Dr. Darren Staloff, William McNeill's "Plagues and Peoples" 

One of the best lectures I've listened to. Learnt a lot here. Thank you.

Thank you prof sugrue for giving us all these invualuable content! it's sincerely much appreciated!

I never seen History from this perspective

What 😮! Sunday just got better

Another brilliant lecture!

7:20 Dr. Staloff seems to be worringly speaking from personal experience.

Greetingz cuzinz and Earthlingz 🕺

Symbiotism toward parasitic relationships was expressed, it seems to me, throughout McNeill’s book in the idea that endemicity followed epidemic conditions, that, in fact, when this wasn’t the case, the epidemic causing agent could meet only expiration, i.e., survival was dependent on symbiosis. It’s almost a tautology to say to the effect that we arrive at a symbiosis, since there would be no one to talk about it if we didn’t. The question seems to me to be what the character of the necessity of symbiosis should mean to us, since any other action would be moot in the face of such an ancient, well proven result.

I thought the primary reason we define parasites as they are is because they don't kill their host completely but feed off of them. I always thought of this as an important distinction from predators who just kill their prey, parasites feed from the living organism without killing it immediately.

Holy mackerel! Now here's a creative, intriguing theory! Loved this one.

Would it be possible to organize a zoom panel discussion with both Dr. Staloff and Dr. Sugrue ? I would love to help organize this in anyway possible. I would love to hear them speak about their experiences recording these lecture and also discuss philosophy.

So well done!

Yes! A great upload to conclude the evening with. I know I have said this previously, thank you for everything you do, Dr.Sugrue. Counting the minutes on you surpassing 100k subs and then some.

Thanks for the upload. I have alot of these videos on my harddrive somewhere already, but sometimes its just easier to watch on RU-vid. Not sure which course this one was included with tho. I recently bought his book The Pursuit of Power, and have wanted to get his others as well. Big fan of these lectures, i watch them daily.

Ty !

ty

Now THIS one is cool. 😎 👍

Higher standards of living have already been leading to a dramatic drop in population for social reasons (and also thanks to birth control)

When we attempt to define everything with one word or one concept, are we testing or changing the widely accepted meaning of this word or are we gaining a new perspective about the things? In this example this word is 'parasite/plagues'; so by calling all biosphere and moreover the civilisations as plagues, are we questioning the meaning of parasite, or are simplifying all these complexities through stuffing them inside the concept of parasite as we know it? The answer can be found easily by asking a follow up question: Has this theory changed my perception about parasites or about the things? If I've started to develop a different perspective about the parasites, then the theory helped me to look at these particular life forms with a new approach. If I've started to see everything as parasites - without changing the established meaning of parasite in my mind - then the theory helped me to reduce complex systems/dynamics into some sort of 'brand' without providing a new perspective whatsoever since the concept of plague/parasite has not been questioned. Can I do both to improve my perspective in general? I don't know; has reductionism or totalitarianism ever helped to improve anything?

I have never heard that many unfounded speculations being put forward so fast.

Naturalism is cool

"you call it symbiogenesis and you get sanctioned, you call it parisitology and you get funding" Lynn Margulis This is an interesting presentation, but the understanding of life/biology is fundamentally backwards.

Reductionist interpretation of social phenomena. That's my take.

This lecture explains COVID, Hehehe..😄