I think this is a big open question; currently I still disagree. For one thing, the initial plagues weren’t 90% death rate, but more like 50% IIRC. For another… well, when I get to this part in the book I’ll have a better sense of how disorganized they became. My guess is that you are way overestimating it. Remember, I’m not saying the effect was negligible—I’m saying the effect wasn’t so big as to undermine the conclusions I drew about tech and diplomacy advantages. (Or the conclusions I list in the “lessons” section). You are the one making the extreme claim here, as far as I understand you currently.”
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I have seen military historians cite that 25% casualty rates are generally enough for the total collapse of the viability of a military force. Near-indiscriminate loss of personnel randomly distributed across a social or military hierarchy- imagine a if a quarter of everyone you knew disappeared tomorrow- in a both direct functional and psychological sense would be utterly devastating. 50% is well over the threshold for total societal collapse; the Black Death killed “merely” 33-50% of the population across affected areas and very much brought contemporary society to its knees. When you have superiors, family, and comrades dropping left and right and others disabled by symptoms I really don’t think your fighting readiness is going to be in a great place. Bear in mind that premodern warfare swung on morale collapse coincident with vastly lower absolute casualty rates, with most casualties inflicted during the rout. My claim is not in the slightest extreme; the calculus of life and death and any semblance of social cohesion being thrown out the window by plague is going to fundamentally wrack the afflicted society at every level.
In any case, the differentials between top rate and mediocre militaries at any given point except where extreme technological disparities apply is often more about discipline and coordination than it is about anything else; friends in the military involved in overseas training have noted that middle eastern militaries are hampered by very poor attendance and frequency of routine drills to the point where discipline is often a farce (even in supposedly ‘elite’ formations) while African militaries often have virtually no coherent structure beyond hurling a mass of man at an objective, and history is rife with examples of a seemingly mind boggling set of disciplinary and command failures on an elementary level costing battles and campaigns; human systems largely succeed in spite of their own catastrophic noisiness and dysfunction (From the Jaws of Victory by Charles Fair is a book thick with fun examples of this if you can find it) . A force fully synchronized and controlled seamlessly by AI would likely best modern militaries even at a technological disadvantage; a force or diplomatic initiative advised by such would only leverage a significant advantage so if the leadership was politically and psychologically capable of heeding good advice when it was delivered to them (and the nuances of personal diplomacy are probably the final frontier in respect to what one can have an AI parse and respond to). I mean in essence what you’re saying is that given an utterly brilliant, ruthless, and calculating leader at the top end of the spectrum of human potential then North Korea- or xyz nation- could vastly outperform diplomatically and strategically. And sure, of course that would be the case; just look at how routinely the Greatest Power in the World (tm) has had insanely inept leadership over the past two decades and how much trouble that has caused, and how even mildly canny albeit already powerful operators with pretty transparent goals (Russia, China) have been able to take advantage of that. Our own understanding of complex systems on the human timescale, ( see e.g. the farcical efforts of the CIA to wrangle insights out of behavioral idiosyncrasies amongst the Soviet Politburo during the Cold War...or just the modern state of biomedicine and the most of the social sciences), tends to be woefully inadequate even at whatever is thought to be the contemporary ‘cutting edge’ ; anything that could actually deliver accurate, self-consistent predictive analysis thereof would be a gargantuan leap forward.
While tangential, this is notably the key failing point of much of military fantasy and military sci-fi where such things as AI robot armies or undead armies or whatever are concerned. An enemy that is seamlessly coordinated by a single will or indeed which is stupid and mindless but simply has no fear whatsoever of death will vastly outperform against larger and better equipped forces; men do not go into battle looking to die and even elite formations will withdraw rather than fight it out if outmanuevered (see e.g. the Silver Shields in every major battle Antiochus the Great lost; if this can be overcome even temporarily you can see things like e.g. the dramatic efficacy of the Theban Sacred Band during the Sacred Wars). Warfare, especially premodenr warfare, hinges a lot on barely tamed human psychology that is rather wired to not keep going if death seems a likely outcome; men go to war for plunder or defense of their assets, not to look the grim reaper in the face. This is also why assaults routinely failed in months long premodern sieges even when the besieger could leverage enormous numerical advantages; anything that can just keep walking knowingly into the jaws of death has an almost immeasurable advantage over a mere human being.
Once again, I agree with pretty much everything you say here. I still think you are making the extreme claim—to see this, consider that as far as I can tell my conclusions are justified already by what happened before disease showed up in the Americas. Heck, a lot of the things you are saying here are also support for my conclusions—e.g. the point about coordinated and/or fearless forces being super effective even with inferior tech. Basically, it seems totally true to me that the sort of “small” technological advantage advanced AI might provide, combined with “small” leadership/strategy/diplomacy/coordination advantages, could be super potent.
Perhaps we are talking past each other. On the narrow question of how bad the disease was and how wrecked Aztec (and Inca) society became as a result, I agree that I don’t know much about that and look forward to learning more. Perhaps it was worse than I thought.
″
I think this is a big open question; currently I still disagree. For one thing, the initial plagues weren’t 90% death rate, but more like 50% IIRC. For another… well, when I get to this part in the book I’ll have a better sense of how disorganized they became. My guess is that you are way overestimating it. Remember, I’m not saying the effect was negligible—I’m saying the effect wasn’t so big as to undermine the conclusions I drew about tech and diplomacy advantages. (Or the conclusions I list in the “lessons” section). You are the one making the extreme claim here, as far as I understand you currently.”
″
I have seen military historians cite that 25% casualty rates are generally enough for the total collapse of the viability of a military force. Near-indiscriminate loss of personnel randomly distributed across a social or military hierarchy- imagine a if a quarter of everyone you knew disappeared tomorrow- in a both direct functional and psychological sense would be utterly devastating. 50% is well over the threshold for total societal collapse; the Black Death killed “merely” 33-50% of the population across affected areas and very much brought contemporary society to its knees. When you have superiors, family, and comrades dropping left and right and others disabled by symptoms I really don’t think your fighting readiness is going to be in a great place. Bear in mind that premodern warfare swung on morale collapse coincident with vastly lower absolute casualty rates, with most casualties inflicted during the rout. My claim is not in the slightest extreme; the calculus of life and death and any semblance of social cohesion being thrown out the window by plague is going to fundamentally wrack the afflicted society at every level.
In any case, the differentials between top rate and mediocre militaries at any given point except where extreme technological disparities apply is often more about discipline and coordination than it is about anything else; friends in the military involved in overseas training have noted that middle eastern militaries are hampered by very poor attendance and frequency of routine drills to the point where discipline is often a farce (even in supposedly ‘elite’ formations) while African militaries often have virtually no coherent structure beyond hurling a mass of man at an objective, and history is rife with examples of a seemingly mind boggling set of disciplinary and command failures on an elementary level costing battles and campaigns; human systems largely succeed in spite of their own catastrophic noisiness and dysfunction (From the Jaws of Victory by Charles Fair is a book thick with fun examples of this if you can find it) . A force fully synchronized and controlled seamlessly by AI would likely best modern militaries even at a technological disadvantage; a force or diplomatic initiative advised by such would only leverage a significant advantage so if the leadership was politically and psychologically capable of heeding good advice when it was delivered to them (and the nuances of personal diplomacy are probably the final frontier in respect to what one can have an AI parse and respond to). I mean in essence what you’re saying is that given an utterly brilliant, ruthless, and calculating leader at the top end of the spectrum of human potential then North Korea- or xyz nation- could vastly outperform diplomatically and strategically. And sure, of course that would be the case; just look at how routinely the Greatest Power in the World (tm) has had insanely inept leadership over the past two decades and how much trouble that has caused, and how even mildly canny albeit already powerful operators with pretty transparent goals (Russia, China) have been able to take advantage of that. Our own understanding of complex systems on the human timescale, ( see e.g. the farcical efforts of the CIA to wrangle insights out of behavioral idiosyncrasies amongst the Soviet Politburo during the Cold War...or just the modern state of biomedicine and the most of the social sciences), tends to be woefully inadequate even at whatever is thought to be the contemporary ‘cutting edge’ ; anything that could actually deliver accurate, self-consistent predictive analysis thereof would be a gargantuan leap forward.
While tangential, this is notably the key failing point of much of military fantasy and military sci-fi where such things as AI robot armies or undead armies or whatever are concerned. An enemy that is seamlessly coordinated by a single will or indeed which is stupid and mindless but simply has no fear whatsoever of death will vastly outperform against larger and better equipped forces; men do not go into battle looking to die and even elite formations will withdraw rather than fight it out if outmanuevered (see e.g. the Silver Shields in every major battle Antiochus the Great lost; if this can be overcome even temporarily you can see things like e.g. the dramatic efficacy of the Theban Sacred Band during the Sacred Wars). Warfare, especially premodenr warfare, hinges a lot on barely tamed human psychology that is rather wired to not keep going if death seems a likely outcome; men go to war for plunder or defense of their assets, not to look the grim reaper in the face. This is also why assaults routinely failed in months long premodern sieges even when the besieger could leverage enormous numerical advantages; anything that can just keep walking knowingly into the jaws of death has an almost immeasurable advantage over a mere human being.
Once again, I agree with pretty much everything you say here. I still think you are making the extreme claim—to see this, consider that as far as I can tell my conclusions are justified already by what happened before disease showed up in the Americas. Heck, a lot of the things you are saying here are also support for my conclusions—e.g. the point about coordinated and/or fearless forces being super effective even with inferior tech. Basically, it seems totally true to me that the sort of “small” technological advantage advanced AI might provide, combined with “small” leadership/strategy/diplomacy/coordination advantages, could be super potent.
Perhaps we are talking past each other. On the narrow question of how bad the disease was and how wrecked Aztec (and Inca) society became as a result, I agree that I don’t know much about that and look forward to learning more. Perhaps it was worse than I thought.