Civilization #44: The Spanish Conquest of the New World

We are doing the European conquest of the New World, meaning North and South America. These people who start to conquer the New World are called the conquistadors, which is Spanish for conquerors. These are mercenaries. They're bandits. They're lower-class people who have to leave Spain and Portugal and look for new opportunities in South and Central America.

Trade and Exploration

Some basic history. Remember that when we discussed this Islamic Golden Age, the Islamic Empire sort of connects the world in globalized trade. The networks run all the way from Central Asia over to China, into Europe, and even into parts of Africa. There's the maritime Silk Road that they create because they want the porcelain from China. They also have an overland Silk Road. At this point in history, Spain, which is called Al-Andalus, it's part of the Islamic world, and it is integrated heavily into the Islamic world. It's become very wealthy, very cosmopolitan.

This globalized trade becomes much more concentrated, becomes much more rapid during the Mongolian conquest. Because of the Mongolian Empire, the Pax Mongolica, a lot of knowledge, a lot of trade is being transferred from the East to the West, including paper, which was first invented in China, but also gunpowder. The gunpowder revolution marks a radical change in how the world works.

Historically, we have considered the Vikings to be the first to explore the New World. Remember that when we discussed the Vikings, they made it all the way to present-day Newfoundland and founded a colony called Vinland. But the colony didn't last very long, and that was the first encounter between the Europeans and the native people of North America.

The thing that you learn in this class that's very important to understand is the world has always been interconnected in some capacity. It's always been globalized. We can assume that even before the Vikings, there were some encounters between the Old World and the New World. It could have been the Egyptians. It could have been the Harappans of the Indus Valley civilization. It could also have been the Chinese. Just because we don't have written records or archaeological evidence does not mean that there was no contact. We have to assume that there was some limited contact between these worlds.

But it's only in the 16th century when the Old World and the New World begin to collide with each other violently. The reason why is that Spain was eventually reconquered by the Europeans, and it became Christian. Because of that, Spain lost its trade routes in the Islamic world. Also, at this particular time in history, the Ottoman Empire is rising in power. What's really important is that in 1453 they conquer Constantinople, which was the seat of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Now, for the Europeans to trade with India, China, and the rest of East Asia, they have to pay a heavy tax to the Ottomans and the Italians as well. They don't want to do that. Their response is to discover their own routes to East Asia, to China, to the East Indies. They hire a lot of these very experienced Italian seamen. Christopher Columbus is from Genoa. He is Italian, and he was hired to go discover a route to China. He ended up discovering North America, basically. All the major powers, France, England, Portugal, Spain, they are engaging in maritime exploration.

Starting in the 16th century, what happens is that the Spanish will start to conquer Central America and South America. They do so in less than 30 years. It's a very quick conquest. You can see that during the 16th century, there's a lot of exploration going on. There's a lot of contact being made.

The Portuguese are really the first to establish the maritime empire. The question then is, why is it that the Portuguese end up establishing colonies in Africa, in India, in China, throughout the East Indies? The reason why is that the fear was that Portugal and Spain would come into conflict with each other. The pope divided the world into two. The Portuguese got this part of the world, and the Spanish got the New World, basically. The Spanish obviously got the better end of this deal, but that was the arrangement.

The Spanish got all of present-day Mexico, Central America, and most of South America. There's a lot of gold, a lot of silver within these regions. As a result, Spain became very wealthy. Eventually, the British and the French will get involved as well. But because South America and Central America were already taken by the Spanish and the Portuguese, they ended up in North America, which was cold and poor and inhabited by lots of very aggressive and violent natives. It turned out that in the long run, this would prove to be more beneficial for the British. In the long run. But currently, the Spanish have accumulated all the wealth in the New World.

Food and Disease

The main thing I want you to remember is that because the Old World and the New World collided, this marked a revolution in European agriculture, because now the Europeans could import these extremely nutritious and easy-to-produce vegetables back into Europe.

Corn was invented by the native people of Central America. Corn is not naturally produced. You have to scientifically invent it by crossbreeding different crops. It's a very long process, and corn allowed for the Mayan civilization to flourish. Corn is an extremely important nutrient that's easy to produce, cheap, and very nutritious. So is the potato. The potato over time will become the staple food of Europeans. So are peanuts. So is squash. So is the tomato.

All these foods that we take for granted were actually first domesticated in the Old World, which were then transported to the New World. Because of these very nutritious foods, and they're far more nutritious than wheat, you have a population explosion in Europe. This is very important. I want you guys to remember this. The potato, the corn led to a population explosion in Europe. What did the natives get? They got a lot of diseases. They got a lot of measles and smallpox.

How Did the Conquest Happen?

The question we're looking at is, how did a few thousand conquistadors, Spanish mercenaries, basically, how were they able to conquer millions and millions of indigenous people in South America? There were three main civilizations in South America at this time, the Aztecs, the Mayans, and the Incas. The Spanish were able to conquer all three major civilizations in less than 30 years. How were they able to do so? That's the question we're looking at.

Now, the standard explanation is threefold. When you talk to scholars, there are three explanations for how this happened. It was a perfect storm of three factors.

1. The first is the native people were not in contact with the Europeans. The Europeans brought with them these diseases that the native people had no immunity against. The four major ones are smallpox, measles, typhus, and cholera. This wiped out about 80% of the population in North and South America. It was basically a genocide. 80% is a lot of people. We're talking about millions and millions of people.
2. Second major factor is that there were these internal conflicts, tribal warfare among the native people, and the Europeans, the Spanish, exploited this. They basically used a divide and conquer strategy against the natives. You first unite with a tribe that hated the Aztecs. You conquer the Aztecs together, and then you enslave the tribes. That's a divide and conquer strategy.
3. The third factor is the Europeans had superior weapons and technology. They had armor. They had cannons. They had horses. The natives didn't have access to any of this technology.

That's the threefold explanation.

But if you asked the Spanish at that time, how did you do it? How were you able to, with a few thousand soldiers, conquer this vast territory? The Spanish would just say because, one, God willed it. Our God made us conquerors. It was a divine mission from God. The second is we were so powerful that the natives bowed before us. They saw us as gods. That was the standard explanation of the Spanish at that time. Because this is clearly a very racist attitude, "We're superior. We are white. We're here to civilize you," scholars have rejected this explanation.

But what I want to show you today, and I know this is going to be controversial, so please feel free to debate or ask questions or point out inconsistencies in my argument. I want to argue today that the original Spanish argument actually has much more evidence. It makes much more logical and coherent sense than the current scholarly interpretation.

This is my thesis. This is my argument. The religious beliefs and practices of the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans made them vulnerable to Spanish conquest. The ultimate weakness of these people was their religion. You're not allowed to say this today in university because it's not really correct. But I want you to make that argument because I think this is what makes the most academic, logical, and coherent sense. That's my thesis to you.

A quick picture to contrast the collision of civilizations. The Aztec people, they're ferocious warriors. They love war, but they have wooden spears, and they have no armor. Whereas the Europeans, they have swords. They have shields. They have armor. This is a clash of civilizations.

The Mayan Civilization

Let's go back to the beginning of time. One thing that we talked about before is how civilizations arise because of three factors. Geography is the main factor. You want to be in a temperate climate. You need rivers in order to have civilizations. You need natural boundaries like mountains in order to protect yourself from invaders. That's why the five earliest civilizations are all in this latitude right here. They are China, the Indus Valley civilization, the Harappans, Mesopotamia, which is here, Egypt, which is here, and the Mayan civilization.

What's amazing is that when you start to analyze all five civilizations, you will discover there's actually a lot of similarities, a lot of common characteristics among these five civilizations. This part of the world right here, the Tropic of Cancer. This is where all five civilizations first developed, around this area.

The Mayan civilization was an astounding civilization. They had millions and millions of people. They spread all across Central America. They had science. They had astronomy. They had mathematics. They had a written language. They built pyramids. These are all these temples to worship their gods. They had something called the Mayan calendar, and it's an astonishing achievement because back then they used 365 days. The Egyptians were actually the first to use a solar calendar. The Mayans independently also created their own calendar. If you actually study the calendar, it's actually a very sophisticated, very nuanced, extremely scientific instrument that they use for agriculture.

The most astonishing achievement of the Mayans was agriculture. This is no different from science. They were the first to invent corn. Again, what's really important for us to remember is that corn is not produced naturally. Nature did not produce corn. The Mayans invented corn. This was important because it allowed them to feed a large population with very limited agriculture. But not only that, they figured out the most efficient way to use farmland. This is called the Three Sisters planting.

What they would do is this. They would grow corn, beans, and squash together in a symbiotic relationship so that they're all helping each other nourish themselves and grow.

• The corn will provide the structure in order for the beans to climb in order to reach sunlight.
• The beans will fertilize the corn and squash by releasing nitrogen into the soil.
• The squash will basically prevent weeds and insects from invading this ecosystem.

It's a perfect symbiotic relationship that we still use today. Because of this sudden breakthrough, the Mayans were able to build a civilization of millions and millions of people. It's just an incredible achievement.

The Decline of Civilizations

As we discussed in this class, all civilizations rise and fall. That's just a natural cycle. There's nothing you can do to prevent them from declining over time. Same process with the Mayans, where over time, because of their breakthroughs in agriculture, they reached a peak in about the year 780 AD in their population. But after they reached a peak, this is really important, there's a huge decline.

Scientists have looked at the reasons for this decline, and what they discovered is ecological collapse. You have this huge increase in population, and this leads to deforestation and soil erosion. Basically, they're not able to grow farmland anymore, and that's why their civilization has collapsed. But the question then is, is this correlation, or is this causation? Scholars will tell you this is causation. It's because they had an overpopulation, so they were using too much of the land, and so it led to deforestation and soil erosion. That's causation.

But some other scholars argue it is correlation. The reason why is that Mayans are really famous for their ecological management. They're masters at being able to manage their environment. This could be a correlation and not causation. Then what's the causation? If we look at all civilizations, there are three factors that lead to the decline. If a civilization is prosperous, stable, and peaceful, guess what? Three things always happen.

1. The first is the idea of elite overproduction. The Peter Turchin argument, which is that over time you have too many nobles. You have too many elites who compete for status together. That's the first problem.
2. Second problem is the idea of Rat Utopia, where old people live too long, and as such, young people are not able to inherit status. This leads to a malfunctioning of society, because young people feel they have no opportunities. Same thing that's happening in the world today, where in America there's something called quiet quitting. In China, there's something called lying flat.
3. The third is the idea of financialization, debt slavery. The idea here is that if you're a very prosperous society, it's very hard to get people to work, because they don't really want material goods. All they want to do is have enough food to feed their family, and they're good. That's why if you pay them more, they actually work less. The only way you get them to work more is if you get them into debt. You enslave them. That's what every civilization has done since the dawn of time. Debt slavery in order to get people to work harder. This idea of financialization.

All three things are correlated. They are symbiotic. They work together, and they all spell the end of civilization. This is true for Rome. This is true for the Mayans. This has been true also for China throughout its history.

As the Mayan civilization collapsed, people diffused all over Central and South America, and they brought with them the Mayan culture, because the Mayan culture was the dominant culture of that time. It's like China in Southeast Asia. China is this huge sun that shines light on all other countries, including Japan and South Korea. What will happen over time is that different tribes will fight to inherit the Mayan legacy. They will compete against each other in order to become the major empire. The nation that eventually wins out in Central America is called the Aztecs.

The Aztecs

The Aztecs are really interesting people. They're very similar to the Romans. If you think Aztec, think Romans as well. The main similarity is that both the Aztecs and the Romans are societies based on war. They love war. All they want to do is fight war.

The Aztecs are originally from the southern United States. Southern United States. Because of climate change, they have to migrate to Central America for food. The problem is that Central America was already overpopulated, and they start to hire themselves out as mercenaries to the other tribes. Then eventually they came into conflict with the other tribes, and they became isolated in a place called Tenochtitlan. This is basically swampland. It's very hard to grow food in Tenochtitlan.

Today, Tenochtitlan is called what city? Do you guys know? Tenochtitlan is called what city today? Can you guess? Mexico City. Mexico City, if you have a chance to visit there, it is actually on the site of Tenochtitlan, which is a city that the Aztecs founded. Remember, back then it was all basically swampland. Something miraculous happened. The Aztecs adapted themselves to the swampland, and they began to focus on agriculture. This agriculture was very innovative. They turned basically swampland into farmland, and it allowed for the population to increase and prosper. Swampland is bad because you can't really grow crops, but swampland is good because it's pretty defensible. They were able to very quickly expand their population.

What did they do? They started to conquer other territories because this is a war society. It is a heavily militarized society focused on war. The religion is to defeat enemies and then sacrifice these enemies to their god, who maintains his vitality through blood sacrifice. The Aztecs were known for the most grotesque forms of human sacrifice. They would sacrifice thousands of people at once. They would also sacrifice you while you were alive. They would shut you up and then cut out your heart while you were alive. Obviously, the entire point was terror. To terrorize your enemies and to unite your people.

What's really important for us to remember is that all war societies, including the Romans, the Vikings, and the Aztecs, practice a form of human sacrifice. Remember this. It's very important. The Vikings, we discussed how they practice human sacrifice. The Romans also practice human sacrifice. This is something that they sort of hid in their history. The way they practice their human sacrifice is at the end of every major military campaign, they would have a parade called a triumph. They would parade their war captives across the city of Rome, and then these war captives were taken to the Temple of Jupiter, where the parade would end, and then they would be strangled to death in front of Jupiter. That's human sacrifice. That's like having human sacrifice. There's another word for it.

But the Romans said, "No, no, no, we don't do this. We don't do human sacrifice because we're much more civilized than other people." They never explain why the strangulation is not human sacrifice.

Over time, because the Aztecs were such a violent, aggressive people, they, like the Romans, were able to take over the entire territory of Central America. They did so with allies. They were the main partners. They're part of something called the Triple Alliance. Three tribes that united together in order to conquer the surrounding enemies. They were the main partner.

The Aztec civilization was, like the Romans, extremely advanced. They had a hierarchy. They had priests. They had universal schooling. Every child was allowed to go to school and learn to read and write. They had a system of courts and judges, and they had a very strict legal code. They had a very vibrant economy. This was a very vibrant civilization, and as such, their city, Tenochtitlan, grew very, very large. When the Spanish first came to the city, they were amazed by the extreme wealth and size and prosperity of this city. It made them salivate. This is another shot of Tenochtitlan.

Cortés and Moctezuma

Eventually, the Aztecs were conquered by one man with maybe a few hundred soldiers. His name is Hernán Cortés, and he's an adventurer. He did not have permission from Spain to go and conquer the Aztecs. He just did so because he wanted to. He was a soldier of fortune.

When he first arrived with the Aztecs, the Aztecs actually treated him very, very well. He was a novelty. He had weapons, but there were only a few hundred of them, whereas the Aztecs had millions and millions of soldiers. Their king at this time, Moctezuma, welcomed him with open arms. Moctezuma probably wanted to co-opt him. Moctezuma saw Cortés as an opportunity to use against his enemies and his internal enemies as well. Cortés just wanted gold. That's all he cared about, gold. Wherever he could find gold, he'd be happy to go.

But there was a misunderstanding because these were two very different civilizations. During a religious ceremony, when the Aztecs were gearing up, Cortés's men saw this as a threat, and they started to massacre these soldiers, and one thing led to another. We don't know what happened, because the Aztecs were obviously destroyed by the Spanish. The Christian missionaries would come and destroy all written records of the Aztecs, and all we have are these stories that probably aren't true. But what probably happened is that the Spanish captured Moctezuma and held him as a captive. They wanted a ransom. They couldn't get the ransom, so they killed him. Then very shortly, they were expelled from the city, but then the disease of smallpox hit the population, and they all fell sick. That gave time for the Spanish to recuperate and then eventually conquer the city with allies.

The Incas

Now let's go to the Incas. The Incas also had a huge empire throughout South America. These mountains are called the Andes. Modern-day Peru. They are in the highlands, and they also had very advanced civilizations.

One thing that made the Incas different from the Aztecs is they practiced a form of ancestor worship. A pretty extreme form of ancestor worship. The idea is the emperor is divine. If you're divine, it means you're immortal. Even though the emperor dies, he's then mummified. He's mummified, and so he's still alive. If he's still alive, that means he keeps all his lands and wealth. It doesn't go somewhere else. Then now the new emperor comes into power, and now he has to conquer new lands in order to establish his divinity. The Incas are endlessly, eternally expansionist. They have no choice in the matter.

If you think about it, this is actually a good strategy to reduce internal conflict, because this reduces the problem of elite overproduction. The old emperor's family and loyal soldiers keep their land, and now the new emperor has to go conquer new territory. This resolves the issue of elite overproduction, but it also makes your society extremely unstable because it's too spread out and has too many enemies.

The way that the Incas conquered other people is when they conquer other people, their gods are incorporated into a pantheon of gods. Like the Romans, the Incas are extremely tolerant people. You can worship any god you want as long as you acknowledge the supremacy of my god. The pantheon of gods. Within the Inca Empire, everyone was allowed to practice their own religion as long as they submit themselves and pay tribute.

The Incas also had a very advanced bureaucratic system. They had a census. They collected tribute. They collected taxes. They had a legal code. They had a court system. What's interesting about them is they didn't have a writing system, but they had beads. With beads, with numerals, you can create basically a knowledge system. This is basically like a very primitive computer or calculator. What's left of the Incas is Machu Picchu. If you ever have a chance to visit there, it's beautiful. It's a hike. I want to visit one day with my kids.

Pizarro and Atahualpa

The Incas were conquered by another conquistador named Francisco Pizarro. The emperor he defeated was Atahualpa. Sorry, I'm not going to pronounce his name properly. What happened was that Atahualpa had just fought a civil war, and now he's the divine emperor. The legend is that Pizarro fought a battle with Atahualpa. Atahualpa had 40,000 soldiers. Pizarro had 200 soldiers, and Pizarro won and captured Atahualpa as a hostage. This story is probably not true.

What probably happened was that the emperor greeted the Spanish with open arms and said, "Let's negotiate," and the Spanish basically captured him. Remember, in this society the emperor is divine. He's untouchable. It is beyond his imagination that the Spanish would capture him. Then what happened is that Pizarro said to the emperor, "We'll let you go if you can fill this room with gold." Guess what happens? The emperor issues a command, and a few days later, the entire room is filled with gold. This place is pretty wealthy. Then what do the Spanish do? What do you think? They kill him. They kill him, and then they conquer the entire territory. That's why you should not pay ransoms to pirates.

I think Pizarro himself was sort of astonished that there was so much gold, and the Incas could just fill a room like that. "If I can just ask for gold, and they'll give it to me, then why don't I just take this entire territory?" That's what he did.

The Popol Vuh

Another question is, how did this happen? How was it possible that the Aztecs and Incas were defeated by just a few hundred conquistadors very quickly, in a few decades? What I want to show you now is the religious practice and belief system of the Mayans, which then influenced the Aztecs and the Incas.

In these societies, religion is spread through oral tradition from priests to people. But fortunately, in about the year 1700, there was a Dominican priest who made it his mission to write down this oral tradition. This book we call the Popol Vuh. It's translated into The Book of the Community. It's just a literary form of the oral religious tradition of the Mayan people. We're going to look at a few passages to figure out their underlying belief system and how it governed their society.

The Heroic Twins

This is a story of the Heroic Twins. The Mayans worship the Heroic Twins as the saviors of humanity. What happened is the twins themselves had twin fathers who were captured and killed by demons in the underworld. This is very similar to the Egyptian myth of Osiris, who was killed by his brother Set and then sent into the underworld.

The brothers want vengeance against these demons. What they do is they become friends with the demons, and then they make themselves immortal. When they die, they come back to life. Then they play a trick on these demons. They go to the demons and say, "Hey, look at us. We can play this game where we kill ourselves. We cut our heart, and we come back alive." The demons are like, "Yeah, we want to play this game as well," and they all end up killing themselves.

"Sacrifice in the same way," said One Death and Seven Death to Hunahpu and Xbalanque.

These are the Heroic Twins. These are the Heroic Twins.

"Very well then. Surely you will be revived. Are you not death? For we are here to gladden you, O lords, along with your vassals and your servants," they said therefore to the lords.

They're playing a trick on these demons.

The first we sacrificed was the very head of all the lords, One Death by name, the lord of Xibalba. Next they grabbed Seven Death, but they didn't revive them. Thus the Xibalbans took to their heels when they saw that the lords had died.

They killed all the lords, and then they killed all the demons.

Their hearts were now taken from their chests.

"Their hearts were now taken from their chests." It's very important because this is how the Aztecs practice their sacrifice. They're trying to, with their rituals, they're trying to express or bring to life this mythology, which is what the Vikings did as well.

Both of them had been torn open as punishment for what they had done. Straight away the one lord was executed and not revived. The other lord had begged humbly weeping before the dancers. He would not accept it for he had become disorientated. "Take pity on me."

This is how the Heroic Twins conquer and destroy all the demons. The Aztecs will take this story. They'll turn it into the basis of their religious ritual.

The Creation of Humanity

This is a story of the creation of the first man. What's interesting is that the Mayans believe that the gods made different attempts to create humanity. The first attempt is by making them out of mud, and they fall apart. That's a disaster. Then they try to make man out of wood. That doesn't work either. Then they try corn, maize, and that works. That's why the Mayans consider themselves the children of the corn. They worship corn as something that's divine. The gods create man, and let's read the story together.

Then the Framer and the Shaper asked him, "What is the nature of your existence? Do you know it? Do you not look and listen? Are not your speech and your walk good? Behold now therefore and see that which is beneath the sky. Are not the mountains clear? Do you not see the valleys? Try then," they were told.

The gods created men, and they want men to be thankful. Why? Because the gods created men in order to serve them. Basically, the gods created humanity to be their slaves.

Thus their vision of everything beneath the sky was completed and they gave thanks to the Framer and the Shaper.

This is what man says to the gods.

"Truly we thank you doubly, triply that we were created, that we were given our mouths and our faces. We are able to speak and to listen. We are able to ponder and to move about. We know much, for we have learned that which is far and near. We have seen the great and the small, all that exists in the sky and on the earth. We thank you, therefore, that we were created, that we were given frame and shape. We became because of you, our grandmother, and you, our grandfather," they said when they gave thanks for the frame and shape.

We humans are paying our thanks to the gods. We're showing our gratitude.

Their knowledge of everything that they saw was complete: the four corners and the four sides, that which is within the sky and that which is within the earth.

We now have knowledge and wisdom because of the gods. Now, this is really important:

But this did not sound good to the Framer and the Shaper. "It is not good what they have said, they that we have framed and shaped," they said. "We have learned everything, great and small."

The gods don't want our gratitude. They want our subservience. They want our obedience. This becomes the basis of these religions where we have to believe that the gods created us in order to serve them. We are slaves to the gods. Again, this is very similar to the Enuma, the Babylonian creation myth, where the god Marduk creates humans so that gods wouldn't have to work anymore. It's also very similar to the Catholic Church, which believes that we are slaves to God because God freed us from the devil.

Tohil and Obedience

This is the god Tohil, which is the Mayan fire god. What they believe is that Tohil demands that we sacrifice our enemies to him so that the blood will rejuvenate him. He's a god of fire and of sacrifice, and he's always hungry. The Mayans believe they always have to go to war to capture slaves to be sacrificed to their god.

There's a lot of mythology around this god. This god has always demanded human sacrifice. The humans decide to rebel against him. They tried many tricks to rebel against him. They all fail because he's smarter than us. Eventually, the humans decide to get together and to fight him, but they all get killed.

Thus only a portion of them were able to return.

Those who rebelled, only a few were left alive.

Only a few people from the nations were able to escape from Tohil. At first they tried to flee. When they were caught, they were finished off. They were killed. It was not just a few of the people who died. And of those that did not die, the insects came upon them and tormented their hearts. They were no longer able to wage war.

The gods had destroyed their capacity to ever challenge them, to ever rebel.

They did not take up their arrows or their shields again. Thus, all the nations were humiliated and begged humbly before the faces of Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Acab, and Mahucutah. "Pity, do not kill us," they said. "Very well then. Certainly, you shall become obedient. You shall be servants as long as there are sun and light," they were told.

We can never, ever challenge the gods because when we tried, we were all killed. The gods showed mercy to us. From now on, we must obey the gods. But now it's, how do you obey the gods? What do the gods require of us? That's the question now. We obey the gods through their priests who understand them.

There were enchanted people, priests and enchanted lords. They knew if there would be war.

Why? Because the gods told them. They could see the future. They talked with the gods.

It was clear before their faces. They saw if there would be death, if there would be hunger. They surely knew if there would be strife. There's an instrument of sight. There was a book. Popol Vuh was their name for it.

Everything that's written down here, it's sacred because it was written down by those who speak directly with the gods. All these words are the direct words from the gods themselves.

But it was not only because of this that they were lords. They were great in their essence. Great as well were their fasts. In order to venerate their temples and venerate their sovereignty, they fasted for long periods of time and sacrificed before the faces of their gods.

Not only do the gods favor them, but they themselves made many sacrifices in order to win the favor of the gods. They are worthy. Therefore, we must submit ourselves before them. That's how we worship the gods.

Think about this. The logic is very clear. The Mayans created a civilization that's extremely religious and hierarchical. Everyone, millions of people, must worship their priest-king because the priest-king is a direct representative of God. But when you do that, you create the condition for the Spanish to come, kill that priest-king, and become the new priest-king. That's what happened. The Mayans created this religion in order to enslave everyone around them, and that provided the perfect opportunity for the Spanish to come and take over that role. In history class, you may have learned that the Spanish were extremely cruel to the natives. Not more so than the previous overlords.

Game Theory and Taboo

What I'm going to do now is, having explained the history, I'm going to provide the theory. I'm going to explain the theory of all this. Let me explain the theory. What we talked about in this class previously is the idea of game theory. Game theory. The idea of game theory is that all human interaction is playing a game. We may forget we're playing a game, but we're still playing a game. If you want to understand how people behave, you first have to figure out how the game works. What are the rules of the game?

The Sumerians were one of the earliest civilizations because they were based on the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia. What happened was that they developed different city-states along the rivers, the Euphrates and Tigris. All these city-states had their own city god. They all had these different city gods. Over time, these cities came into conflict with each other because of trade issues, and also because of land issues. They started to fight. At this point, this becomes a competition. It becomes a game. Whenever there's a game, there have to be rules that underpin this game. The first rule of this game was we do not attack each other's cities. Why? Because the city is a physical manifestation of God on Earth. You can kill the enemy's army on the field, but you don't attack the city. Also, there are city walls to protect the city.

What would happen over time is this game establishes an equilibrium where they fight all the time, but no one can actually conquer the other cities because these cities are protected by the gods. This reaches an equilibrium, and this is a form of peace and stability. There are these elaborate rules governing warfare among the people of Sumer.

But then you had one king named Lugalzagesi who was like, "Screw this. I'm going to come, and I'm going to kill your god." He comes. He sacks the city. He basically steals from the temple. The temple is where all the gold, all the valuables are. He sacks the temple, and even his soldiers are afraid that the gods will come and smite him. They're afraid, but nothing happens to him. He does it again and again and again, and he becomes over time more and more powerful. He's breaking the rules of the game. He hacked the game. This is called a hack, or he cheated, whatever. But he figured out what the ultimate taboo is. The ultimate taboo. He broke it. You break it, you become God yourself.

The idea of taboo is what humans must not break. What humans must not violate. Only gods are allowed to break this taboo. Only gods are allowed to kill each other. We humans must not try to kill each other's gods by ransacking their temple. Now, once this rule is broken, what happens is you allow a society called the Akkadians to come in and conquer everyone because they are the most warlike.

How is it possible for a different people who are much fewer and much poorer to come and conquer an entire empire? We discussed this, the Mongols. When you are severely limited in your resources, you have to use psychological warfare. The three forms are:

1. Escalation dominance. Escalation dominance just means that you will do more than anyone else in order to win the war. That's what escalation dominance means.
2. Second is the idea of terror. The Mongols were going around and killing people randomly in order to instill terror among the population.
3. The third is the idea of an aura of inevitability and invincibility. You want people to think you are the demon or the gods themselves, and that's how you get people to obey you.

The Mongols perfected the strategy. But the Akkadians also used the strategy. Sargon of Akkad. What he did was he perfected siege warfare to break down the walls. Before, it was thought impossible that you could break down these city walls, but he did so. This created escalation dominance, terror, and an aura of inevitability and invincibility.

This is often what happens. When societies are playing a game against each other, when they're in competition, they establish an equilibrium. The equilibrium is held together by an ultimate taboo. But then someone comes along and breaks this ultimate taboo, which then opens up the game. Whoever now is able to master psychological warfare, escalation dominance, terror, and an aura of inevitability will win this game.

Applying the Theory to the Conquest

Now that we understand the basic theory, let's apply it to the Aztecs. The Aztecs had escalation dominance. They had terror, because of human sacrifice, and they had the aura of inevitability and invincibility. This is how they're able to control millions of people even though they themselves had a very limited population. They employ the same strategies as the Mongols. The Incas also used these three strategies. You can just say that it is really about God. The Aztecs proved that their god was superior to every other god.

The problem now is you have the Spanish who come in, and they don't know how the game is played. They reject all the rules of the game. They reject the idea that God cannot be killed. They kill God. They killed Moctezuma, who is god of the Aztecs, and they killed the Inca emperor as well. When you do that, when you break the taboo, you leave people completely helpless.

Let me use an analogy so that this makes sense to you. In today's world, there is an ultimate taboo among societies. China and the United States can engage in economic warfare. Russia and Ukraine can engage in military warfare. These are not taboos. The ultimate taboo is no one is allowed to use nuclear weapons. No one is allowed to use nuclear weapons, because if anyone used nuclear weapons, the world would end tomorrow.

If you think about it, there were actually a couple of instances where we were very close to nuclear war. During something called the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was very close. But there was a chain of command. Maybe one guy would issue the command to launch nuclear weapons. But then you have ten other people who have to say yes, and there would always be one guy who's like, "I don't want to be the guy who ends the world."

I know there's talk about possibly Russia or the United States using nuclear weapons. It's not going to happen because it's the ultimate taboo. If anyone uses nuclear weapons, the world ends. It's like killing God. No one would do it. But let's imagine ten aliens. Ten aliens, just ten of them, and there's like eight billion of us. They come to Earth on their spaceship far away. They're out on the moon. They are not inhibited by this taboo of using nuclear weapons. All they do is use one nuclear weapon against us, and then what would happen? We would all surrender.

Same thing happened with the Aztecs and Incas. Because the Spanish were able to kill their god, everyone is like, "What do we do now? What do we do now? We exist to serve God. God is invincible. But the Spanish killed him." Which means what? Which means now the Spanish are gods.

This is what happened. It's game theory. If you're able to figure out the ultimate taboo, and you're able to use it against the local people, then you win. You don't need that many people. You don't need that many soldiers. You don't need that many weapons or that much technology. You can just use the ultimate taboo against them.

Again, the thing that you learn in this class which is very important is the worldview, which is basically religion, is the basis of who we are. It is our operating system. Your computer cannot run without an operating system. We cannot run without a worldview and a religion. If you destroy the worldview, it's like cutting off someone's brain. You turn this person into a zombie and a slave.

The implication of this is whenever a society has an extremely strict hierarchy where the majority are forced to worship a minority, it makes that society extremely vulnerable to invasion and conquest. It doesn't matter how many people you have. It doesn't matter how many weapons you have. As long as you have a strict hierarchy, it becomes the ultimate weakness of a society. You become vulnerable to an outside invasion.

The Gunpowder Revolution

This will mark a radical change in how society is structured.