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Activision Responds to American Indian Boycott
JorgeDeLaCancha writes "As previously reported, the American Indian Development has begun a boycott of Activisions game GUN. Activision has quickly responded. From the article: 'Activision does not condone or advocate any of the atrocities that occurred in the American West during the 1800s. GUN was designed to reflect the harshness of life on the American frontier at that time.'"
Circling the wagons?
People are too sensitive these days. That said, I think boycotting makes sense in this case. It's a hell of a lot better than trying to ban the game. If you don't like the game or it's apparent message then don't buy it. I don't see what the big deal is here.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
I don't really give a crap how we're portrayed in video games. I really doubt this boycott is going to make much a difference anyway. You need economic consequences for a boycott to work and American Indians simply aren't a large enough segment of the game buying public to make any difference whatsoever.
If it's portrayed incorrectly, then they've got a genuine grievance. If the game portrays it in a historically correct fashion, then they should be using the game as a teaching tool, rather than burying their heads in the sand and hoping it goes away.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
You could have a 'Gas the Jews' game, not to provoke racism or hate crimes, but to reflect the harshness of gassing large numbers of people.
How do you think Activision would go with that one?
...in which a strange group of travellers arrive on your shores with overwhelmingly advanced military technology, and start to eradicate your people through diseased blankets and open hostilities, and then make treaties with you that they have no intention of honoring. The point of the game is to die of old age to win.
Doesn't Activision mean this games portrays the exact opposite of what it was like? Us slaughtering the indians, and not really having gunslingers everywhere...I am not indian, nor do I have any indian blood, and I think the ban is silly and activision saying this game portrays anything is silly. Activision should just say it is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any race or nationality is purely coincidence.
Let's just hope there isn't a Custer's Revenge minigame hidden in there
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
News Flash! Someone is always offended by some feature in some game at some time.
....
... which is a matter of creative freedom and the story writer chose to go for a stereotypical western setting as it was perceived back in the days. Now, because someone is offended, they are calling for a boycott of the game because they don't like how things were back there and they don't want to be remembered by it.
Next we start complaining about movies about the American Civil War depicting uneducated black slaves, because it wasn't pretty and we would rather forget that part of history
This is a question of "the chilling effect". Someone is always offended. The only reason Gamergod, and later other pages, were carrying this news item, written by a hyper sensitive and potentially paranoid woman is because they know it's controversial, will be syndicated and will give them ad clicks. Not that the boycott would do any damage, Indians are not even a blimp on the radar when it comes to game sales anyway.
Having played GUN, definitly a mediocre game, I can say that the Indians are getting the best portrayal of all factions in the game. There are countless white villains, bandits that are depicted as devils, murderers, killers and rapists. The indians, in the grand scope of things, are portrayed as noble and the main character realizes that his initial attack on the indians was wrong and he helps them out.
This author sees a problem where there is no problem. The game is by no means picking on the indians or portraying them worse than any other group in the game, it rather seems that the author is upset about the way the story writer chose the individuals in his story to act
Everyone who has played GUN can attest its mediocre, it features sensless violence and very mediocre graphics. However it is not racist or discriminating against indians. The author seems to wish that it was and uses a completely constructed connection to an old Atari game to make it seem like Activision/Neversoft did this on purpose to discriminate against indians.
Next time some red haired woman will come along and sue blizzard for allowing players to cast fire spells on red haired female human mages because, you know, some witches were burned a couple of hundred years ago. OMFG!
Or how about we stop playing Castle Wolfenstein online because some germans might be offended by us blasting Nazis online?
Or how about we ban GTA:SA because you play a black gang member beating up hookers? Some hooker / black gang member / black non gang member might be offended?
Or maybe we should just stop making games that include any kind of reference to the real world, and while we are at it we also stop any movie that features any kind of minority at all?
I heard Harry Potter offended some puritans in the South for witchcraft, we better make sure to boycott those games, books and movies too.
Seriously, we should just create some category "people offended by something" and post all these kind of news in there. Would be long, nobody would care, and all would be good.
Next...
Italians boycott moviemakers for how they're portrayed in The Godfather.
Blacks boycott gamemakers for the stereotyping in the Grand Theft Auto games.
Whites boycott Xatrix Entertainment for how white trash appeared in the game Redneck Rampage.
And at the end of the day we're left with Trading Spaces on the TV and Tetris on our computers.
Trolling is a art,
It's offensive to tell other people that they're being offensive. It's not very polite.
Next thing you know, Muslims will get offended by what a Danish person draws in a comic strip.
Oh wait.....
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
At least they're not threatening to start a fucking holy war over a fucking newspaper cartoon. There are boycotts for good reasons and then there are boycotts because people want to control what you do and say. I think the native american boycott on this has some good reason behind it. Compare that to the Muslim boycott, wanting UN action against an entire country because some guys engaged in political satire, and some of those assholes threatening to kill the people behind it.
It's pretty knee jerk to call every boycott PC fascism in this country, but really, we should reserve denigrating boycotts to things that are really fucking ridiculous. The complaints by the Native Americans really aren't ridiculous when you actually read them and compare them to the fascist assholes in the Middle East. At least they're not issuing Fatwa's and death threats.
a) Activision should simply let the Indians boycott the game if they want. For one thing, if it wasn't them conducting the boycott, it'd probably be fundamentalist Christians. For another, I suspect that we're not talking about a large group of people here...it's not like Activision are going to lose a lot of money if they don't buy the game.
b) By all accounts, it's the usual type of mediocre, soulless crap that the big publishers try and feed us anyway. Then again though, that's probably the reason Activision are worried...because hardly anyone will likely buy the game anyway, they need to get everyone they can on side.
please tell me activision didn't responded with smoke signals - that's just so wrong of them, you'd think they'd want to offer a peace pipe to their detractors. next we'll hear they don't run apache.
fak3r.com
I just bought my copy. Anything anti-PC on my PC is good for me.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
WTF ???
... hope you are happy convincing all the mindless freaks.
.. what do you expect?
m herstsmallpox.htm
You jerk
Fact is, there was a plan to do this. And small pox later broke out where they targetted. There are no photos of the actual handover obviously
Provide some evidence to support your view. Evidence-less assertions may work if you are a talk radio host or post on freerepublic.com.
Fact is the native americans got screwed, and their land/inheritance stolen. No amount of trying to convince oneself otherwise will chnge reality. Ironically the USA supports the Israelis getting their ancestral homeland from the Palestinians.. yet native americans can forget getting their ancestral home back. Sad but true.
The evidence is overwhelming to support the view of blankets being used to spread smallpox... do some god damn googling.
http://www.somsd.k12.nj.us/~chssocst/ssgavittus1a
From straightdope.com: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_066.html
Lord Jeffrey Amherst, commander of British forces in North America during the French and Indian War (1756-'63). Amherst and a subordinate discussed, apparently seriously, sending infected blankets to hostile tribes. What's more, we've got the documents to prove it, thanks to the enterprising research of Peter d'Errico, legal studies professor at the University of Massachusetts at (fittingly) Amherst. D'Errico slogged through hundreds of reels of microfilmed correspondence looking for the smoking gun, and he found it.
The exchange took place during Pontiac's Rebellion, which broke out after the war, in 1763. Forces led by Pontiac, a chief of the Ottawa who had been allied with the French, laid siege to the English at Fort Pitt.
According to historian Francis Parkman, Amherst first raised the possibility of giving the Indians infected blankets in a letter to Colonel Henry Bouquet, who would lead reinforcements to Fort Pitt. No copy of this letter has come to light, but we do know that Bouquet discussed the matter in a postscript to a letter to Amherst on July 13, 1763:
P.S. I will try to inocculate the Indians by means of Blankets that may fall in their hands, taking care however not to get the disease myself. As it is pity to oppose good men against them, I wish we could make use of the Spaniard's Method, and hunt them with English Dogs. Supported by Rangers, and some Light Horse, who would I think effectively extirpate or remove that Vermine.
On July 16 Amherst replied, also in a postscript:
P.S. You will Do well to try to Innoculate the Indians by means of Blanketts, as well as to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race. I should be very glad your Scheme for Hunting them Down by Dogs could take Effect, but England is at too great a Distance to think of that at present.
On July 26 Bouquet wrote back:
I received yesterday your Excellency's letters of 16th with their Inclosures. The signal for Indian Messengers, and all your directions will be observed.
We don't know if Bouquet actually put the plan into effect, or if so with what result. We do know that a supply of smallpox-infected blankets was available, since the disease had broken out at Fort Pitt some weeks previously. We also know that the following spring smallpox was reported to be raging among the Indians in the vicinity.
To modern ears, this talk about infecting the natives with smallpox, hunting them down with dogs, etc., sounds over the top. But it's easy to believe Amherst and company were serious. D'Errico provides other quotes from Amherst's correspondence that suggest he considered Native Americans subhumans who ought to be exterminated. Check out his research for yourself at www.nativeweb.org/pages/l egal/amherst/lord_jeff.html. He not only includes transcriptions but also reproduces the relevant parts of the incriminating letters.
Imagine a game where you play a member of a white lynch squad in the postbellum south. Clearly, such a game would be gravely offensive and inappropriate.
What's the difference between these games? White Americans killed off the Native Americans far more thoroughly than they managed to do so to the African Americans? And that makes the horrible racism better or more acceptable?
I will be boycotting Activision as well.
There are a lot of posts saying, if you don't like it don't play it. And getting bothered about the uproar around this game, however I doubt many would have a similar response to Ethnic Cleansing True, noone would play it ( I wont ), but it'd be much more difficult to find someone to defend titles like this.
Kent Simon Multitheft Auto
Deja vu
A whole 9 hours in between, but only 3 stories apart on games.slashdot.org.
No sig for you!!
It was called "Dances With Wolves", but I think it must have been part of the Final Fantasy series: it ran you on rails through the story line and took 20 hours to get to the ending.
but not because of some moronic need to protect the innocent. Seriously, their game developement cycle is horrible. I have 5 games purchased from them, all have fatal flaws, all have stupid issues with ai or somethingrather that make the game unplayable after a short time. All would be easily fixable, if Activision gave a damn. I just plain won't buy their products anymore because they suck. I've been down that road too many times.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
It is also important to note that the term "Native American" was invented by the US government during the beginning of the 20th century as a means to completely invalidate all previous treaties with "Indians."
A blog about stuff.
There's a difference between merely discussing history (yes, the Europeans fought Indians) and _revisionist_ history in which you paint the attacked as the aggressors. For better or worse, the Indians were really the ones attacked and driven off their lands there, and painting them as a bunch of bandits wantonly attacking the caravans isn't history, it's revisionist history.
Just for trivia sake, here's a historical tidbit for you: you know how scalping is thrown around as the example of how savage and cruel the Indians were? Well, it was invented by the Europeans. A bunch of Europeans decided they'd be better off if they just exterminated the Indians wholesale to make room for European farmers. (Incidentally the exact same plan Hitler had for Poland, for example.) So they paid headhunters for each Indian scalp brought in, as proof of one killed Indian.
The Indians just knew a good idea when it bit them, so they soon started scalping too, as a way to keep track of killed enemies.
That's the kind of wanton aggression the Europeans waged upon the rightful owners and inhabitants of that land. So now representing the ones who fought back as the aggressors is a tad rich.
It's like making a game in which you're a WW2 German soldier just defending yourself against the supposedly wanton aggression of partisans on the Eastern front. Or helping shoot Polish "aggressors" in the Warshaw uprising. You know, you're just minding your business there, and all of a sudden these aggressive Poles or Russians attack your convoy and you have to defend yourself. Great game idea to show people how harsh life was on the Eastern Front, eh?
I'm guessing noone would have any trouble spotting the shameless revisionism there, but when it's about American natives we all act so surprised that they're offended.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
It's Activision's response to the events in the first story, and it's especially relevent because they responded so quickly. Come 'on, this is /. It can't be that hard to find a dupe.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
By the way, they're doing this the right way, with a boycott, instead of trying to pass legislation. All they're doing is not buying the game.
The computers get smarter, but the people never do. Go play World of Warcraft-- they have a nice new policy of not allowing minority groups.
My script don't crash! She crashes, you crashed her!
In Canada, we use what I think is a more respectful name...we call the The First Nations. We invaded their land, killed them, attempted cultural genocide, and even today in the 21st century, we still disrespect them. And thus many of us disrespect ourselves, for a large portion of the North American population has some First Nation ancestory. Show the First Nation's people the respect they deserve, for you might otherwise be disrespecting *your* ancestors.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
This will make circling them even harder.
Sid Meirs Civilisation was a great game, but to progress you had to kill a few indians, or worse infiltrate their camps and 'civilise' them. I don't remember seing a petition about that.
I've played more than my fair share of first person shoots where I'm pitched against a culture and told to destroy them all: Nazis, Covenant, Islamic Terrorists, all manner of Aliens.
As for the suggestion of a Civil War game where you hunt down and string up slaves, thats still bad taste at the moment (not sure why). But I can envisage a game where you're a turkish raider, pilaging the coastal towns of Britain for gold, religious relics and female slaves. How about a Roman citizen who hunts down the french and in order to stabailize the town has to crucify a couple of them, and then sell the females and children into the slave trade. Would the Turkish and Italians get all upset? Would the British or French? I doubt it.
Bad things happened in History. That's the interesting bit. The best way to teach history is to make it relevant and fun. If you can understand that the slave traders did what they did becuase it put food on their table and nobody thought it was wrong, then you are on your way to stopping slavery forever. If you can get people to understand why the pilgrims and cowboys were so violent against naitive americans, then hopefully you can understand how it stopped, why there is still bad blood, and why it should never happened again. Games that explore social dynamics are incomplete if they don't demonstrate the complete spectrum of human behavior.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
or you might otherwise be disrespecting *your* ancestors.
I'm ethnic German and Irish and I don't give shit about either group - past or present. Why should someone who probably doesn't even know they've got native american blood in them give a shit either?
This boycott is sure to result in more purchases for a game which I (and likely many others) didn't even know existed before this news story surfaced.
It would sell quite well in Arab countries
Show the First Nation's people the respect they deserve
"Showing respect" would be actually bothering to learn what tribe someone belongs to, instead of lumping everyone from Algonquins to Zunis into a single epithet. Using "First Nations" just means "I'm pretending to care, but I'm too lazy to actually give a shit."
If I am refering to a specific tribe, of course, but if I am talking about the aboriginal people's of North America, then I will use First Nations.
ttyl
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Is that not PC? is it offensive?
... Nazis and off-world aliens that do not resemble any creature on Earth. Stick to those.
In paragraph one, you say:
All evidence points to humans evolving on the African continent somewhere...
In paragraph two, you say:
There are plenty of people with dark colored skin who not only have never set foot on the African continent, but do not have any ancestors who did.
If there's a point to be made, it's that we're all African to some extent, and anyone who wants to claim African ancestry can do so. Speaking solely for myself, I represent the old school, and can trace my ancestry back to the original cell that is the ancestor of all life. So, point your reparations lawsuits at me, because in all likelihood, I'm a descendant of Attila, Custer, Hitler, and various top predators of sundry ecosystems.
"Your grandfather killed my grandfather, so I'm'a gonna kill you." is worse than stupid- it is wrong, as it denies that we are all blood relations, and paves the way for further murder in the name of homogeny.
Then why, does Canada still have a Department of Indian and Northern Affairs? There's about 10 different names for this group of people. Aboriginals, Native Canadians, Indians, First Nations, Native Americans (America is all of North and South America, not just the US) and a few others I am forgetting.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
They lost the war. Get over it. It happened all over the world. If they don't want to feel left out they can start by integrating to the society. You know attend school, pay taxes, work and such instead of asking for gov handout. As for their culture, it already dead. Being in reserves didn't help them keep it alive. Except for the Inuit who preserved it because of the few easy contact with other culture are able to maintain it. The other have trouble teaching their language to their children due to a lack of interrest of them. Their oral history is disapearing with each older folk death. As for myself I don't have an ounce of guilt about it. It was their responsability to keep it alive. By wanting to be apart of the system instead of working within it (like the french canadian did in quebec) they condamned their culture to a slow and painful death.
Remember... A boomerang IS NOT the best way to deliver a bomb.
1. It's a game, made for people to have fun
2. It somewhat reflects the time period, but may be somewhat exagerated to make the GAME more fun or apealing, or just be over the top.
3. it's a GAME
4. If we forget, or pretend, racism, slavery, genocide and all the other bad things of our past, we'll end up doing it all over again. The rememberance of these acts against humanity allows us to move forward and better ourselves. Forgetting is making the same mistake again...
5. It's a friggen game, get over it.
It's all in how you look at it.
I can't comment on Gun specifically because I haven't played it, but:
What if a game were called "KKK" instead of "Gun," and lynching were an aspect of that game. Would people who objected to that game be "too sensitive?"
"KKK was designed to reflect the harshness of life in the Deep South at that time."
This subject being what it is, I'll propably get modded as flamebait for this, but...
What nations ? From what I've understood, the only two entities in America that could be called nation by any standard when the Europeans came were the Aztec Empire - which was called "Empire" because it had conquered everyone around itself and was taxing them for people to use as human sacrifices - and Inkas - who had invented the wheel but hadn't quite gotten it in their heads that it might be usefull as anything but a toy. Everyone else was still stuck in stone age nomad tribal system.
What culture ? The Aztec Empire was evil by anyone's standards, with their conquest and oppression of everyone nearby and a constant bloody stream of human sacrifices from those conquered lands. They fell because their every neighbour and subject hated them and rebelled when the arrival of Cortez gave them a chance to. The Inkas weren't (as far as I know) evil, but didn't manage to accomplish anything besides hoarding a tremendous amount of gold for their ruler; hardly a great accomplishment. And the tribes, as I already stated, were stuck in stone age with nothing but particularly nasty torture methods - which were used to torture every prisoner of war to death in the hopes that if they could be broken they would suffer not only in this world but in the one beyond too, forever - to their name.
Now, if someone can point out any actual Indian cultural accomplishments that were destroyed by Europeans, please do. If no one can, then I must conclude that, based on data available to me, Indians of today are much better off than they would be if the Europeans had never come.
Killing Indians was wrong and totally, inexcusably evil, but their cultures deserved to die. Mod me down for saying this if you will, but it might be more effective to answer and state your reasons for thinking otherwise. Pointing out any factual errors I might have made would be especially efficient.
Oh, and I'm Finnish myself, a resident of Northern Europe. Finland only gained independence when tsarist Russia collapsed in World War I, and was an abused conquest of first Sweden and then Russia until then, so any replies in the likeness of "you should be ashamed of what your ancestors did !" will be laughed at - my ancestors were too busy trying to rise crops at the Arctic Circle to oppress anyone.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
We invaded their land, killed them, attempted cultural genocide
Back in the height of 80s anti-communist propaganda, there was a TV show/movie that was a fictionalized account of the USA after the Soviet Union had conquered North America. One of the scenes showed an elementary school, where children were being taught US history. Part of their lessons explained that when the US was first formed, it was done so by slaughtering millions of indigenous peoples through large-scale warfare and very brutal techniques.
The idea was (from the Soviet perspective) to show how horrible the Imperialists were, how they didn't care about anyone else, how they were willing to kill anyone to achieve their goals. Thankfully the blessed Soviet had liberated the American people from their overlords, etc.
It's funny that 20 years later we've managed to convince many of our own citizens of this.
I don't know who this "we" is that you speak of, but there isn't a single Canadian alive today who "invaded" Canada. Did you mean "white people with probable European ancestry"?
Racism is abhorrent when applied against ANY group of people.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Why should anyone ever give their name on here? You're insane to expect people to provide their real name or address for the purpose of "accountability" .. so ultimately what's the difference between pseudonym and anonymous? You expect me to believe a pseudonym is capable of providing any sort of real accountability? Not everyone thinks it's wise to put their real info online. He/she's providing links to backup his/her claims. It's foolish to believe ANYTHING online, regardless of whether someone gives some name (which could be fake anyway). So you go verifying everyone's real name before you believe things? Why not verify the info they are saying instead? Who fooled you into thinking using a pseudonym provides accountability? Any random anonymous person can create pseudonyms at will on here. Now, you don't have to believe him/her any more than you had to believe an old widow "Silence Dogood" (aka Benjamin Franklin ..google it). Pseudonyms are only useful to build an "online" reputation .. (when was the last time anyone checked that btw) .. but personally I check out everything anyone says regardless of whether they had said a hundred truths before .. or even whether they had told lies before. .. are you going to force yourself to deny it .. or will you verify it?
The point is that if a source is anonymous it doesn't have to be believed, but if it makes credible assertions it needs to be checked out. If an "anonymous coward" says 10 + 10 = 20
Jared Diamond wrote in his book "Guns, Germs, and Steel", that most (99%?) of the cultural artifacts were destroyed by the Europeans. Thus, there is almost no record of the cultures that were present when Cortez arrived. We have no idea what the cultural achievements were because they were DESTROYED. All the records - artwork, carvings, temples.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
This post is an FYI.
The creators wanted to capture the angst and anger of the Westward-moving new Americans. Come on, if you shot 1200 pounds of Buffalo and could only carry 200 back to your wagon, wouldn't you be pissed?
Bury me in mashed potatoes.
The proof of these atrocities you talk about all come from accounts of CHRISTIAN MONKS who took it upon themselves to record what they wanted too. Despite what you learned in grade school we aren't exactly 100% positive they even sacrificed many humans like that.
Because governments move slower than a speeding oak!
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Sadly, here are bigots in any group of people.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Meanwhile, I agree with Neal Stephenson's character Avi. "Fuck the aztecs."
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Not all of us know which tribe our ancestors belonged to. Because being a "half-breed" was cosidered less than a dog, that knowledge was denied to our family as shameful. Though I am more Scotish/German/English/Polish/Swiss/You name it in Europe, I am proud of the fact that I carry the blood of an "American Indian" or "First Nations" people in my veins.
I am tied to this land through that blood and the blood of all my ancestors who fought to live here, no matter what century.
Though ignorance and disagreement is more common than not, on all sides, our descendants will eventually all carry a part of that blood in their veins. Just as the stupid Aryans that instituted the caste system in India couldn't keep their descendants from mixing with the locals, it is inevitable, and best, that we all become one!
---ducks as he donns his flame retardent suit---
We invaded their land, killed them, attempted cultural genocide
Which, if you've studied any history at all, is just par for the course for just about every surviving ethnic group on the planet. The vast majority of the ones who didn't get involved in this kind of violence are dead.
And that includes Native Americans, who have a very long history of committing insanely brutal acts not only against each other, but, it appears, against the people who seem to have been here before them. You did know that the scientific evidence for a prior migration (approximately 25,000-35,000 years ago) is rapidly mounting, didn't you? And that with the exception of certain Amazonian tribes (established by mitochrondial DNA studies), it appears they were completely wiped out by the second migration from Asia, the people we call "Native" Americans?
Native Americans are not, and were never, noble savages, although even today a few idiots still seem to believe this horseshit. Furthermore, they weren't even the first people on the continent; they came, they say, the killed everyone who was here first and took their land - just like we did to them. Or you did to us (I'm part Cherokee).
Until quite recently this was just the way of the world. Deal with it.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
That's not North America. That's South/Central. North America was mostly peopled by the descendants of [probably] siberian immigrants that came over the land bridge back in the way-back time
And that's horseshit. The so-called Native Americans who crossed the land bridge 10,000 years ago migrated all the way to Terra del Fuego; genetically they're the same people. The only folks who're markedly different from this group are a few tribal entities in the Amazon - the last descendents of an apparent first migration 25,000-35,000 years ago, who managed to escape wholesale genocide at the hands of the group in the second migration only because the people in the second migration didn't want their shitty, deadly, dangerous jungle land.
Most of them were relatively peaceful and kept to themselves
I can't believe you've swallowed this crap. Most native American tribes were quite warlike and made a habit of wiping each other out to the last man, woman, and child whenever their own populations got too large to support. There's an enormous amount of documented evidence supporting this - and that's not even going into the unique and disgusting ways they developed for killing all sorts of folks just for the sake of amusement - or in sacrifice to their gods. The Aztecs are only distinguished from everyone else because they managed to get their butchery down to a science.
revering nature
You do know the whole "noble savage" thing was disproven ages ago, don't you? We're talking about the same people who "revered nature" by, for example, killing entire herds of animals in brush traps and the like, and leaving all the excess meat to rot? Or who burned off large swathes of forest both for the instant barbecue and because it supported the kind of animals they liked to eat better? Want me to go on?
Aside from a couple of warlike types, most of them weren't out killin' anything but food.
Really, get a clue. This is crap, as any anthropologist can tell you. Native Americans were just as fucked up, brutal, and murderous as their European cousins, no exceptions.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
The real atrocity here is that the wood on the wagons is bullet proof thanks to our ressilence to create more dynamic worlds in video games.
Xbox 360 set you back 500$ and for a 60$ game about massarcring little red men you have sold yourself for nothing.
So let's recap,
English settlers decided they owned a land that originally had no owner.
Many people were killed. But before this, many people had been killed by Spanish explorers (conquerors). Spreading a message of greed and capitalish err soverinty... err n/m the point is the Spanish were greedy and lied about spreading the message of christianity. They are no longer a world power.
The British lied about their greed and message of Christianity and they are no longer a world power.
America is truly an amalgamation of several races and religions. The majority of the people are comprised of several different nationalities of genetic materials. Some white, some black, some red, some yellow.
They should have just made a game about shooting Iraqies or terrorst, when you label somebody an enemy you can profit from it. Like Indians, they were evil back in the beginnings of the new world. Then we decided the Germans were evil. The Japanese, the Koreans, the Vietnamese. Until we conqueror them they are evil. Of course Romans (Americans) are never evil unless we sale drugs or rape people. then its ok to shoot us.
I'm tired, I think you get the message...
you kids have fun i'm going back to venus and don't follow me.
I prefer to refer to the people living in North America prior to European conquest "tribal Americans". And their descendants living here today likewise, so long as they're part of a tribe. If they live here today without a tribe, they're just assimilated Americans like anyone else.
The Americans who live in tribes today not descended from those resident prior to European conquest are also tribal. Maybe they just live in a familial affiliation, like a hippie camp. That's how the ancient tribal Americans got started, too, and certainly not all of them lasted more than a generation.
Confusion between the two shows the dangers of referring to any group of people by a collective term. Ancient American tribes were mostly as different as were European nations, peoples or tribes. And today's tribal Americans are mostly as different from one another, including recently started tribes, as they are from ancient tribes.
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make install -not war
By saying "just deal with it" when refereing to cultural genocide, I am pretty sure you are are insulting your God, Thor. I hope you aren't one of those racists that are using some flavour of Asatru as a cover!
My Goddess carries a hammer as well. She also writes poetry and heals.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
While we could dicker back and forth on the rest of this stuff all day, it's hard to believe you brought up the forest thing. It turns out that all of that contributed - accidentally or not - to the health of the forests. Forests that have regular fires survive. Forests that have occasional (on this time scale that is) fires have problems. Forests that rarely have fires are destroyed...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It turns out that all of that contributed - accidentally or not - to the health of the forests.
Unmanaged forests have regular small burns, usually due to lightning strikes, which clear out fuel before it can pile up. Forests managed like the U.S. lands have been for the last 30 years (due to the ignorance of persuasive environmentalists) allow that fuel to accumulate, turning what would otherwise be small fires into huge ones - fires that kill trees that would survive smaller, less hot blazes.
The native Americans weren't 'selective loggers' nor 'caretakers of the land'. They burned off huge swaths of forest merely because it was convenient and for no other reason. This didn't contribute in any way, shape or form to the health of the environment. The damage they did was far more excessive than any amount of clear-cutting by timber companies. To say, for example, that burning off the entire Willamette valley from Roseburg to Portland on a regular basis is "healthy" is just plain ludicrous.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?