're still far from a point where we can claim we KNOW everything about how genes work. That was my point.
If you had used your brain - instead of trying to find things to screech about - you might have understood that.
"Buddy, Europeans didn't develop immunity to syphilis, it is called modern medicine."
You got me there - shouldn't have used syphilis as an example as that is actually one of the few diseases Europeans didn't develop "increased immunity to" - which is what I wrote.
But other then that, Europeans did - as we all know, right? - develop "increased immunity to" a range of diseases - which is one of the main reasons why they where so deadly when they came into contact with indigenous peoples.
"The short answer is that Europeans simply had more robust immune systems. Several factors contributed to this: first, Europeans had been the caretakers of domestic animals for thousands of years, and had over time grown (somewhat) immune to the common diseases that accompanied the domestication of such food sources. Native Americans, on the other hand, were largely hunters and gatherers, and even in some domestication cases, itÂ’s thought exposure was limited."
"Second, Europeans lived in more densely populated areas than Native Americans. When so many humans live together in relatively close quarters (particularly with lack of good, or any, sewage systems and the like), disease spreads quickly with the general population continually getting exposed to numerous pathogens. The EuropeansÂ’ bodies had to adapt to dealing with many of those diseases, and for those who survived, their immune systems thrived as a result.
The third factor is travel and exchange. Groups of people and animals moved around a lot in Europe and had interactions particularly through war and trade, resulting in the spread of disease across continents and, eventually, some level of immunity for the survivors."
Here is an interesting article about current research on how European diseases changed the genetic makeup of indigenous North Americans living today, BTW.
I know you don't believe in that kind of "eugenics" but try reading a little and you might learn something:
"Finally, you claim that I am a troll because you didn't want to deal with my response."
Yes - I didn't want to waste time explaining to you how ill-informed you where and how you misconstrued what I wrote to fit your own narrative - that's completely right.
But now I did it anyway - without any real hope of you accepting the facts I present, because you clearly don't seem interested in understanding anything, but only seeking confrontation against someone you views as your enemy.
"However, I stand by it. You and @Tzenker have created an incredibly racist argument by shifting the blame off the Danish government and projecting the Greenlanders problems onto themselves. All of a sudden, the years of colonization and oppression doesn't exist, and the Greenlanders are alcoholics because they don't have the proper genes. It's condescending and wrong."
Of course you do - you're on a crusade against the evil racist enemy.
Unfortunately I've written none of the things you attack me for, so you're just tilting at windmills and looking stupid here.
I was quite clear in what I wrote that this is not about "race" (the biological concept of which doesn't even exist) or "good" or "bad" genes.
This is only about the fact that we know that the genetic makeup of populations do change as they encounter new threats - as diseases or poisons.
It's therefore an entirely reasonable theory that individuals who are most susceptible to new threats are the first to succumb to them and that the gene pool of a people thus over time develops from contact with this threat.
There is nothing racist or condescending about that theory. If the theory is correct the exact same thing happened in Europe, before it came into contact with indigenous peoples - which would explain why peoples of Europeans ancestry centuries later where less susceptible to the threat of alcohol.
Not immune to it, and not everything can be explained by genes of course - centuries of exposure to alcohol will also allow societies to develop strategies to combat it's ill effects of course - but still less susceptible then a society with no prior exposure to the threat.
But in an indigenous population that has no historic exposure to strong alcohol (and I don't think the people of Greenland - like the North American peoples - had even discovered the weaker form of fermentation before Europeans arrived, actually) - unleashing that freely was predicable to lead to a disaster.
That's not in any way a condescension against the Greenlanders, any more then it is to say that smallpox and other European diseases decimated the peoples of the Americas.
Their immune systems (and behind that their genetic pool) simply weren't equipped to handle the virulent strains of diseases Europeans had developed over centuries.
That doesn't make the Europeans or their genes better in any way - it's just the way it was.
Now go find some actual racist and attack instead - I'm all for that (which you would know if you had followed SATW for years - I'm quite famous for doing so myself on this site), and leave this discussion here, because you're not getting whatever you sought coming after me on this.
"You call me a troll but your ignorance rivals that of a Trump voter. "
Said the guy who can't read what's actually written without interpreting things that aren't there.
0
@Lippi
"Really? More than the Mayans? More than the Aboriginal people? More than the Navajos? What are your statistics, or are you pulling this out of your ass?"
Ever tried reading a book before you open your mouth?
While most parts of the world has known alcohol in some form, what I wrote was that "Europe has - for many centuries - produced stronger alcohol and consumed more of it than any other part of the world".
This is not a fact disputed by historians - but apparently it's unknown to you.
See for instance:
"Consumption of distilled beverages rose dramatically in Europe in and after the mid-14th century, when distilled liquors were commonly used as remedies for the Black Death. Around 1400, methods to distill spirits from wheat, barley, and rye beers, a cheaper option than grapes, were discovered."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquor
Europe was historically defined by fierce competition by many small but densely populated states. Innovation was high and the developments spread quickly.
Life was short and brutish for most people and the invention of distilling much stronger liquor then mere fermentation could provide was an instant success.
The people you talked about didn't discover the distillation of that strong alcohol before the Europeans reached them, and the mention of the Navajo is especially erroneous by you as they hadn't even discovered basic fermentation before Europeans reached them:
"Many of the pre-Columbian Indians of North America were also exceptional in lacking alcoholic beverages until they were introduced by Europeans, with explosive and disastrous consequences."
https://www.britannica.com/topic/alcohol-consumption
So yes really - I know what I'm talking about, while you evidently don't.
"That is Eugenics talk. You are suggesting that Europeans that got sloshed after one drink have died out generations ago due to genetics is completely ridiculous and not how genes work."
Certainly not. But the widespread misuse of alcohol in Europe at least a century (or in most cases several centuries) before they came into contact with indigenous people of course had consequences.
People who are the most susceptible to drink succumb to it first of course. They become addicted, spend what money they have on drink, can't hold down a job, can't provide for either themselves or their family if they have any and can't even form one if they don't (who wants to marry and start a family with someone who can't stay sober and be a productive partner?).
This was long before any social welfare programs - people who couldn't stay sober in a European society where strong alcohol was widely available at a price anyone could afford would simply be viewed as useless and left to fend for themselves.
Which they couldn't - so they'd where less likely to carry their genes on.
Especially in the case of alcoholism in women, the fetal alcohol spectrum disorders must have been rampant. No one knew the dangers of alcohol and pregnancy back then and child birth was a dangerous business even if the woman was strong and healthy.
But with the European population back then being plagues by all manner of diseased (including the actual plague!), malnourishment, impure water sources and poor living conditions - adding alcohol abuse on top of that certainly must have ended millions of pregnancies, and probably killed hundreds of thousands of mothers in child birth throughout the centuries.
We can't know any of this for sure, as the genetic material is no longer available (just as the complicated interconnections of genes are not at all fully known yet) - but it's a quite plausible theory to explain part of the difference between European descendants and indigenous peoples later on in history.
Every single individual, highly susceptible to alcoholism, that dies off without producing offspring in 15th century Europe, would have been the ancestral forefathers to thousands if not tens of thousands of later descendants.
Just as in the case of the plague or other illnesses - the people who did manage to survive, where obviously more likely to be the bearers of beneficial genes in the environment they lived - when they had been subjected to the disease.
At least that's a perfectly plausible theory, worth studying further, as you can see here:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/black-death-survivors-and-their-descendants-went-on-to-live-longer/
And while some claim alcoholism should be viewed as a disease, we can all at least agree it's a poison. And all humans simply aren't equally susceptible to it.
Sure - of course we still have alcoholic's in Europe today, so it's not like it's all controlled by one simple gene, and all the carriers of it died.. But it stands to reason that the most susceptible individuals where not able to carry on their genes as successfully as less susceptible individuals where.
"Unless the Greenlanders are like the Japanese and have a gene that makes them allergic to alcohol, which they don't, then your point is moot. You are arguing that the lack of alcohol created a gene or a lack of a gene that makes the Greenlanders unable to handle their alcohol, and you use the American Somoa, a completely DIFFERENT society and an example using McDonald's to try to prove your point. Apples and oranges."
We simply don't know all there is to know about the human gene yet, so neither you nor anyone else can say you KNOW anything about this.
I included the example with the so called "thrift gene" found in almost half of Samoans - an article from only two years ago - to show that this is still being researched.
Scientist are working along different hypothesis to see if they can prove or disprove old theories - but we're still far from a point where we can claim we KNOW everything about how genes work. That was my point.
If you had used your brain - instead of trying to find things to screech about - you might have understood that.
"Buddy, Europeans didn't develop immunity to syphilis, it is called modern medicine."
You got me there - shouldn't have used syphilis as an example as that is actually one of the few diseases Europeans didn't develop "increased immunity to" - which is what I wrote.
But other then that, Europeans did - as we all know, right? - develop "increased immunity to" a range of diseases - which is one of the main reasons why they where so deadly when they came into contact with indigenous peoples.
"The short answer is that Europeans simply had more robust immune systems. Several factors contributed to this: first, Europeans had been the caretakers of domestic animals for thousands of years, and had over time grown (somewhat) immune to the common diseases that accompanied the domestication of such food sources. Native Americans, on the other hand, were largely hunters and gatherers, and even in some domestication cases, itÂ’s thought exposure was limited."
"Second, Europeans lived in more densely populated areas than Native Americans. When so many humans live together in relatively close quarters (particularly with lack of good, or any, sewage systems and the like), disease spreads quickly with the general population continually getting exposed to numerous pathogens. The EuropeansÂ’ bodies had to adapt to dealing with many of those diseases, and for those who survived, their immune systems thrived as a result.
The third factor is travel and exchange. Groups of people and animals moved around a lot in Europe and had interactions particularly through war and trade, resulting in the spread of disease across continents and, eventually, some level of immunity for the survivors."
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/03/native-americans-didnt-wipe-europeans-diseases/
Here is an interesting article about current research on how European diseases changed the genetic makeup of indigenous North Americans living today, BTW.
I know you don't believe in that kind of "eugenics" but try reading a little and you might learn something:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/11/european-diseases-left-genetic-mark-native-americans
"Finally, you claim that I am a troll because you didn't want to deal with my response."
Yes - I didn't want to waste time explaining to you how ill-informed you where and how you misconstrued what I wrote to fit your own narrative - that's completely right.
But now I did it anyway - without any real hope of you accepting the facts I present, because you clearly don't seem interested in understanding anything, but only seeking confrontation against someone you views as your enemy.
"However, I stand by it. You and @Tzenker have created an incredibly racist argument by shifting the blame off the Danish government and projecting the Greenlanders problems onto themselves. All of a sudden, the years of colonization and oppression doesn't exist, and the Greenlanders are alcoholics because they don't have the proper genes. It's condescending and wrong."
Of course you do - you're on a crusade against the evil racist enemy.
Unfortunately I've written none of the things you attack me for, so you're just tilting at windmills and looking stupid here.
I was quite clear in what I wrote that this is not about "race" (the biological concept of which doesn't even exist) or "good" or "bad" genes.
This is only about the fact that we know that the genetic makeup of populations do change as they encounter new threats - as diseases or poisons.
It's therefore an entirely reasonable theory that individuals who are most susceptible to new threats are the first to succumb to them and that the gene pool of a people thus over time develops from contact with this threat.
There is nothing racist or condescending about that theory. If the theory is correct the exact same thing happened in Europe, before it came into contact with indigenous peoples - which would explain why peoples of Europeans ancestry centuries later where less susceptible to the threat of alcohol.
Not immune to it, and not everything can be explained by genes of course - centuries of exposure to alcohol will also allow societies to develop strategies to combat it's ill effects of course - but still less susceptible then a society with no prior exposure to the threat.
But in an indigenous population that has no historic exposure to strong alcohol (and I don't think the people of Greenland - like the North American peoples - had even discovered the weaker form of fermentation before Europeans arrived, actually) - unleashing that freely was predicable to lead to a disaster.
That's not in any way a condescension against the Greenlanders, any more then it is to say that smallpox and other European diseases decimated the peoples of the Americas.
Their immune systems (and behind that their genetic pool) simply weren't equipped to handle the virulent strains of diseases Europeans had developed over centuries.
That doesn't make the Europeans or their genes better in any way - it's just the way it was.
Now go find some actual racist and attack instead - I'm all for that (which you would know if you had followed SATW for years - I'm quite famous for doing so myself on this site), and leave this discussion here, because you're not getting whatever you sought coming after me on this.
"You call me a troll but your ignorance rivals that of a Trump voter.
Said the guy who can't read what's actually written without interpreting things that aren't there.