Monthly Archives: May 2012

Many people talk about the dire state of American education.  Naturally, almost all of what they say is nonsense.  You would expect that, since they were educated in that awful system… One common theme is that education has gone to … Continue reading →

If you take too many chances in the process of making a living, you’ll get yourself killed before you manage to raise a family.   Therefore there is a maximum sustainable risk per calorie acquired from hunting *.  If the average … Continue reading →

When competent human hunters encountered naive fauna, the biggest animals,  things like mammoths and toxodons and diprotodons, all went extinct.  It is not hard to see why this occurred. Large animals are more worth hunting than rabbits, and easier to … Continue reading →

Before the Amerindians arrived, North America had much more varied (and dangerous)  wildlife than it does today: particularly when it comes to large animals, the megafauna.  Today, or for that matter during colonial times. there are only a few dangerous … Continue reading →

Everybody knows that the Amerindians were devastated by new infectious diseases after Columbus discovered America and made it stick.   Smallpox, falciparum malaria, yellow fever,  bubonic plague, cholera,  measles, whooping cough, etc : by some estimates,  the Amerindian population dropped by … Continue reading →

Nowadays, humans aren’t much concerned about being devoured.  We may have to worry  about blowing ourselves up, or being blotted out by an asteroid strike, but we don’t worry much about lions and tigers and bears. But it was not … Continue reading →