Author: kakerlof

Timeline Essay: Greed in Explorations

By Anonymous

Time Period

During the scientific revolution, in 1768 expeditions like that of James Cook began departing England (Harari,2015). They visited many islands in the Pacific, Australia, and New Zealand and returned to England with many new resources (Harari,2015).

Resource Characteristics

Cooks’ expedition came back with many material goods, but also with new knowledge, conquered lands, and new diseases like scurvy (Harari,2015). Conquered lands gave England access to new lands both for crops and their growing populations. New fertile lands were able to produce more crops than the depleted soils in England that had been starved of nutrients. With a growing population, new lands also gave citizens a place to spread out and further grow England’s total population. New knowledge led to new inventions that helped people do their everyday tasks more quickly and with less effort. It also led to further desire of wealth, which in turn led to more expeditions.

Governance characteristics

Many of these expeditions were because people in command desired more wealth. With the increased desire for wealth also came the increased desire for power. At this time wealthier people and the people in charge were desperate for power, so expeditions like Cooks gave them exactly what they desired and encouraged more to occur. These trips were valuable to both egos and to the economy.

Social Context

Not everything was beneficial coming from these trips. Many men came back with disease. One of which was scurvy that caused men to become lethargic, have teeth fall out, and become jaundiced (Harari,2015). This led to many deaths and decreases in the population. With no definitive cure it led to fewer expeditions. When it was eventually discovered that scurvy was due to a vitamin C deficiency, it was once again safer to embark on these long expeditions (Harari,2015). It also led to a social change in sailors who took up Cooks nautical diet eating lots of fruits and vegetables while in ports (Harari,2015).

Environmental Interactions

When Cook acquired new lands it also allowed new land to grow crops on. This depleted the natural environment of these areas to make way for agricultural development. Without proper precaution and use of the land this depletes the soil of nutrients. This makes it very difficult for anything to grow. This essentially makes the land useless and is very harmful to the surrounding environment.  

Outcome

My loopy module begins with the strong desire for wealth in society. It goes through all my characteristics with some fluctuations, but ends with large population size, increased profits, more desire for wealth, and new inventions and medicines. Desire for wealth in society greatly encouraged the scientific revolution and imperialism. Without it we may have stuck to our traditional ways of society and never changed our behaviors.

Citations

Harari, Y. N. (2015). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Harper Collins.

Loopy Model

https://bit.ly/3jSV7bf

The Exploration of Christopher Columbus

By Jared Tankel

This event took place around the beginning of the Scientific Revolution, starting in 1492 and continued for the following 5-10 years. The exploration of Columbus was the cause of a lot of wealth and prosperity for the Spanish empire, as they were the ones who sponsored him(Harari, 2015). Some of the resource units that Columbus found that contributed to this wealth were gold, silver, sugar, tobacco, and other foreign goods. Not to mention the fact that Columbus and his crew took some of the indigenous people as slaves, which benefitted Columbus and his crew, but not the Natives(Harari, 2015).

One key element of the expeditions of Columbus was that they led to the rise of the system that we know today as “credit.” Columbus convinced Queen Isabella to invest in his exploration. He made it to the Americas, which resulted in an incredibly large return on investment for the Queen. This led to other wealthier individuals being more willing to invest in riskier tasks, as the potential for humongous rewards had been proven to exist. This then led to the English also investing large amounts in ships through joint-stock companies. What these companies did was take only a small amount of money from each investor, resulting in much less risk being taken by each individual investor(Harari, 2015). This resulted in money being able to be raised much easier, especially for expeditions requiring large amounts of capital.

One thing that played a key role would have to be demographic trends, especially during the 1500s. People wanted to invest in well spoken, educated, primarily white individuals who were able to clearly articulate a vision, and this mostly rings true today as well. When comparing different options, people often have some sort of subconscious bias, even if they don’t realize it. Something else impacted by credit would have to be political stability. In 1568, the Dutch revolted against and overthrew their Spanish overlord. They managed this by using credit to basically hire a large force of mercenaries to fight for them, even though they couldn’t afford it in straight cash(Harari, 2015). They were able to have so much money in credit because of the reputation that they had built over the years. They were known for always paying back on time and having courts that benefitted the correct party, rather than the king always being right, since the Dutch courts are a completely separate branch of government(Harari, 2015).

Of course, this all starts with the human environment interactions all the way back with Columbus. Columbus took money from the government, went to a mostly undiscovered wilderness, and began promptly destroying the environment. While getting the riches from the Americas, Columbus didn’t magically make them appear on his ship. He had to chop down trees, move the indigenous people, and generally make the environment a worse place.

The outcome of the system is that everyone partaking in the system of credit benefits from Columbus up. However, the native people and native land that he used for his benefit suffered greatly as a result of his actions.

Works Cited

Harari, Y. N. (2015). Sapiens. Harper

Loopy Model

https://tinyurl.com/2p8hayf8

The Cycle of Discovery

By Anonymous

For the timeline entry assignment, I wish to explore the cycle of advancement seen in the Scientific Revolution and discuss how it correlates with environmental degradation. While the time frame for this revolution is broad, the cycle I wish to discuss began in earnest during the industrial revolution and continues to this day.

The natural stocks explored in my loopy model are humanity’s quality of life, population size, and resource consumption. The governance characteristics exist primarily in the form of regulations. The social settings include an environment in which discovery and progress are prioritized- however, there also exists a desire to stick to the status quo and prevent progress, thus feeding into the cycle of ignorance. Resource policies also play a role, as regulations are implemented to decrease environmental degradation.

For my loopy model, I wanted to focus on the cycle of progress and how it can both contribute to and help mitigate environmental degradation. As discussed in the scientific revolution chapter, the scientific revolution is the discovery of ignorance. As we start from a place of ignorance, we can make discoveries. From this point, there are two options- we can accept that this discovery means our perception of an issue is wrong and pursue knowledge, or we can refuse to believe this discovery and delve back into ignorance. Should we choose to pursue, our intrigue leads us to research, which leads to us obtaining more knowledge, which then leads to us accomplishing things previously deemed impossible. From there, the cycle continues- our new knowledge makes us even more aware of our ignorance, and we aim to correct this through more and more discoveries. However, the second part of this cycle correlates with the environment. These new powers often mean a higher quality of life for humanity, which leads to a bigger population and longer life spans. However, these new powers also mean that more fuel is necessary to sustain this quality of life. All of these factors contribute to a higher resource need, whether it be the need for more food, housing, water, etc., which in turn leads to more environmental degradation. However, not all is lost. As environmental degradation occurs, people strive to mitigate it. This leads to research into the issue, which then leads to knowledge, which then leads to regulations preventing environmental degradation. Furthermore, these new powers can also be used to mitigate environmental degradation as the cycle continues. The outcome leads to a continuous flux between high and low environmental degradation

Citation:

Harari, Y. N. (2015). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Harper.

Loopy Model

https://ncase.me/loopy/v1.1/?data=[[[1,625,503,0,%22Knowledge%22,1],[3,423,76,1,%22Ignorance%22,0],[4,237,145,0,%22Discovery%22,5],[5,421,504,0,%22Research%22,2],[6,234,491,0,%22Intrigue%22,3],[7,196,323,0,%22Willing%2520to%2520Admit%2520Ignorance%22,4],[8,388,225,0,%22Unwilling%2520to%2520admit%2520ignorance%22,0],[10,610,155,0,%22Broadened%2520Curiousity%22,4],[11,657,314,0,%22New%2520Powers%22,5],[12,826,312,0,%22Higher%2520Quality%2520of%2520life%22,4],[13,766,491,0,%22Population%2520boom%22,4],[14,831,153,0,%22Fuel%2520consumption%22,4],[15,983,307,0,%22Resource%2520Needs%22,3],[16,1220,288,0,%22Environmental%2520Degregation%22,2],[17,861,659,0,%22Regulations%22,1],[18,931,490,0,%22Longetivity%22,3]],[[3,4,9,-1,0],[5,1,22,1,0],[10,3,-53,1,0],[1,11,-30,1,0],[11,10,-39,1,0],[8,3,-22,1,0],[4,8,-33,1,0],[11,12,9,1,0],[11,10,35,1,0],[11,14,12,1,0],[12,13,-14,1,0],[14,15,26,1,0],[15,16,-10,1,0],[16,5,416,1,0],[5,17,-23,1,0],[17,16,-65,-1,0],[14,16,70,1,0],[4,7,-26,1,0],[7,6,-20,1,0],[6,5,-32,1,0],[12,18,-9,1,0],[18,15,-39,1,0],[12,15,-9,1,0],[11,16,263,-1,0]],[],18%5D

Scientific Revolution

By Clay Carver

Prior to around 1500 AD, the average human’s life was quite straightforward. They would work, take care of their family, and any questions they had about the world would be answered by the church. Around 1500 AD, this average life was changed on a major scale because humans began to thirst for knowledge (Harari, 2018). Of course, there has always been great free-thinkers who bring us new inventions, but this was a scientific revolution on a global scale. European monarchs began investing more money into scientific research and this led to imperialism worldwide. This revolution led to many great discoveries such as microbiology and gravity, but this shift also led to the destruction of the Aztec empire and the first nuclear bomb being dropped.

The resource I will be discussing is not tangible, but it is knowledge. There are many factors that affect the amount of knowledge known to humans in 1500, but the main driver at the time was wealth. There was a thirst for knowledge in this time period, but the catalyst for all this change was financial gain for the ruling class. The only reason that Columbus made it to the Americas was because the king of Spain thought he could accumulate wealth from this trip. This thirst for wealth unintentionally started the downfall of the Aztec empire, and eventually led to the creation of one of the wealthiest countries in our world’s history, the United States. This quest for new land and knowledge was heavily influenced by the environment of European cities. The cities were overcrowded with people which led to widespread poverty and disease such as the black plague which had ravaged Europe not long before 1500 (Harari, 2018). People wanted a new world and this revolution of exploration and scientific discovery allowed them to push the boundaries of what humans thought was possible. At the same time, this push for knowledge also resulted in heavy degradation of our natural world over the last 500 years. As you can see, with every step the human race has taken, there has always been negative consequences for the health of our planet.

Citations:

Harari, Y. N. (2018). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Harper Perrenial.

Loopy Model

https://ncase.me/loopy/v1.1/?data=[[[4,253,115,0.83,%22Understanding%2520Ignorance%22,4],[5,486,265,0.5,%22Thirst%2520for%2520Knowledge%22,3],[6,701,458,0.33,%22Exploration%22,1],[7,1046,623,0,%22War%252FGenocide%22,0],[8,794,179,0.16,%22New%2520Technology%22,2],[12,295,570,0.66,%22Money%22,3],[13,1072,158,1,%22Environmental%2520health%22,3]],[[4,5,16,1,0],[5,6,12,1,0],[6,8,12,1,0],[8,7,9,1,0],[6,7,-24,1,0],[12,5,97,1,0],[5,12,61,-1,0],[6,12,50,1,0],[8,13,20,-1,0]],[],13%5D

Scientific Revolution and its Relationship with Capitalism & Imperialism (1500-present day)

By Anonymous

The scientific revolution played a significant role influencing and transforming society into what we know it as today. As Harrari describes it, all of this technological advancement was thanks to the acceptance of ignorance. Previously, various society’s depended on finding answers through their belief in religion. However, with the discovery of new land, such as the Americas by Columbus, a new door opened causing numerous individuals to ask themselves questions and to accept that they did not know everything. Back then, scientific research and technological development were two separate concepts. People would test things based on a trial and error process, making it difficult for any actual technological development to occur. The shift from this practice to empirical research, that tried to help explain what people did not know, was caused by an “alliance between science, European empires, and the economics of capitalism.” (Harari, 180)

In order for scientific research to grow, Capitalism and Imperialism were two primary governance systems that needed to occur. Scientific research is a very expensive process, so it is “shaped by economic, political and religious interest.” (Harari, 195) These different interests are primary reasons as to why businesses and governments would fund scientific research during this time. Imperialists would fund scientific research in order to make it easier to conquer and understand new land. In return, they would fund the projects of their researchers. As for businesses and capitalists, they would fund scientific researchers in the hopes of increasing the profit. The use of scientific research would allow capitalists to practice more cost efficient practices helping them earn more money.

As these scientific researchers got funded it resulted in the development of new weapons, medical advancement, agricultural advancement, and newer technology. All of these advancements affect various natural resource units such as natural resources, population, and food production. The political and economic setting that played a role was market incentives and political stability. In order for capitalism to be strong enough to fund research projects, market incentives had to have been in place during that time. If a scientific project would lead to the possible earning of more profits (market incentive) than more and more business capitalists would invest. As for political stability, empires and nations had to be politically stable in order to properly fund research and exploration projects. If a country were falling apart, then any form of technological advancement would be slowed down.

As previously mentioned, capitalism and imperialism influenced the growth of scientific research during the scientific revolution. As scientific research received funding, there were more technological advancement, medical advancement, weapons, and agricultural development. The development of new technology such as tractors, railway systems, and mining wells made it easier and faster to extract natural resources. This would then deplete natural resources at a faster rate, leading to a decrease in biodiversity and then habitat loss. Medical and agricultural advancement increased the population, respectively, people were able to live longer and food production increased to meet demand. However, with an increase in population disease spreads more easily, decreasing the population. In addition, with the development of newer weapons, war increased causing the population to decrease. All of these different interactions cause resources and population to fluctuate the most.

Citation:

Harari, Y. N., Purcell, J., & Watzman, H. (2015). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Harper, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers\

Loopy Model

https://ncase.me/loopy/v1.1/?data=[[[1,671,241,0.16,%22Imperialism%22,4],[2,1008,530,0,%22Scientific%2520Research%22,5],[5,508,451,0,%22Capitalism%2520%22,4],[6,1081,874,0.16,%22Agriculture%2520Mechanized%2520%22,1],[7,1336,722,0.16,%22Medical%2520Advancements%2520%22,1],[9,623,826,0,%22Technology%2520%22,1],[11,1213,274,0,%22Weapons%2520%22,1],[14,1865,577,0.5,%22Population%22,0],[15,836,975,1,%22Resources%22,3],[16,1445,1117,0,%22Food%2520Production%22,0],[22,1549,174,0,%22War%22,0],[24,1384,398,0,%22Diseases%22,0],[27,449,237,1,%22Land%2520%22,3]],[[5,2,-59,1,0],[2,7,-32,1,0],[2,6,-40,1,0],[1,2,-7,1,0],[11,1,-95,1,0],[2,11,11,1,0],[2,9,-8,1,0],[7,14,-12,1,0],[9,15,-34,-1,0],[15,9,-78,1,0],[6,16,13,1,0],[16,14,65,1,0],[22,14,46,-1,0],[1,22,172,1,0],[11,22,35,1,0],[14,16,127,-1,0],[24,7,-95,-1,0],[24,14,78,-1,0],[14,24,81,1,0],[9,5,-14,1,0],[1,27,9,-1,0]],[[724,500,%22Business%2520and%2520Government%250AInvestments%2520%22],[786,330,%22Investments%22],[646,951,%22Resources%2520extracted%2520faster%2520%22]],34%5D

Scientific Revolution Analysis

By Ezra Embrey

Time Period

I wanted to focus on the capitalism portion of the book, this included a large time period but went hand in hand with the scientific revolution and begun around the 1500’s.

Resource characteristics

People’s wellbeing would be a natural stock, this is the amount of peace the everyday person has. However, it is dependent on outside factors such as governance.

Governance

There was a lot of governance systems included in my loopy model. Firstly, I focused on positive aspects of capitalism, this included an urge to discover scientific technologies in order for capitalists to maximize profits, so for example capitalists bioengineered wheat so that it is more hardy, in turn this provided more food and increased everybody’s wellbeing. War was also on the decline because a main reason for war is to gain finance in the form of land (Harari 2015).

However Capitalism has negative aspects. Such as the need for cheap, fast, labor. This results in slavery and in early days, colonization to acquire this cheap labor. This is a loop that occurs to acquire and promote slavery for maximum profits. The slaves suffer, while the capitalist rakes in their money.

Social/economic/political settings or related ecosystems

Yes, capitalism drives people to make money. This results in exploitation for their success. The market incentive is fast money. On the other hand, the market incentivizes people to make products more accessible for everyone. Like how cheap and quick fast food is, while being very calorie dense.

Interaction(s)/Outcomes

I tried to split the model in two sections, The negative and positive aspects of capitalism. When a government converts to capitalism, more scientific research is implemented for financial discovery, this leads to something like accessible health care. Also, bioengineering occurs, such as altering cows’ udders to produce more milk, this leads to more food and increases the average person’s wellbeing, making them less volatile to partake in war, however animal well-being is decrease because of the genetic exploitation in their cow udder size increase.

 In the loopy model, the color red, are the negative aspects of capitalism. Cheap and fast labor results in a loop of increasing slavery, colonization, and intense labor as I explained prior.

Citation

Harari, Y. N. (2015). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Harper.

Loopy Model

https://ncase.me/loopy/v1.1/?data=[[[1,517,464,1,%22Capatilism%22,1],[2,991,407,0,%22scientific%2520technologies%22,3],[3,198,314,0,%22Slavery%22,0],[4,240,100,0,%22colonization%22,0],[5,1003,624,0,%22Bioengineering%22,3],[7,640,246,0,%22Well-being%22,3],[9,835,176,0,%22Food%22,3],[10,471,102,1,%22War%22,0],[11,364,255,0,%22Intense%2520Labor%22,0],[12,781,520,0,%22Healthcare%22,3],[14,222,556,1,%22Animal%2520Well-being%22,0]],[[1,2,96,1,0],[2,5,31,1,0],[4,11,52,1,0],[11,3,62,1,0],[3,4,88,1,0],[2,12,-71,1,0],[9,7,-86,1,0],[2,9,-38,1,0],[5,12,16,1,0],[5,2,77,1,0],[1,11,60,1,0],[7,10,99,-1,0],[5,9,-199,1,0],[5,14,43,-1,0]],[],14%5D

Science and Imperialism

By Lani O’Foran

Prior to European imperialism, societies did not want to explore the unknown because religion explained it (Harari, 2018). Previous empire’s conquests were done solely for wealth, power, and naming lands in the name of their monarchy (Harari, 2018). The event of the western world merging science and imperialism began in 1500. People started to “acknowledge ignorance,” which inspired them to explore and conquer the outside world. This allowed them to gain knowledge that they did not possess. European imperialism was incredibly successful because the “geography, climate, flora, fauna, languages, cultures, and history” of desired communities was studied. This gave imperialists an advantage. An example of this is the Spaniard’s conquest of the Aztec Empire. Hernán Cortés was able to divide the empire from the inside. He traveled to city-states, such as Tlaxcala and Cempoala, where the populations resented the Aztecs. These communities eagerly agreed to collaborate with the Spaniards to take over the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán (Juanita Carillo, 2021). Unbeknownst to them, they were about to experience a “racist and greedy” regime that was worse than the Aztecs (Harari, 2018). 

Europeans began to conquest many places by possessing much knowledge on communities. Many of the conquested areas did not know an outside world even existed. They were too busy with local quarrels that they had no desire to explore. This brought a doom to their populations because they did not prepare themselves for what was coming (Harari, 2018). There were more unsuspecting issues introduced as well. Diseases such as smallpox and measles were spread from the Europeans to the native populations. Native populations had never been exposed to these diseases before. Therefore they had no protections against falling ill and dying. Natives were also forced into slavery. They had to extract desired natural resources and work on plantations in harsh conditions. Those who refused to comply were killed mercilessly. The rest were wiped out by sickness or from the harsh working conditions (Harari, 2018). The natural resources of conquered lands suffered as well. Precious metals were reduced from continuous mining. Imperialists left populations in disarray and moved to other unsuspecting communities when the monetary assets, slavery and gold, were depleted.

Bibliography 

Harari Yuval Noah. (2018). The Marriage of Science and Empire. In Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. essay, Harper Perennial. 

Juanita Carrillo, K. (2021, May 20). How Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztec empire. History.com. Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.history.com/news/hernan-cortes-conquered-aztec-empire

Loopy Model

https://ncase.me/loopy/v1.1/?data=[[[1,552,56,0.16,%22Acknowledgement%2520of%2520the%2520unknown%22,4],[2,840,140,0.16,%22Desire%2520to%2520explore%22,5],[3,864,441,0.16,%22knowlege%22,3],[6,636,599,0.16,%22Successful%2520conquests%2520%22,4],[9,375,689,0.16,%22Introduced%2520disease%252F%2520slave%2520trade%22,5],[10,183,580,1,%22Native%2520population%2520%22,3],[11,392,501,1,%22Natural%2520resources%22,4],[12,222,131,0.33,%22Desire%2520to%2520conquest%22,4],[13,238,347,0.83,%22Wealth%22,5],[14,671,308,0.33,%22Nationalism%2520%22,5]],[[1,2,89,1,0],[2,3,40,1,0],[3,6,32,1,0],[6,9,34,1,0],[9,10,10,-1,0],[9,11,-18,-1,0],[10,13,22,1,0],[11,13,-24,1,0],[13,12,-14,-1,0],[14,2,8,1,0]],[],14%5D

How religion impacted the ecosystem

By Anonymous

This event occurred before the agricultural revolution, which was 1300 years before. The impact of religion is still massive in modern-day society. Religion has a significant effect on the globalization of human culture. As religion developed, the ideas and philosophies in the environment started to change. Before the religious revolution, people didn’t care about the animals to eat or things to grow. As religion grew within the sapiens, animals and lands started to privatize. Now, people only care about the animals according to their “religion.” To survive, the inhabitants of a particular valley needed to understand the super-human order that regulated their valley and adjust their behavior accordingly. It was pointless to try to convince the inhabitants of some distant valley to follow the same rules. The Indus people did not bother to send missionaries to the Ganges to convince locals not to hunt white-tailed foxes (Harari, 2015). The Indus people of Ganges were mainly Hindus, and the law of religion taught them not to kill the animals. Instead, they would grow plants and raise cows and buffaloes for their purpose.

As the law of religion continued, land ownership and animal privatization became more common. As animals were raised, grew up, and died within some field regions, the resources started to get less and less. Landownership became a problem because it would disrupt other animals’ flow, and hunting would be more common within the law of the religion. Farmers may know what religion to follow and what animals to breed; however, they do not know the outcome mix animals breeding. They could lock the sheep in pens, castrate rams and selectively breed ewes, yet they could not ensure that they conceived and gave birth to healthy lambs, nor could they prevent the eruption of deadly epidemics (Harari, 2015). The idea of religion created more massive problems such as diseases. The concept of mixing rams and sheep made an unhealthy ecosystem within specific areas. Each animal has certain characteristics. Breeding one animal into another different animal species would make genetics diverse and discomfort the offspring of animals and cannot be healthy.

Another problem with religion is that it divides. As religion expanded throughout human history, people split themselves into specific regions. Only people had the same ideology and philosophy within that particular region. People would different philosophies and ideas would start a fight with other religions. Religion is such a subject that it is easy to start a war against each other. So the empires were created within the forms of religion. And people who thought they were confident would go and live in that particular religion. As long as people lived their entire lives within limited territories of a few hundred square miles, most of their needs could be met by local spirits. But once kingdoms and trade networks expanded, people needed to contact entities whose power and authority encompassed a whole kingdom or an entire trade basin(Harari, 2015).

The war within the territories has created massive problems in the ecosystem. As the battle continues, the weapons become the mass destruction of animals and the ecosystem. War creates a situation in food resources for animals and humans as well. As the war begins, the food chain is disrupted, mainly impacting animals and plants.

Works Cited

Harari, Yuval N. author. Sapiens : a Brief History of Humankind. New York :Harper, 2015.

Loopy Model

https://ncase.me/loopy/v1.1/?data=[[[3,188,244,0.5,%22Relgion%22,0],[4,498,200,0.5,%22Private%2520lands%22,2],[5,701,323,0.5,%22terretories%22,5],[6,701,132,0.5,%22Animal%2520cross%2520bredding%22,3],[9,344,224,0.5,%22arriculutre%2520%22,1],[10,912,125,0.5,%22dieseae%22,0],[11,892,307,0.5,%22wars%22,0],[13,1066,157,0.5,%22Food%2520resources%22,0]],[[4,6,21,1,0],[4,5,-26,1,0],[3,9,9,1,0],[9,4,12,1,0],[6,10,21,1,0],[5,11,14,1,0],[10,11,29,1,0],[3,5,-75,1,0],[11,13,-52,-1,0],[10,13,47,-1,0]],[],13%5D

Effects of Spanish-Mexico Expansion into the Aztec Territory

By Anonymous

Time period:

1519 onward (1521, Cortes takes Tenochtitlan)

Stocks:

• Spanish expansion

Governance/use characteristics:

• Resource policies
• Market incentives

Social/economic/political

• Economy
• Spanish/Aztec conflict
• Spanish/Native allies
• Gold/resources

November 1519, Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes meets Emperor Montezuma II of the Aztecs in the capitol, Tenochtitlan (Khan Academy, n.d.). Inaccurate history reports state that Montezuma II quickly adopted Christianity from the Spaniards and allowed them to move into the city where rebels later began conflict (Frederick, 2019). However, this is not accurate. Cortes led a brutal two-year campaign against the Aztecs in order to assume control of their land and resources (Frederick, 2019). By using more advanced weaponry, European diseases, and allying with neighboring tribes that considered the Aztecs their enemy, Cortes and his men were able to take Tenochtitlan in 1521 (Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d.). The main resource the Spanish were seeking was gold, although agricultural goods such as cacao were also desirable. After the defeat of Tenochtitlan, the Spaniards build a new capital with a Christian cathedral in the ruins of the city. Following the fall of the Aztec empire, the Spaniards continued expanding their rule. By 1525 the Spanish rule had reached as far as Guatemala and Honduras (Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d.).

Spanish expansion meant new access to land and resources for the Spaniards and all of Europe. They renamed Tenochtitlan “Mexico City” and set about populating it with Europeans (Khan Academy, n.d.). New cities meant deforestation for construction and for land. This means a loss in biodiversity as well. There was likely also loss of biodiversity to be used as food and to be sent back to Europe. From conquered native peoples the Spaniards gained silver and gold, their most desired resource, but failed to find large deposit sites. However, the quantities of silver and gold that were acquired and sent back to Europe caused inflation and economic distress (Khan Academy, n.d.). The access to these resources likely led to new policies and market incentives regarding the desirable goods.

Works Cited

Encyclopedia Britannica, inc. (n.d.). Expansion of Spanish rule. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved April 9, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/place/Mexico/Expansion-of-Spanish-rule

Fredrick, J. (2019, November 10). 500 years later, the Spanish conquest of Mexico is still being debated. NPR. Retrieved April 9, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/2019/11/10/777220132/500-years-later-the-spanish-conquest-of-mexico-is-still-being-debated#:~:text=capital%2C%20in%201520.-,The%20Spanish%20conquistador%20led%20an%20expedition%20to%20present%2Dday%20Mexico,and%20his%20men%20to%20retreat.

Khan Academy. (n.d.). The spanish Conquistadores and Colonial Empire (article). Khan Academy. Retrieved April 9, 2022, from https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/precontact-and-early-colonial-era/spanish-colonization/a/the-spanish-conquistadores-and-colonial-empire

Loopy Model

https://ncase.me/loopy/v1.1/?data=[[[26,363,50,0,%22Spanish%2520expansion%22,3],[52,158,407,0.16,%22Market%2520Incentives%22,0],[55,360,479,0.16,%22Resource%2520Policies%22,0],[59,540,139,0.33,%22Spanish%252FNative%2520allies%22,1],[64,725,142,0.33,%22Spanish%252FAztec%2520conflict%22,1],[67,838,351,0.33,%22Gold%252Fresources%22,1],[68,173,144,0.33,%22Economy%22,1],[69,744,686,0.33,%22Deforestation%22,4],[70,667,541,0.33,%22New%2520cities%22,4],[71,904,557,0.33,%22Biodiversity%22,4]],[[52,55,62,1,0],[55,52,46,1,0],[26,59,-21,1,0],[26,64,102,1,0],[59,64,32,1,0],[64,59,39,1,0],[64,67,34,1,0],[59,67,8,1,0],[67,64,-87,1,0],[67,55,11,1,0],[67,68,16,-1,0],[68,55,17,1,0],[52,68,-63,1,0],[67,26,132,1,0],[68,26,39,1,0],[52,68,37,1,0],[64,70,-34,1,0],[67,70,-26,1,0],[70,69,-11,1,0],[69,71,-14,-1,0],[26,70,-146,1,0],[71,67,-20,1,0]],[],71%5D

How Money Impacts Human-Environment Interaction

By Anonymous

Over time, smaller cultures and societies came together into bigger, more complex civilizations.  Eventually, we have the global economy we have today.  Some factors that brought groups together were money, empires, religion, and commerce.

Money allowed for more complex economies.  Hunters-gathers didn’t have money.  Instead, they traded goods and services within their isolated communities.  They were mostly self-sufficient, but could trade with other groups for certain items they did not have.  The economy used mutual favors and obligations and bartering with outsiders.   When the Agricultural Revolution began, things were mostly the same.  People lived in small communities.  They traded for things they needed. 

Because of differences in climate and differences in soil, different villages were better at producing certain goods.  This leads to specialization.  For example, one village might have good soil for clay for making pottery.  Another village might have really good soil and climate for making wine.  People could specialize in what they could make or grow and have greater expertise in a certain area. 

The rise of cities and better transportation led to more specialization.  People needed a better way to trade different kinds of goods.  Money changed the barter economy and encouraged specialization.

Money helped bring smaller communities together.  Money helps in the exchange of goods across different kinds of people.  Money made it easier to exchange one thing for another.  It was a common unit to help people understand the value of different types of things (e.g., apples, shoes, gold, food, medical treatment).

Time Period

After hunter-gather societies and after the agricultural revolution.

Resource characteristics

For the money system it would go to transportation, trade, cities, to specialization in like climate and soil.

Governance/user characteristic:

Government cared a lot about money systems and that is how cities and transportation, and trade were becoming very important in society.

Social/economic/political settings or related ecosystems

The use of money, instead of bartering, increased trade, increased people living in cities, and increased the need for transportation.  Better transportation increased trade and allowed more people to live in cities. Better transportation also allowed people to be more specialized in what the grew or made or the service they provide.  Differences in the climate and the soil in different villages and regions made it better to produce certain things.  Differences in climate and soil led to specialization (e.g., clay for ceramics in one area, wine in another area, olive oil in another area).

Interactions:

Money system interaction with cities, transportation, trade, specialization and climate and soil.

Outcomes: 

Money wasn’t quite known of by the native people they used gold for jewelry or would trade cloth or beans as currency. The rich people were trying to take advantage and take the gold and money for themselves. In different climates it is easier or hard to do certain things like making pots from clay or farming.

Citations

Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. eBook edition, Harper Collins, 2014.

Loopy Model

https://ncase.me/loopy/v1.1/?data=[[[3,562,342,1,%22Money%2520system%22,5],[4,739,205,1,%22Transportation%22,0],[5,776,388,1,%22Trade%22,1],[8,421,192,1,%22Cities%22,2],[14,663,539,1,%22Specialization%22,3],[15,767,673,1,%22Climate%22,4],[16,912,574,1,%22Soil%22,4]],[[3,4,20,1,0],[4,5,9,1,0],[5,4,-47,1,0],[3,5,-18,1,0],[5,3,44,1,0],[3,8,33,1,0],[3,8,82,1,0],[8,4,28,1,0],[4,8,27,1,0],[3,14,-17,1,0],[15,14,15,1,0],[16,14,-14,1,0],[14,5,25,1,0],[14,4,-241,1,0],[14,8,207,1,0],[14,3,49,1,0]],[],18%5D

Agricultural Revolution: The human-environment interaction on how money was the peacemaker between religions

By Anonymous

Time period: There were many crusades between Christians and Muslims during 1095-1291 (Moynihan, 2020). However, in the 1200s, conflicting societies came together and globally accepted and traded with money.

Resource characteristics: Due to agricultural and cognitive evolution, it increased the human population. This caused the increase of tree usage and exploitation of resources. More wood was needed to build houses and make fires for food and warmth. Also, the overuse of resources can cause fluctuations in the ecosystem (MacKenzie, et al., 2002). As people depend on resources to earn an income, it will affect the environment. For example, a city that’s close to the sea will have fish to sell. But as more people buy fish, the city will then have a hard to keep up with demand as available fish will decrease.

Governance/user characteristics: As more cities were formed, there was an increase in trade. Each city has its own resource(s) that other cities don’t have, which leads to an increase in trade. This helped increase wealth within their city, and the dependence of others for buying and selling resources. However, the dependence for each other does not mean they trust each other.

Social/economic/political settings or related ecosystems: In this human-environment interaction has a social context of economic development within the cities, political stability between religions, and an increase of market incentives to sell goods and make a profit. As for the related ecosystems, the social context increased deforestation and the fluctuation of resources. The production of resources aren’t keeping up with the demand.

Interaction(s): The growth of population caused people to migrate leading to the development of cities and deforestation. Within these cities, they had their own religion and resources. Each city has its own resource(s) that other cities don’t have, which leads to an increase in trade. With everyone accepting the concept of money, it calmed down the wars between religions. Harari emphasizes that money is an effective fiction because it convinces all of humanity to agree that something is valuable and trust everybody else will too. Cities had to depend on other cities for resources.

Outcomes: In my loopy model, it starts with population growth. As population grows so will religion. When the population growth increases, there will be an increase in cities. The increase in cities will cause deforestation, and which will affect us, the human population. With more cities forming, there will be an increase of different resources. With more resources, it causes an increase of trade between cities. With trade it comes with wealth, and wealth will improve/expand cities. Wealth and resources cause an increase in population. Throughout the loopy model, we will see resources, wealth, and trade fluctuate as resources can’t keep up with demand.

Citation:

MacKenzie, Alheit, J., Conley, D. J., Holm, P., & Kinze, C. C. (2002). Ecological hypotheses for a historical reconstruction of upper trophic level biomass in the Baltic Sea and Skagerrak. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 59(1), 173–190. https://doi.org/10.1139/f01-201

Moynihan. (2020). Peacemaking and holy war: Christian–Muslim diplomacy, c. 1095–1291, in crusades historiography. History Compass, 18(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12606

Loopy Model

https://ncase.me/loopy/v1.1/?data=[[[3,382,544,0.33,%22Population%2520Growth%22,4],[4,510,354,0.16,%22Cities%22,1],[5,642,543,1,%22Deforestation%22,0],[6,770,351,1,%22Resources%22,3],[7,248,349,0.33,%22Religion%22,1],[8,631,191,0.33,%22Trade%22,3],[9,329,193,0,%22Wealth%22,2]],[[3,7,61,1,0],[3,4,7,1,0],[4,6,-9,1,0],[8,9,-80,1,0],[9,4,34,1,0],[6,3,231,1,0],[9,3,-219,1,0],[6,8,11,1,0],[5,3,-2,-1,0],[4,5,-25,1,0],[8,6,87,-1,0]],[],14%5D

The collective agreement of currency

By Anonymous

Introduction and timeline

Harari (2014) writes that we get the first modern day coin currency around 640 BC in western Anatolia (roughly where modern-day Turkey is), when King Alyattes of Lydia commissioned coins of standard weight in gold or silver (131). The specific interaction I will be describing is the spread of metal coin currency. Although ostensibly they get their worth from the valuable metals, Harari argues this doesn’t apply to cultures who do not have any use for gold or silver pieces. Instead, coins such as these spread simply because some people believe they’re valuable, and thus everyone else eventually joins in because they see an opportunity to sell something ‘worthless’ to others, and in turn get things they do actually want. Harari himself skips around the timelines in regard to money usage, but we might see this period in Anatolia as the entry of currency which only increases with time.

Using Ostrom’s (2014) SES framework I will denote the different factors at play in this interaction.

Resource Characteristics

Harari does not dig into the environmental aspects of this process, but we can easily extrapolate and suppose that the resource characteristics include whatever general commodity is being traded (whether it be barley, furniture, spices, etc.), and the metal itself, including the resources needed to extract and refine it (of course, there are other forms of currency such as shells or cigarettes depending on contexts, but here I am focusing on coin money). Since we’re talking about commodities, the resource characteristics could include virtually anything that could be sold. Although there is theoretically a finite amount of gold and silver on the earth, these limitations don’t play into consideration here.

Governance/user characteristics

This category is more important. As Harari himself notes, currency generally requires a government or authority to back and mint the money as an act of sovereignty. This is important because it prevents forgery, for forging money is essentially the forgery of the government’s/king’s/etc. signature, which is treason and often punishable by death (Harari 131-132). What exactly government monetary policy looked like in the late 600s BC I do not know, but given that the government controlled the money supply, I imagine there must have been some kind of monetary policy. There was also certainly some kind of fiscal policy as well, undoubtedly in the form of taxation at the very least. The success of markets also likely played an important role in determining the real value of the money, i.e., how much people were willing to pay/accept for commodities.

It’s worth noting however that economists still argue about what and where exactly money derives its value from, and where and how it originated. Harari presents this as sound indisputable fact, but this is far from the case. David Graeber (2011), for instance, argues that credit and money long precede bartering, completely contrary to Harari’s very stereotypical story of barter -> money -> credit. Marx, for instance might argue that gold gets its value from how labor intensive it is. Sovereign power certainly plays an important role in money, and so does agreement, but whether these things are actually what constitutes money is far from clear—Harari seems to skirt the issue on this point, and is a little inconsistent on it.

Socio-economic-political and environmental factors

Political stability and economics development were undoubtedly significant in the spread of currency. A stable government and stable political community allowed for people to trust that the value of the currency would be stable. People were also incentivized to use the currency since it was probably easier to use by the mere fact that most people accepted it and it was standardized. Finally, money changed what it meant to trust others. Since the invention of currency, trust was no longer a question of moral character (so Harari argues), but rather an economic one: does this person have money, and can I trust them to give it to me? As for ecosystems, currency likely changed the way people saw the environment and materials: things could now be seen not in terms of their use-value, but rather more so in terms of their exchange value; by increasing specialization, natural resources and materials are seen in terms of their value and less so their raw utility.

Human-environment interaction

We can therefore argue that currency changes the way people interact with their environment and is one of the first major steps towards a disconnect from the environment. Gold mining became an economic industry, done because gold could be used to buy things, and less so (like the Asztecs) because it was easily workable and thus was useful for making aesthetically interesting things like statues. One consequence of this might be the colonization of Latin America by the Spanish (beginning in the late 15^th century). Eduardo Galeano (1973) in chapter one of The Open Veins of Latin America (“Lust for Gold, Lust for Silver”) writes about the Spanish colonization and subsequent enslavement of the South American natives and their toil and extermination in the gold mines. Mining tends to be disastrous for environmental and human health. With this we can see a bit of a feedback loop between the increasing value of natural resources, and the decreasing value of the environment as something in itself valuable (biodiversity as a good thing, for instance). Harari (strangely) may not be so critical of imperialism, but the imperial conquest and stripping of resources of native people certainly played an important role in disadvantaging the global south and allowing for Western hegemony to take hold.

Outcomes

My model simplifies the basic process of the legitimation of currency, its spread, and the equilibration of price by supply and demand. Harari describes how, although for instance in India they might not see much value or use for gold, merchants who travel will notice this, and end up flipping the cheap gold from India for high profit in the Mediterranean. This leads firstly to an increase of demand for gold in India (and thus a rise in price), and then to an influx of gold into the Mediterranean (leading to a drop in price), thereby leading to a roughly equal price throughout. As demand for gold increases, more and more of it is minted and mined. This increases economic activity, as well as environmental activity by way of resource extraction.

Works Cited

Galeano, Eduardo. The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of The Pillage of a Continent. 25^th Anniversary Edition, Monthy Review Press, 1973.

Graeber, David. Debt: The First 5000 Years. 2014 edition, Melville House, 2011.

Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. eBook edition, Harper Collins, 2014.

McGinnis, M.D., & Ostrom, E. “Socio-ecological system framework: initial changes and continuing challenges.” Ecology and Society, 19(2), 30. 2014.

Loopy Model

https://ncase.me/loopy/v1.1/?data=[[[3,350,364,0.5,%22Use%2520of%2520gold%2520in%2520Mediterranean%22,0],[4,936,382,0.16,%22Use%2520of%2520gold%2520in%2520India%22,0],[5,626,620,0.33,%22Merchant%2520profit%22,0],[6,526,143,0.83,%22Mining%2520of%2520gold%22,0],[7,748,159,0.66,%22Minting%2520of%2520currency%2520(government%2520backing)%22,0],[8,631,339,0.83,%22Use%2520of%2520Gold%2520In%2520City%2520of%2520Minting%22,0],[9,1084,476,0.33,%22independent%2520mining%2520of%2520gold%22,0]],[[6,7,29,1,0],[3,5,50,1,0],[5,4,-135,1,0],[7,6,-43,1,0],[7,8,14,1,0],[8,5,22,1,0],[8,7,55,1,0],[8,3,-21,1,0],[5,3,69,1,0],[4,7,-238,1,0],[4,9,55,1,0],[9,4,16,1,0]],[],9%5D

The Human-Environment Interactions of Trade-Based Central Asian Urbanization

By Sean Kurth

Time Period and Background

Samarkand rose and fell in its prominence as a Central Asian Silk Road trading post during the Middle Ages, before Europe began exploring for trade routes and colonies of its own. Harari specifically mentions Samarkand, but as a proxy for the entire region that was transformed by the unification of Europe and East Asia into one world economically. That would place the time period for this interaction between the 500s and 1500s AD (Bosworth & Schaeder, 2012). Samarkand still exists today, but as a globally insignificant city in the impoverished post-Soviet country of Uzbekistan that’s smaller than Indianapolis.

Samarkand is located in a desert, along with most of modern Uzbekistan, and what isn’t desert in Central Asia is semi-arid steppes or fragile temperate forest ecosystems (Sutton et al., 2013). Trees, once cut, had a hard time growing back, because the transpiration of the forests themselves contributed to making the climate wetter (Staal et al., 2018). Therefore, the removal of trees for agriculture actually makes the land worse for agriculture in the long-run.

Loopy Model Characteristics

The natural resource stocks used in this model are forests and soil nutrients. Trees were used for building, firewood, crafting, and they were also cleared to create fertile farmland. Soil nutrients were depleted by the intensifying of agriculture as the population grew, a problem compounded by irrigation making the land saltier over time from sediment left by rivers (Altaweel, 2013). Increased agriculture increased the amount of complex society that could be supported by the agricultural surplus, but also decreased the stocks needed to support it if done in an unsustainable, exponentially-growing way.

A more complex society increased the amount of roads and trade, then roads enable more trade as trade creates a demand for more roads. Both cause urban growth in Samarkand and similar cities, which leads to deforestation and the depletion of soil nutrients. This reduces the agricultural surplus, which reduces the amount of overhead a complex society has to work with, which reduces urban growth until the agricultural surplus and natural resource stocks are restored so the city can grow again.

Model Outcomes

Due to the constraints of the climate colliding with the intensity of economic activity along the Silk Road, the political order in this region was unstable: Samarkand was part of at least 9 different imperial civilizations over the period of interest (Bosworth & Schaeder, 2012). This indicates that the cycle illustrated in the loopy model likely oscillated rapidly from one extreme to the other, making it appropriate to run the model at medium-high speed. That’s exactly what occurred in the model: cities were rapidly expanded by the development of roads and an increase in trade, stayed large in a steady state for a short while, then rapidly declined and regenerated during periods when the agricultural surplus and/or water supply was insufficient.

Works Cited

Altaweel. (2013). Simulating the effects of salinization on irrigation agriculture in southern Mesopotamia. Archaeopress.

Bosworth, Crowe, Y., & Schaeder, H. . (2012). SAMARKAND. In Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Leiden, Koninklijke Brill NV. https://doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0996

Sutton, Srivastava, J. P., Neumann, J. E., Droogers, P., & Boehlert, B. B. (2013). Reducing the vulnerability of Uzbekistan’s agricultural systems to climate change: impact assessment and adaptation options (A world bank study). In Reducing the vulnerability of Uzbekistan’s agricultural systems to climate change: impact assessment and adaptation options (pp. xvii–xvii). THE WORLD BANK. https://doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-0000-9

Staal, A., Tuinenburg, O. A., Bosmans, J. H., Holmgren, M., van Nes, E. H., Scheffer, M., Zemp, D. C., & Dekker, S. C. (2018). Forest-rainfall cascades buffer against drought across the Amazon. Nature Climate Change, 8(6), 539–543. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0177-y

Loopy Model

https://ncase.me/loopy/v1.1/?data=[[[1,813,193,0.16,%22roads%22,4],[2,578,206,0.33,%22trade%22,5],[3,702,406,0,%22urban%2520growth%22,0],[4,435,387,1,%22Agricultural%2520surplus%22,3],[5,389,218,0,%22Complex%2520society%22,3],[6,553,545,0.5,%22Soil%2520depletion%22,0],[7,347,545,0.5,%22Deforestation%22,0]],[[2,1,94,1,0],[1,2,89,1,0],[2,3,-70,1,0],[1,3,83,1,0],[4,5,37,1,0],[5,2,97,1,0],[3,7,161,1,0],[6,4,-26,-1,0],[4,6,95,1,0],[3,6,34,1,0],[7,4,34,-1,0]],[],9%5D