Comment on [deleted]
Diprount_Tomato@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Tbh it’s surprising that Japan is as strong as it is with the shitty spawnpoint they had (basically no or shitty resources)
In a way, it’s kind of like bri’ain, innit?
There’s this whole anthropological theory that people’s from regions that have less resources resort to pillaging as means to survive; after many generations they become so good at it that they just simply continued to do it.
On the flip side, you have countries that have it all, in particular Asian and American countries, that never developed such a need because resources were abundant.
Oh shit, it’s the “hard times create strong men” thing
Pretty much. Look at how India and China have people who overwork and overstudy. Meanwhile many western countries have a good work life balance and have a lower / easier standard in education because they don’t need to do much to survive.
India and China are rich as hell though, they have a ton of resources. Shouldn’t they have more laidback populations then?
Damn, the storm’s coming then
I think you’re missing a bit here: The Japanese were historically hunter-gatherer societies far longer than their mainland neighbours. The reason appears to be a large abundance of food and resources, to the point that the Japanese hunter-gatherer societies are believed to be some of (if not the) only hunter-gatherer societies that formed year-round stationary settlements, because they had enough resources to not be reliant on wandering, as other, nomadic societies had to.
Historians believe that the Japanese only converted to agriculture once rice strains and agricultural methods that were suitable for their climate had been developed in Korea for over a thousand years, because thats how long it took to make agriculture able to compete against the hunter-gatherer lifestyle in Japan, due to the vast amount of resources.
Source: Guns, Germs and Steel (Jared Diamond)
Was this before or after the yayoi period?
If memory serves me right, I’m talking about the Jomon period, which is the periode from about 10 000 years ago, up until about 2500 years ago, when the Yayoi period started. I believe the start of the Yayoi period is marked (among other things) by the spread of agriculture throughout Japan.
Checked it out and no, the jomon period ended around 300 BC. So while Alexander’s successors were fighting each other Japan had barely discovered agriculture
That’s not saying much considering that their neighbors included the Chinese, which had the oldest history of farming in the world. The Loess plateau was farmed 10,000 years ago!
Let’s not be one-sided here: Guns Germs and Steel, like most other works, has shortcomings, but I think it is more fair to say that it has caused a lot of discussion. A long list of experts, as late as this year, back up the book to varying degrees.
Even if you choose to discredit the book, I’m making the argument that Japan had a lot of resources that made hunter-gatherer societies viable enough that they actually formed year-round settlements. That’s a claim I have yet to see someone dispute, as there is a bunch of archeological evidence backing it up.
I totally disagree. If you actually read that Wikipedia article, the praise comes from people who are in totally unrelated fields like international relations. By and large, archaeologist and historians have discredited that that book and consider it a work of fiction.
Any case, I don’t know enough about Japanese prehistory to really comment one way or the other regarding your claim. I believe it’s probably pretty plausible that Japanese had made permanent settlements, probably based on hunting gathering and fishing. Fishing of course is and has been one of the main staples of food for Japanese as evidenced by their current consumption of something like 40% of the world’s seafood.
They’re min-maxing for an island nation playstyle. High focus of fishery, invasion defense +10, special perks to survive natural disasters…
Tar_alcaran@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Honestly though, they were kinda shit for most of their history. Japan didn’t really become a major world player until after the late 19th century, when they realised just how far behind they were.
Diprount_Tomato@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Well, they had their presence in the late 16th-early 17th century
DerKanzler@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Japan basically got the chance to be something bc Qing Dynasty refused to work with Imperialists colonists. The americans and portugues would have loved to be on China instead of the shitty Japan. Even thailand would have been mlre interesting to colonialists.
A major mistake that haunts the entire region to this day.
Diprount_Tomato@lemmy.world 10 months ago
What?