WIP Discussion (Part 1!)

[Ithekro]

Interestingly, there were horses in North American some 13,000 or so years ago. But they died off (one way or another). Makes one wonder what would have happened in they had survived until the ages when the local nations were more active, but before the Europeans came. Would the nations have had domestic horses of their own?

[Arioch]

Interestingly, there were horses in North American some 13,000 or so years ago. But they died off (one way or another). Makes one wonder what would have happened in they had survived until the ages when the local nations were more active, but before the Europeans came. Would the nations have had domestic horses of their own?

Yes, horses originated in North America.

[Werra]

Firstly, while we were living alongside them, we hadn't really domesticated anything yet (like dogs), so probably this whole domestication business was unknown.

That sentence came out hilariously wrong. When did us humans stop living besides Zebras?

If their fear of humans is ingrained in their instincts, then even getting them to willingly come close to you is a massive feat

Have you heard of the Russian fox breeding program? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_red_fox That project produced foxes tame as housepets in just a few generations. The results in a different species will vary, but the mechanisms will remain the same.
And it's not a massive feat to tame a wild Zebra. People with knowledge of horses do it today. You can find videos of ordinary people doing that all over youtube. There's also this book. https://archive.org/details/pointsofhor ... 9/mode/2up Starts on the bottom page. The Germans even used them for their African military. There is no reason to believe that Zebras are harder to tame than the ancestors of modern horses.

(compared to the aurochs, who might be wary, but doesn't feel instinctual fear like from a tiger's growl).

https://hydeandrugg.wordpress.com/2014/ ... e-aurochs/

I mean... stone age people could build hot air balloons, but I think it's a pretty big thing to ask of people who, most of their lives, toil for food, and rarely can spare such manpower.

In a comparison between hunter-gatherers and subsistence farmers, the farmers have a far worse caloric efficiency in their food, their crops are also less safe, less diverse and healthy than the varied diet of hunter-gatherers. Pre-farming, humans didn't toil for food much. They didn't even have to be nomadic, as a settlement in river wetlands bordering one or two other biomes, such as planes or woods, could make use of a lot of food sources without moving. These people errected cities of stone with their manpower. If you can do without modern medicine and electricity, your life can be pretty easy. You might die sooner, but you'll have a lot more time on your hands.

Africa, where Zebras weren't tamed, is one of the most fertile continents for humans. The food sources in many places there literally never stop producing.

[orion1836]

Can we just agree that the Loroi tech tree is weird and call it a day?

[raistlin34]

Can we just agree that the Loroi tech tree is weird and call it a day?

Not that much if you consider they were engineered by another superadvanced alien race, so they skipped a lot of steps on the development tree.

[Krulle]

And a lot of devices survived the fall, so they did not have to re-invent the wheel, and may have had "guidance" on some more sphisticateddesigns later on....

[Mr.Tucker]

Can we just agree that the Loroi tech tree is weird and call it a day?

I am at home, and fighting off boredom. So no.

Have you heard of the Russian fox breeding program?

And it's not a massive feat to tame a wild Zebra. People with knowledge of horses do it today. You can find videos of ordinary people doing that all over youtube. There's also this book. https://archive.org/details/pointsofhor ... 9/mode/2up Starts on the bottom page. The Germans even used them for their African military.

Careful now. Foxes are a lot more manageable than a 400 kilogram animal. I can literally immobilize one with my bare hands (and be uscathed if I'm quick enough with a decent position). If I try to do that with a zebra, it's likely to take my head off with a kick. It's why early horses were smaller than even their wild cousins like the Tarpan.
All those examples are from the 19th century, when we had a body of institutionalized knowledge on breeding and genomics, and ample free manpower to devote to the process, brought on by industrialisation.Any civilisation that was still using animal power or (worse) manpower as it's primary motive force would find it impractical. Show me a medieval example of a domesticated zebra.

Also, note the difference between "tamed" and "domesticated". Domesticated implies breeding, whereas tamed animals are plucked from their environments. There are no domesticated elephants.

That sentence came out hilariously wrong. When did us humans stop living besides Zebras?

I was referring to stone age hunters. Once the horse was developed, why bother? Africa never had massive trade networks until the 17th century Arab slavers came about with their camels. The environment of Africa is very fragmented, and communities there have a slow natural rate of change. The Masai use oxen, but that is not comparable to a horse. Hell, the San basically never truly adopted bows.

Pre-farming, humans didn't toil for food much.

That...is a very idealized image of primitive life. You forget that for most of our history, we chased our prey down for hours in the sun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o
Even with bows, arrows and dogs, there simply isn't time to think about genomics or trait genetics. Hell I would argue that a farmer has more time to think about advanced concepts than a hunter. Agriculture is high intensive labour, low intensive thinking, and allows for surplus production to feed people who can devote themselves to advancement (or to themselves, but that's inevitable). Dogs were not scientifically domesticated they "evolved" themselves because it was advantageous.

Also, what were we arguing about?....

[Werra]

Careful now. Foxes are a lot more manageable than a 400 kilogram animal. I can literally immobilize one with my bare hands (and be uscathed if I'm quick enough with a decent position). If I try to do that with a zebra, it's likely to take my head off with a kick. It's why early horses were smaller than even their wild cousins like the Tarpan. All those examples are from the 19th century, when we had a body of institutionalized knowledge on breeding and genomics, and ample free manpower to devote to the process, brought on by industrialisation.Any civilisation that was still using animal power or (worse) manpower as it's primary motive force would find it impractical. Show me a medieval example of a domesticated zebra.

We're tool users for a reason. And if domestication requires so much manpower and resources, how did Eurasian people do it so often?

I was referring to stone age hunters. Once the horse was developed, why bother?

Why bother? The domesticated horse reached Black Africa only a few centuries ago. If you were a stone age man, would you rather have Zebras or no horse at all? Zebras don't have to measure up to modern horses or be easy to tame to be worth the initial effort. They just need to be better than not having them.

That...is a very idealized image of primitive life. You forget that for most of our history, we chased our prey down for hours in the sun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o

That's one method of hunting, in one particular environment. If these people lived in the wetlands of a river they could fish, catch fowl, collect eggs and harvest natural berries and roots. Even so, endurance hunting is very likely quite a lot more efficient, calorie wise, than farming.

Even with bows, arrows and dogs, there simply isn't time to think about genomics or trait genetics. Hell I would argue that a farmer has more time to think about advanced concepts than a hunter. Agriculture is high intensive labour, low intensive thinking, and allows for surplus production to feed people who can devote themselves to advancement (or to themselves, but that's inevitable).

We have stopped talking about the Loroi entirely. While this discussion has been fun, getting into the details of caloric efficiency of food sources would go too far. Let's just say that there is a reason why agricultural societies always were of poorer health than hunter-gatherers. The food situation was kind of the reverse of what you claim it was. In nutrition, in diversity, in work required, in reliability. "Against the Grain" by J.C.Scott does a great job at explaining in detail.

[Krulle]

Horses need special food grown for them for the winter, this is the reason why horses reached farms rather late in Europe,
Only cloisters had the surplus food to get that done early...

[Incinerator]

<-- takes care of horses for a living.

Horses don't really need much variety besides hay and small amounts of grain if they can't graze, especially if they aren't being worked at the time. In the modern day, the grain is usually in the form of pellets processed in a grain factory, but before the 20th century (where working horses were about to be supplanted by automobiles and farm tractors anyway), the occasional bag of oats or bran were sufficient. I suppose the hay would be special in the sense that humans can't eat it, but most livestock could eat that. If you don't know what hay is, it's just grass that has been allowed to grow, then is cut and dried for long term storage.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'rather late', though. Horse husbandry has been around since prehistoric times, and eastern Europe is in fact where it originated.

[Mr.Tucker]

<-- takes care of horses for a living.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'rather late', though. Horse husbandry has been around since prehistoric times, and eastern Europe is in fact where it originated.

Let's just say... east of Europe, west of China, north of Persia and south of penguins .
But given your background: why do you think the zebra was never domesticated?

We're tool users for a reason. And if domestication requires so much manpower and resources, how did Eurasian people do it so often?

Dumb luck? Better suitability in a very particular subspecies that went extinct/domesticated in the meantime? A sudden stroke of innovative genius in some cave dweller chieftain?
Most animals we encountered we didn't domesticate. That means whatever the catalyst is, it's either very rare or requires some kind of insight and resources. And plenty of time, so it has to morph probably into some sort of community imperative. Domesticated animals are tools to non-modern peoples, domestication is a process to create them that takes time and multiple generations. Maintaining that process through thick and thin, for several generations and changes in conditions and leadership until the end result is usable on a large scale and easily is probably quite rare. See greek steam and clockwork technology, spaceflight (that changes priorities every administration), nuclear technology, etc...

[Incinerator]

I have no personal experience with zebras, but an acquaintance of mine who works in the exotic animals industry tells me that a zebra can be broken just like a horse, and put under a saddle and bridle. The difference is that a zebra is more 'twitchy' (as she puts it) and prone to spook. I would guess this is because zebras have more natural predators in their native range.

In any case, that is probably why horses were preferred over zebras for domestication. Given a choice, a farmer is going to pick the calmer animal to work with.

[boldilocks]

I have no personal experience with zebras, but an acquaintance of mine who works in the exotic animals industry tells me that a zebra can be broken just like a horse, and put under a saddle and bridle. The difference is that a zebra is more 'twitchy' (as she puts it) and prone to spook. I would guess this is because zebras have more natural predators in their native range.

In any case, that is probably why horses were preferred over zebras for domestication. Given a choice, a farmer is going to pick the calmer animal to work with.

It's more likely that horses were domesticated because the people who domesticated animals weren't living in a place where zebras existed.
If they did, they'd have domesticated zebras.
If they lived in a place where both animals existed, they'd probably have domesticated the horse, but that relies on a lot of conjecture about how we believe horse-precursors acted, and that's based on the behavior of a broken and domesticated species of animal, so it could also in fact be the zebra.

[Ithekro]

Probably a better question: What animals were domesticated in Central and Southern Africa? The climate and social structure south the Nile Delta and Desert regions is a lot different than many of the other regions of this planet where domestication of animals seems to be more frequent. The cat, one of the later species that was domesticated, was in the Nile Delta region, but most other animals the humans domesticated were from other regions and migrated around with their humans.

[sunphoenix]

hehe... We have Cats!

[GeoModder]

Humanity definitely has improved in the 22nd century. Two grassbots?

[asaenvolk]

Our possession of "cat" technology clearly is a sign of a superior culture

[Sweforce]

That scean could exist today, including the two lawnmower bots, they are getting cheaper nowadays so having two isn't much of a stretch. The area look rural thou, so those places apperantly still exist. Let's hope that the reason for that isn't a great plague that depopulated humanity. If that have happened then the expansion to the new colonies would be not due to overpopulation but as a mean to spread humanity out in case something horrible happens, again.

[Arioch]

Humanity definitely has improved in the 22nd century. Two grassbots?

When I first imagined this scene as a teenager, lawnmower robots seemed more futuristic than they do today.

But revisiting the idea today, I expect that the lawnmower robots of the 22nd century will probably not look much different than they do today... it's a practical form. Being smaller isn't an advantage (it would just take longer), and I think something like a hovercraft lawnmower is overkill.

[GeoModder]

Humanity definitely has improved in the 22nd century. Two grassbots?

When I first imagined this scene as a teenager, lawnmower robots seemed more futuristic than they do today.

But revisiting the idea today, I expect that the lawnmower robots of the 22nd century will probably not look much different than they do today... it's a practical form. Being smaller isn't an advantage (it would just take longer), and I think something like a hovercraft lawnmower is overkill.

Oh, I agree. I only thought it funny there's a second 'bot on the mow. I meant material (consumption) improvement instead of design improvement.
That said, I'm used to smaller grass lots attached to properties in my region. Less available space for housing.

hehe... We have Cats!

Perhaps the Insider should have a registry of the Long-eared People.