Zompist Bboard Again

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 12:43 am the Mayans argue otherwise...they did do the bleeding stuff a lot, though.

Mayans had human sacrifice, though less than the Aztecs, who claimed to have done more of it than seems feasible.

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 12:43 am a lot of them were getting funding from the colleges and other sites they worked at...outside the USA, they probably still are.

Yes. We'll see how we deal with the funding cuts.

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 12:43 am so, by that logic, you don't really believe all that stuff that Marx and his heirs said, then...you're just going along with it, because you feel it'll make you tougher and more disciplined.

shoe? other foot.

I have always thought it's good to believe in science. Political materialism is a natural extension of that judgement.

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 12:43 am you mean research, right?

She did druidic rituals until she saw visions.

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 12:43 am I think either Socrates or Plato were accused of being atheists as well -- but not in the sense you may be thinking; they didn't believe in the gods of that city. thats not the same as not believing in any and all gods.

Possible explanation: https://youtu.be/Eb5mYqnKFlI

malloc wrote: ↑Wed Jun 11, 2025 9:56 pm

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Jun 11, 2025 3:33 amUnrelated: Has there ever been a known human culture in which there was a tradition that a monarch, high priest, or high official, would, every morning before dawn, ritually order the Sun to rise?

I've been wondering about this ever since, as a teenager, I first heard that Hemingway once wrote a novel called The Sun Also Rises. I thought, then, that this would make a good title for a story that starts with this scenario, and then the king is overthrown in a revolution, and the people, after much initial anxiety, are comforted to see that the Sun still rises afterwards.

You mean like King Canute ordering the tide to go out?

I think the usual explanation for that is that he wanted to make fun of sycophantic advisers, sending them a message like "You say I'm so powerful? Look, when it comes to the tides, I'm as powerless as anyone!"

rotting bones wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 12:17 am It need not be that extreme. There are factions even within the majority religion. The slow triumph of smaller factions is how belief systems keep evolving even in non-revolutionary times. E.g. Quetzalcoatl was said to have opposed human sacrifice. It's conceivable that his cult could have triumphed over the others. (But maybe Mesoamerica was a small region with a dense population where human sacrifice developed as a check on population growth?)

I heard that about Quetzalcoatl too, but there's surprisingly little evidence. There are several claims that this or that faction opposed human sacrifice; all of them are dubious in my opinion.

On the cultural materialism standpoint, Mesoamerica was generally short on animal protein. The valley of Mexico in particular was very densely populated, a great deal more so than it could support.
Marvin Harris's thesis is that cannibalism functioned as a perk for the military elite. (Victims of human sacrifice were always eaten.)

We can't know, of course, if the Aztecs really believed the sacrifices were necessary for cosmic order... But why assume they didn't? I suspect it's because we think the idea absurd. But that's a product of our culture and tells of nothing about Aztec culture.

There are places in Mexico where, until recently (maybe even to this day), animal sacrifice is felt to be necessary for any significant endeavor.

Where I live statues of the Virgin Mary were build as thanksgiving post WWII. The people who built these genuinely believed Mary's intercession had been necessary in the Allied victory; nobody questions that. Why treat the Aztecs any differently?

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 12:43 am the Mayans argue otherwise...they did do the bleeding stuff a lot, though.

BTW, Aztecs had one of the most populous cities in the world at the time. I'm not sure Mayans ever had that level of population density.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 2:43 am I heard that about Quetzalcoatl too, but there's surprisingly little evidence. There are several claims that this or that faction opposed human sacrifice; all of them are dubious in my opinion.

It's hard to talk about factions when even the mainstream positions are disputed. But factions surely existed, right? Aztecs can't have produced the only monolithic society in history.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 2:43 am On the cultural materialism standpoint, Mesoamerica was generally short on animal protein. The valley of Mexico in particular was very densely populated, a great deal more so than it could support.
Marvin Harris's thesis is that cannibalism functioned as a perk for the military elite. (Victims of human sacrifice were always eaten.)

Interesting. Given that humans are megafauna with a long childhood and picky dietary requirements, I have questions about whether even large numbers of humans are enough to fulfill protein requirements for entire contingents.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 2:43 am We can't know, of course, if the Aztecs really believed the sacrifices were necessary for cosmic order... But why assume they didn't? I suspect it's because we think the idea absurd. But that's a product of our culture and tells of nothing about Aztec culture.

There are places in Mexico where, until recently (maybe even to this day), animal sacrifice is felt to be necessary for any significant endeavor.

1. An anthropologist of religion says most believers are not fundamentalists. They think it's good to have certain beliefs. They believe in the beliefs, which is different from believing directly.

2. All organized religions require sacrifice from members of the community. If you ask for sacrifice, it is human nature to question if you're being hoodwinked. I think large religions convince people with the psychology that X million people can't be wrong. But most of those people are thinking the same thing, and that's why they think it's good to have those beliefs.

3. I don't think Aztec beliefs are absurd. I think the Nahua gods were more symbolically evocative than most pantheons. That, combined with their military power and offensive trade networks, could be why they weilded so much soft power in the region.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 2:43 am Where I live statues of the Virgin Mary were build as thanksgiving post WWII. The people who built these genuinely believed Mary's intercession had been necessary in the Allied victory; nobody questions that. Why treat the Aztecs any differently?

I question it. How do you know all these people genuinely believed it? Some of them could have believed it, some of them could have thought it's pious to believe it, while others might simply have worked on the statues for the money or have been excited about increased tourism.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 2:45 am

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 12:43 am the Mayans argue otherwise...they did do the bleeding stuff a lot, though.

BTW, Aztecs had one of the most populous cities in the world at the time. I'm not sure Mayans ever had that level of population density.

you could stand on pretty much any Mayan pyramid, back in their heyday, look out to the horizon, and see no trees.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 3:01 am

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 2:43 am I heard that about Quetzalcoatl too, but there's surprisingly little evidence. There are several claims that this or that faction opposed human sacrifice; all of them are dubious in my opinion.

It's hard to talk about factions when even the mainstream positions are disputed. But factions surely existed, right? Aztecs can't have produced the only monolithic society in history.

nobody is saying the Aztecs were monolithic; Ares Land was saying that the claims as to which faction believed what, are what are dubious. Also, its a moot point, as the sacrifices weren't for the Feathered Serpent in the first place.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 2:43 am On the cultural materialism standpoint, Mesoamerica was generally short on animal protein. The valley of Mexico in particular was very densely populated, a great deal more so than it could support.
Marvin Harris's thesis is that cannibalism functioned as a perk for the military elite. (Victims of human sacrifice were always eaten.)

Interesting. Given that humans are megafauna with a long childhood and picky dietary requirements, I have questions about whether even large numbers of humans are enough to fulfill protein requirements for entire contingents.

*facepalm*

perk =/= sole food source.

I'm not sure we can trust you on economic matters, dude, if you aren't sure how food works.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 2:43 am We can't know, of course, if the Aztecs really believed the sacrifices were necessary for cosmic order... But why assume they didn't? I suspect it's because we think the idea absurd. But that's a product of our culture and tells of nothing about Aztec culture.

There are places in Mexico where, until recently (maybe even to this day), animal sacrifice is felt to be necessary for any significant endeavor.

1. An anthropologist of religion says most believers are not fundamentalists.

thats pretty obvious worldwide.

making an animal sacrifice doesn't make a person a fundie...heck, you going to accuse the Samaritans of being fundies too?

They think it's good to have certain beliefs. They believe in the beliefs, which is different from believing directly.

If I tell you that I believe that statements found in the Nicene Creed, you're seriously going to tell me that I don't believe in Jesus??

2. All organized religions require sacrifice from members of the community. If you ask for sacrifice, it is human nature to question if you're being hoodwinked.

really? if your friend says they can't eat meat on friday (unless its fish), you're going to start ranting to them that they're being hoodwinked?

I think large religions convince people with the psychology that X million people can't be wrong.

that begs the question of how they {b}became[/b] large.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 2:43 am Where I live statues of the Virgin Mary were build as thanksgiving post WWII. The people who built these genuinely believed Mary's intercession had been necessary in the Allied victory; nobody questions that. Why treat the Aztecs any differently?

I question it. How do you know all these people genuinely believed it? Some of them could have believed it, some of them could have thought it's pious to believe it, while others might simply have worked on the statues for the money or have been excited about increased tourism.

if this is what happens when someone gets jaded and disillusioned, and stops believing in anything more than themselves, I'm starting to wonder if we should in fact convince Malloc to stop believing Trump is an allpowerful godking or that the AIs are going to replace us all next year.

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 3:13 am you could stand on pretty much any Mayan pyramid, back in their heyday, look out to the horizon, and see no trees.

The only city with a population bigger than the Aztec capital was Beijing. Nothing in Europe, India or the Middle East was comparable.

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 3:13 am *facepalm*

perk =/= sole food source.

Please tell me you are a hallucination. How can you be so wrong and so self-righteous at the same time? We're fucked if you are real.

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 3:13 am I'm not sure we can trust you on economic matters, dude, if you aren't sure how food works.

You won't believe me. I will starve while you stand around looking smug and accusing me of stealing everyone else's food.

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 3:13 am thats pretty obvious worldwide.

making an animal sacrifice doesn't make a person a fundie...heck, you going to accuse the Samaritans of being fundies too?

Everyone else has been saying it's not obvious they don't believe it absolutely. I'm the one saying animal sacrifice doesn't make them fundamentalists, a fundamentalist being an absolute believer.

Like in most conversations, if you invert all your opinions about who is saying what, you will end up being right more often.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 3:01 am

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 2:43 am On the cultural materialism standpoint, Mesoamerica was generally short on animal protein. The valley of Mexico in particular was very densely populated, a great deal more so than it could support.
Marvin Harris's thesis is that cannibalism functioned as a perk for the military elite. (Victims of human sacrifice were always eaten.)

Interesting. Given that humans are megafauna with a long childhood and picky dietary requirements, I have questions about whether even large numbers of humans are enough to fulfill protein requirements for entire contingents.

And that's the sort of question Harris would be eager to answer, if he were alive. He supported testing his theories with e.g. rigorous measurement of calorie intakes. Of course you need more indirect evidence for the past.

The claim isn't that protein requirements were "fulfilled" by cannibalism. Agricultural societies feed themselves with agriculture. But almost everybody loves meat, and the increased food diversity is heatlhy. (So long as it didn't give them brain disease-- I don't know if this afflicted the Mesoamericans.)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 2:43 am There are places in Mexico where, until recently (maybe even to this day), animal sacrifice is felt to be necessary for any significant endeavor.

1. An anthropologist of religion says most believers are not fundamentalists. They think it's good to have certain beliefs. They believe in the beliefs, which is different from believing directly.

Believing what the priests say isn't even fundamentalism. Fundamentalism doesn't exist till modern times when science and other alternative voices contradict the religious authorities.

Is everyone in a religion zealous? Obviously not. Nor do religions even agree that everyone has to be.

Again, believing things does not equate to fundamentalism, and isn't some weird flex opposed to all rationalism. In many premodern societies the local priest (or whatever) was the nerd, the guy who knew how to read and who knew things from beyond the village borders.

I'm just very skeptical that premodern religions "really didn't believe" what they said they believed; it seems like temporal bigotry. Just because something seems absurd to us doesn't mean it seemed absurd to them.

2. All organized religions require sacrifice from members of the community.

Do they? My impression that is just about every religious practice in China was optional. The elite could pick and choose beliefs and practices from Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism, and the people had their own gods. You were supposed to venerate your ancestors, but I don't know how onerous that was for the poor, and after all the ancestors had no way to enforce gift-giving.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 3:01 am

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 2:43 am I heard that about Quetzalcoatl too, but there's surprisingly little evidence. There are several claims that this or that faction opposed human sacrifice; all of them are dubious in my opinion.

It's hard to talk about factions when even the mainstream positions are disputed. But factions surely existed, right? Aztecs can't have produced the only monolithic society in history.

Of course, there were factions and disagreements. But not on the principle of human sacrifice or cannibalism, which just were a basic fact of life.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 3:01 am Interesting. Given that humans are megafauna with a long childhood and picky dietary requirements, I have questions about whether even large numbers of humans are enough to fulfill protein requirements for entire contingents.

It's of course impossible, and that's the difficult bit for everyone, including historians, who mostly don't get Harris' idea. You can't sustain any kind of population on human meat. But as a perk, yes, it would work, for a population that always was kind of hungry all the time.

1. An anthropologist of religion says most believers are not fundamentalists. They think it's good to have certain beliefs. They believe in the beliefs, which is different from believing directly.

I question it. How do you know all these people genuinely believed it? Some of them could have believed it, some of them could have thought it's pious to believe it, while others might simply have worked on the statues for the money or have been excited about increased tourism.

That's kind of a weird statement. It's not hard to find an actual believer and figure out what they think.

People generally aren't fundamentalist, and what they believe can differ from what their neighbour thinks, and in the case of organized religion, differ very significantly from what they're supposed to believe. That's the confusing part, I guess.

But yes, a significant number of French Catholics in a French village in the early 50s definitely believed Mary interceded in favor of ordinary human sinners. Of course not everyone involved in building the statues (your list of other motives is about right, I guess), but quite a number of them.

Getting back to the Aztecs -- Mesoamericans, really, it's tempting to try and find other motives because the whole idea is entirely contrary to our values. We can't get back at the specifics (and there was a lot of variance), but I think we can state that people believed sacrifice was necessary to cosmic order somehow.

zompist wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 4:12 am
And that's the sort of question Harris would be eager to answer, if he were alive. He supported testing his theories with e.g. rigorous measurement of calorie intakes. Of course you need more indirect evidence for the past.

The claim isn't that protein requirements were "fulfilled" by cannibalism. Agricultural societies feed themselves with agriculture. But almost everybody loves meat, and the increased food diversity is heatlhy. (So long as it didn't give them brain disease-- I don't know if this afflicted the Mesoamericans.)

He goes into some detail in Cannibals and Kings; it's been a while since I read it but I believe he did the math as far as the sources allowed.

There is no record of prion disease (though again our records are incomplete). Sorry about the details, but it may be relevant that the organ meats weren't eaten (by humans anyway.)

Regarding cannibalism being a perk: That's what I'm saying. I'm curious how there was enough long pork to function as a protein supplement for entire classes of people. I will try to find the calculations.

Regarding disbelief: I have given many examples to show how this is possible. See How God Becomes Real by Luhrmann, an (IIRC) award-winning anthropologist. That's my citation. By "fundamentalist", I don't mean "terrorist", just an absolute believer.

Regarding sacrifice: Traditional Chinese society was violently hierarchical. That's the kind of sacrifice codified in the "religion" of Confucianism. IIRC rank was more important than property. Someone of sufficiently higher rank could occasionally commandeer your junk.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 3:48 am

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 3:13 am you could stand on pretty much any Mayan pyramid, back in their heyday, look out to the horizon, and see no trees.

The only city with a population bigger than the Aztec capital was Beijing. Nothing in Europe, India or the Middle East was comparable.

that wasn't the thing i was replying to. you said, and I quote, I'm not sure Mayans ever had that level of population density.

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 3:13 am *facepalm*

perk =/= sole food source.

Please tell me you are a hallucination. How can you be so wrong and so self-righteous at the same time? We're fucked if you are real.

how am i wrong? if your job gives you the perk of driving the company car as much as you want to...is that the entirety of your job? is that the entirety of what you get from your job?

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 3:13 am I'm not sure we can trust you on economic matters, dude, if you aren't sure how food works.

You won't believe me. I will starve while you stand around looking smug and accusing me of stealing everyone else's food.

why would i accuse you of that, when you don't even know what food is.

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 3:13 am thats pretty obvious worldwide.

making an animal sacrifice doesn't make a person a fundie...heck, you going to accuse the Samaritans of being fundies too?

Everyone else has been saying it's not obvious they don't believe it absolutely. I'm the one saying animal sacrifice doesn't make them fundamentalists, a fundamentalist being an absolute believer.

no, you were replying to There are places in Mexico where, until recently (maybe even to this day), animal sacrifice is felt to be necessary for any significant endeavor.
...to which you replied with 1. An anthropologist of religion says most believers are not fundamentalists.

Like in most conversations, if you invert all your opinions about who is saying what, you will end up being right more often.

good lord, its like talking to Malloc.

This is getting a bit overheated, IMO.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 4:51 am Regarding cannibalism being a perk: That's what I'm saying. I'm curious how there was enough long pork to function as a protein supplement for entire classes of people.

a suppliment??

you must be a nightmare on Halloween...or the hero of thousands of children - you don't give them each a small candy or chocolate, no, you give each of them a complete meal of chocolate.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 4:51 am Regarding cannibalism being a perk: That's what I'm saying. I'm curious how there was enough long pork to function as a protein supplement for entire classes of people. I will try to find the calculations.

Marvin Harris goes into some detail on this.
I don't think it made any significant difference, nutritionally speaking, to anyone but the top elites.

But there was a lot of long pork involved. By the time Cortez landed, the Mexica had been involved in near continuous wars for about a century. The number of victims was horrifying.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 6:40 am But there was a lot of long pork involved. By the time Cortez landed, the Mexica had been involved in near continuous wars for about a century. The number of victims was horrifying.

Why I'm curious about the math: 15K sacrifices per year, right? Say there were 20~30K elites. If you get 20 kg of meat per victim after removing the organs, that's 15 * 20 / 20~30 = only 10~15 kg per elite per year. This is in line with the most malnourished countries in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... onsumption But if the intake from fish, amphibians, insects and tribute meat was already low, maybe even a little bit more would help? I've read that poor Aztecs sometimes ate pond scum under the name "stone dung".

Also, my understanding is that this is one of the earliest references to Quetzalcoatl opposing human sacrifice: https://pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/nahuat ... coatl.html I don't have the expertise to evaluate its authenticity.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 2:06 pm

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 6:40 am But there was a lot of long pork involved. By the time Cortez landed, the Mexica had been involved in near continuous wars for about a century. The number of victims was horrifying.

Why I'm curious about the math: 15K sacrifices per year, right? Say there were 20~30K elites. If you get 20 kg of meat per victim after removing the organs, that's 15 * 20 / 20~30 = only 10~15 kg per elite per year. This is in line with the most malnourished countries in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... onsumption But if the intake from fish, amphibians, insects and tribute meat was already low, maybe even a little bit more would help?

15 kg/year is about .3 kg per week... ironically, not far from the maximum red meat amount recommended for people today.

You can live on maize, beans and squash. But without large game animals, any extra meat would be well appreciated.

zompist wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 3:06 pm 15 kg/year is about .3 kg per week... ironically, not far from the maximum red meat amount recommended for people today.

You can live on maize, beans and squash. But without large game animals, any extra meat would be well appreciated.

Isn't that upper estimate less than half the minimum recommended amount for physically active men like soldiers, for whom more protein is important for muscle growth? Different compounds in meat are needed in different amounts. One article says:

It is well accepted [61] the role of meat proteins avoids catabolism and stimulates muscle growth. On average, 100 g of meat, provides up to 20 g of useful protein to meet human daily needs [62]. This is impressive considering that the amount of protein necessary to enhance muscle and albumin protein synthesis after a single session of endurance exercise is around 20–25 g of high-quality intact protein [63].

Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9102337 Not that I know much about diet. Maybe I misunderstood what the article is saying.

My understanding is that most sources of protein for Aztecs were lean, like turkey, fish, amphibians and insects, not red meat. Unlike commoners, elites had routine access to game meat. But I agree that generally speaking, animal protein was scarce in Mesoamerica. The deer had been hunted to extinction in the heartland by other Nahua before the Aztecs rose to power.

There are still questions about the accuracy of the number of sacrifices. Aztecs claimed to sacrifice humans on the same order of magnitude as the number of elites in a whole empire every single year. The diet composition of their elites is an interesting question. I've read that Aztecs increased sacrifices during years of famine.

Despite all this desperation, the Aztecs had refined etiquette around cannibalism. It was impolite for a warrior to consume the flesh of his own captive, who was regarded as his spiritual son. The ceremony around the consumption of a captive was narrativized as a prelude to the warrior responsible for the capture himself being consumed one day. I'm seeing inklings of our own post-climate-catastrophe future. I look forward to Jesus' words about consuming flesh and blood being given a literal interpretation.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 4:25 pm There are still questions about the accuracy of the number of sacrifices. Aztecs claimed to sacrifice humans on the same order of magnitude as the number of elites in a whole empire every single year. The diet composition of their elites is an interesting question. I've read that Aztecs increased sacrifices during years of famine.

There wasn't a whole empire of elites to feed, but three cities-- Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan. And almost all our reports are about Tenochtitlan.

There is a huge argument on the actual number of sacrifices, and the number who got fed is also unknown, so I doubt we can figure it out more precisely than the estimates above.

This is what Quetzalcoatl's associations with human sacrifice sound like: https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads ... -06-10.pdf

There might be a grain of truth to the claims that Quetzalcoatl opposed human sacrifice. Although his cult didn't take a principled stand against it, it was nothing compared to the practices of the Huitzilopochtli cult, Aztec mythology's answer to the original question about keeping the sun alive: https://youtu.be/Zj-jDOjBets

---

The population control theory I mentioned has been discussed by scholars, apparently: https://www.jstor.org/stable/178547

zompist wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 4:47 pm There wasn't a whole empire of elites to feed, but three cities-- Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan. And almost all our reports are about Tenochtitlan.

Spanish narratives say every town had human sacrifice. The Aztecs established tributaries instead of the imperial structure we're more familiar with, but there were several cities: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... e_1519.png

zompist wrote: ↑Thu Jun 12, 2025 4:47 pm There is a huge argument on the actual number of sacrifices, and the number who got fed is also unknown, so I doubt we can figure it out more precisely than the estimates above.

Ok, I was wondering what else we can tell without more archaeology. My point is that without sacrifice on the same scale, the protein contribution would be lower. That could be why the population control document mentions amino acids instead of protein.