Reddit reviews Carnage and Culture Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power

One of the problem is that by the time the historians came to the new world to see what was going on with the Natives, disease wiped out up to 90% of the population, and many villages and cities had fallen into disuse or disrepair.

So we don't know.

But we have some pretty tantalizing evidence of a society that was as populous and as sophisticated as those in parts of Europe, with structures so large they are often confused for small hills.

As to why Europeans invaded North America and Native Americans did not invade Europe is a subject for a number of anthropologists. I find the explanations by Victor Hanson's "Carnage and Culture" somewhat persuasive--but again, those civilizations were wiped out by disease before we had a chance to study them. And a lot of Europeans sometimes found the pre-made structures and moved in, claiming them as their own.

Incidentally Cannae was the very first thing I thought of when I saw that episode of GOT. I kept thinking how alot of that scene is exactly how I envisioned the battle of Cannae in my head (only with Roman soldiers instead of Wildlings and Crows). I read a really good book a few years back called "Carnage and Culture" by Victor Davis Hanson which has an entire chapter dedicated to Cannae. The book very vividly describes how the Romans were encircled and then slowly were forced back as the circle drew tighter and tighter around them like a slowly tightening noose.

I am a history major. If I could time travel, there are two places in history I would definitely NOT want to wind up: The Somme (Either Side), and Cannae (as a Roman soldier).

Link to the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Carnage-Culture-Landmark-Battles-Western/dp/0385720386

You can read some of the negative reviews of the book here.

I fully agree!

But for the sake of argument, a Star Wars fan would say that The Force represents a profound and nearly irresistible military capacity at least as devastating as Time Travel. Here's why:

Star Trek, as you correctly point out, focuses upon the cleverness, intelligence, logic, & knowledge of it's characters. The qualities of cleverness, intelligence, logic, & knowledge are qualities that the Western cultures have prized more than any other culture. It is because the characters of Star Trek have those capacities, they thrive and succeed. In this way, Star Trek represents an ideology of the triumph of Western Rationalism. Conversely, Star Wars is essentially RELIGIOUS fiction... not SCIENCE fiction, and The Force is Lucas's attempt at repackaging Eastern Mysticism. As such, Star Trek vs Star Wars is respectively Western Rationalism (Science) vs Eastern Mysticism (Tao, balance, etc). (For the purposes of this discussion, cultures descended from the traditions of the Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews of the ancient world, are what I am calling "Western Cultures").

Your analysis of the Federation's military capacity focused immediately on technology and adaptability as an implicit acceptance of the value of the products of rationalism to military success. This is quite reasonable in that it is completely in keeping with our experience in the Real World. In the Real World, we know that Western Culture has historically dominated in objectively measurable terms all other cultures that it has had contact with almost without exception, especially in spheres of military accomplishment, economic success, and accumulation of knowledge. That's because, in both the Real World, and Star Trek, Rationalism WORKS and Mysticism DOESN'T!

But in the world of Star Wars, The Force is real. Mysticism does work there. As such, the Jedi have powers that come close to rivaling even Q. They are deathless and able to do things that normal people simply can't attempt like telekinesis or mind control. But really the most powerful of their abilities is that they can see the future and let the force guide their actions to achieve desired futures. That is they may not be able to go into the past, but they can act in the present with near certainty that their actions can and will achieve the desired results even if the chances of those results would normally be infinitesimal. As such, the most impressive thing we see done with the force is done by Luke in blowing up the Death Star... any of the other pilots who tried to pull off the shot had equivalent ships and weapons, but Luke was able to make the shot where they failed even with computer assistance because he used The Force... translated into Western theological terms rather than Eastern ones... He had Divine Intervention! That's right, in effect, God in on the side of the Jedi. Or, to paraphrase Star Wars, "Judge me by my Technology do you? And well you should not! For The Force is my ally, and a Powerful Ally it is!"

As such, one Jedi, even armed with a fighter that only has laser weapons that can't normally penetrate the shields of a Federation vessel would still represent a formidable opponent. This is because the Jedi would, guided by The Force, be able to say... tune the weapons of his craft to match the phase variance of the federation vessel's shields (a trick we see working several times via espionage in Star Trek)... he'd be able to do this for every single shot regardless of how quickly they re-modulate their shields because he would be able to look into the future and see which possible timeline included him getting through the shields at the moment he fires. Likewise, he would be able to hit the weak points on the hull of the federation ship every single time without ever missing. Likewise, the devastating firepower of the Federation vessels is irrelevant. Against a Jedi-piloted fighter the Federation would have a 100% miss rate because the Jedi could simply avoid all futures in which they hit him. This ability to see threats in the future before they even exist would allow the Jedi to prevent a time travel device in the present from being used... before it was used. Every single time, a federation officer would find a Jedi cutting him in half with a light saber before he could press the button to go back in time. (And future versions of The Federation after the conflict with The Republic wouldn't use time travel either! This is because either the war between Star Wars and Star Trek ended in Federation victory or not. If not, then no future Federation exists to intervene, and if so the Temporal Prime Directive would prevent the Future Federation from altering history (and there would be no need to do so since they won anyway). Either way, the answer to your question of "How can you beat an enemy that can travel through time?" is: You stop him in the present before he has a chance to use his time machine. This has the disadvantage that it requires that you know about the threat before it even exists in the present... but the Jedi CAN IN FACT do that!)

This is not an unreasonable interpretation of the sheer power of the Jedi and The Force based upon the movies. It should be pointed out that we never see Jedi die at the hands of non-Jedi except the end of Episode III, and there it was made very clear that Palpatine's use of the Force had greatly diminished the capabilities of the Jedi, particularly in their capacity to see the future. Indeed, Vader makes the comparison between the power of massive firepower and technology (even by the standards of Star Trek) and The Force directly: "The power to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of The Force!"

So, when you (and I for that matter) say that Star trek would win, what we're really doing is rejecting the ideology of Star Wars (Mysticism) and upholding the ideology of Star Trek (Rationalism). By the rules of Star Trek and the Real World, rules based upon Rationalism, it's no contest. BUT, by the unbelievable and unrealistic rules of Star Wars, it's ALSO no contest, but in the other direction.

On a side note, if you are interested in how and why the West consistently develops better military organization, military technology, military discipline & military leadership than non-western opponents, I HEARTILY recommend the book Carnage and Culture by Victor Hanson!

In addition to your analysis, I was under the impression that the Mexica people used their melee weapons for slashing instead of stabbing. It was the stabbing mixed with the brittle obsidian that caused the Aztecs to be inferior to the Spanish instakill stabbing steel.

Also there fighting styles were a different from their European counterparts.
>"Because Aztec warfare was designed largely to capture rather than kill, stone blades were sufficient against similarly armed Mesoamericans.

That quote is from a book I read last semester for a class.

Thanks again for doing this. Love 'em.

They might. They can't hurt, that's for sure, but how much they can help, I don't know.


I haven't the faintest how the Australian forces promote (I'm sure someone can attest to it here), but the USMC promotes up to the rank of Sergeant (E5) based on something called composite scores. A big part of that is the physical fitness test (PFT). Run fast on the PFT = higher score = quicker promotion.

The real world experience, and really just the age, would give you leadership in the USMC straight away. Let's say I get 4 new Privates First Class in the shop, The SNCO tells me, the NCO to take them around, get them checked in and squared away. If one them is your age, and the rest are 18-19, I'm going to pull the older guy aside, tell him what needs done and put him in charge. The others will listen to him, and give him a ton of shit no doubt, but they'll listen because they know his authority came from me, and mine from the SNCO and so on up the chain.

I saw lot's of situations like that over the years and they go one of two ways. First, the guy is ok with it and "shows leadership" which gets factored into his pro/con marks (his semi annual evaluation). Higher Pro/Con = Higher Composite Score = faster promotion. Plus that kind of demonstrated leadership gets recognized through official citations, recommendations for meritorious promotions, etc. (If the command is good of course. If the senior leadership is shit, everyone is fucked.)

The second scenario is that the old guy blows it, either because he's a retard and his several more years of life experience taught him nothing, or because he doesn't want to be in charge. I only saw that once though. Friend of mine was 28 when he enlisted, and had no desire to advance, he just felt the need to do his bit for his country and signed up. He just wanted to do his job and be let be, he was the exception rather than the rule though.

Regardless of the particulars of the promotions system there, a military culture (especially a western one; see Victor Hanson for a good reference), is a military culture and a lot of the basic principles would apply. So yeah, I'd say what you've got going for you would be more advantageous than harmful.

Also, if you haven't read VDH's Carnage and Culture - Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power you should. It's the antidote to Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies, which is foisted upon many in college.

That was a very interesting article. Reminds me a lot of some of the points made in Carnage and Culture.