[ExI] Old still true

[Mike Dougherty]

2011/8/15 john clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net>
> If the Mayan's were smart enough to predict the end of the world 500 years in the future I don't understand why they weren't smart enough to defeat a hundred Spaniards and their diseases. A friend of mine tried to convince me that the world would end in 2012 so I offered to buy his very nice house for $10,000 but I wouldn't take possession until December 22 2012, in the meantime he could continue to live there rent free and I'd even pay his property tax. For some reason he turned me down.

They were possibly smart enough, but greatly underinformed.  Aztecs
took tribute in the form of slaves, gold (and cacao, etc.) all the
time.  I believe they though King Charles was the next neighboring
tribal chief.  Cortez had technology in the form of canons and horses.
 More importantly he had unexpectedly exploited the meme of
Quetzalcoatl that had already infected the Aztec mind before the
European diseases could wipe out huge populations.  Once the pagan
gold showed up in Europe, the Church was eager to enlighten their
souls with the good news (and take their gold).  It really was a
perfect storm of ignorance vs technology.

Ironically, the Aztecs were the warrior mercenaries that subjugated
the Mayans.  The stronger military took political power, the stronger
cultural power continued to dominate mind-share even after the regime
change.

I wonder if those Europeans who survived the plague were effectively
"selected" for disease resistance.  This would certainly have given
them an edge in the biological warfare that decimated the natives.