
How a Medieval Society Withstood Nearly 60 Years of Drought - mcone
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/how-a-medieval-society-survived-nearly-60-years-of-drought/559616/?single_page=true
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megaman22
> Instead of clashing with the Chinese Empire to their south, the Uighurs
> forged a durable but uneasy alliance with the Tang dynasty in China, a rare
> feat for a steppe empire. The Uighurs traded their surplus horses with the
> Chinese in exchange for silk. They then traded that silk with merchant
> allies in the fertile lands to their west.

This paragraph seems to betray a deep misunderstanding of historical Chinese
relations with steppe peoples to the north. This was the status quo. The
Chinese empires more often than not tried to buy off the nomads with markets
and the nominal tributary system. It was more often than not ruinously
expensive and fraught with failure for the non-foreign Chinese empires to
attempt to subjugate the steppes in the pre-gunpowder era; far cheaper to play
them off against one another and create a buffer zone. This goes back more
than 2000 years, to the Han dynasty and the Xiongnu, if not earlier.

~~~
derefr
> It was more often than not ruinously expensive and fraught with failure for
> the non-foreign Chinese empires to attempt to subjugate the steppes in the
> pre-gunpowder era

That isn't incompatible with what the article says, though. Just because China
wasn't actively going out and attacking the steppe peoples, doesn't mean that
_the steppe peoples_ weren't actively going out and raiding _Chinese villages_
, souring China's relations with individual steppe tribes (even if China never
mounted any punitive expeditions in response.)

The difference being proposed here, I think, is that the Uighurs actively
sought to pacify and build trade relations with the Chinese Empire, and
actively prevented their citizens from engaging in raiding across the Chinese
border.

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tomohawk
That's one thing I've never understood about the zombie shows. Instead of
showing people banding together to deal with the problem, they almost always
show people acting selfishly and tearing each other down. That's always seemed
the biggest fallacy of those shows.

~~~
WJW
Well a zombie show where people acted sensibly would end after the first few
minutes because:

\- The scientists involved used sensible precautions because they are pretty
intelligent and have no interest in exposing themselves to dangerous
pathogens.

\- After the first sign of a dangerous outbreak the government gets involved
and unlike movie governments they know what they're doing and soldiers will
actually just sit in armored vehicles where the risk of zombie bites is
minimal.

\- It turns out brain tissue alone does not contain enough nutrients for a
human-sized being to subsist for a significant amount of time and the outbreak
naturally dies down after two days because the zombies run out of energy.

\- In any case, Australia will be fine because zombies are not smart enough to
pilot a plane or boat all the way there. If the outbreak starts there, the
rest of the world is fine by the same logic.

Same thing how horror movies famously depend on the protagonists making the
worst possible decisions ("let's split up!"). Zombie movies started off as
societal critique about the dangers of consumerism. A realistic scenario does
not make for an entertaining movie, and non-entertaining movies don't get
funded.

~~~
DanAndersen
Has anyone written "rationalist fiction" about a zombie setting? Something
like what _Worm_ [0] was for superheroes. Something that isn't just a genre-
savvy parody of the flaws of characters in zombie films, but a serious
exploration of a band of survivors working to build a community/society to
survive and thrive against the zombies. It's probably hard to make it
entertaining if one is in the mindset of mainstream tropes, but there's
probably a way to make it work.

[0] [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/](https://parahumans.wordpress.com/)

~~~
walshemj
The Day of the Triffids sort of counts here I think

~~~
lobster_johnson
It's a very smartly written novel that holds up very well. It's also unusually
grim for the era.

Steven Soderbergh's Contagion also comes to mind as an example of a realistic,
scientifically accurate depiction of an epidemic.

Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain, while not being about zombies, is a
very science/fact-based exploration of a hypothetical outbreak. A much less
scary scenario, though; the pathogen only affects a single, isolated town
which is quickly secured, and all of the action occurs in the experimental
underground science lab where they study it. The 1971 film is also fantastic,
and holds up really well.

~~~
perplex
Funny enough, the Contagion movie was funded by Jeffrey Skoll a billionaire
philanthropist. The purpose was too educate the public on the reality of a
pandemic and importance of health organizations.

There are other movies too, all designed to compel social change.

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-giving-pledge-a-new-club-
fo...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-giving-pledge-a-new-club-for-
billionaires/)

