My historical research hack: prioritizing weather data from ship logs over political chronicles to understand trade collapses, though many colleagues disagree.

3 comments

3 Comments

Totally valid to follow the data, even if it's unconventional. But can weather alone explain human decisions behind a collapse?

verac398d ago

Seriously, weather can absolutely drive human decisions to the point of collapse. Look at historical cases like the Maya or the Anasazi, where prolonged drought dictated agricultural failure and societal breakdown. seanadams, framing it as 'human decisions' ignores that survival instincts kick in when resources vanish. People don't choose to collapse, they react to environmental pressures that leave no good options. The data on climate shifts correlates tightly with these events, showing causation beyond mere coincidence. Reducing it to abstract human agency overlooks the brute force of nature on civilization.

oliviabennett3d ago

Weather sets the stage, humans write the tragedy.