Why are civilised men so much more weak than barbarians?

Conan was pretty chill for a barbarian.
Also personal strength doesn't mean shit when your tribe is outperformed by a better trained and better equipped civilized army.

I thought it was because the civilized man has replaced repetitive manual labor with various devices and mexicans so he can survive easier and live better, therefore his muscle mass doesn't increase as much and the need to hunt goes away.

Continuing, of course ambush warfare did happen a lot, but it was more to show who was the sneakiest and the best at staying silent in the forest than it was to try and kill the enemy using an ambush. if the guys didn't realise they were going to get ambush then they didn't deserve to die honourably anyways

Civilised men aren't weaker. Howard was just the same kind of pussy that makes up the "alpha male" alt-right today. They're weird, socially inept ( most people he encountered rightly referred to him as a freak), can't connect with women ( only had one relationship in his life), but they hate normies so much that they build up a fantasy version of themselves and the world where they're innately superior.

"barbarians" are the just the ahistorical manifestation impotent nerd rage

Funny because Soldiers from Imperial Powers in Africa were historically much taller and stronger than colonials.

You see a similar trend with the Romans too.

If only those people could write as well as Howard.

Amusingly a civilized laborer or person that likes to work out would actually probably be stronger than the classic fictional pillaging barbarian nomad for no other reason than having a better and steady diet.

This, Arnold Schwarzenegger could never have gotten that big without the excess protein afforded by a civilized diet.

A real barbarian would probably be very wiry.

Because barbarians are the historically inept faggot's favorite Mary Sue

*razes your city*

>go back in time to 1189
>3rd crusade is kicking off
>am 6ft 4
>17st
>play a lot of rugby
>can deadlight 260kg

No fighting with weapons other than shotguns and some archery but I would be considered a god.

Because warrior culture can't compete with soldier culture.

The greeks made awkward, stupid warfare that was restricted to the wealthy, until the persians showed up and they suddenly started arming the rabble and relying on naval warfare instead of having a shoving match on a flat field within marching distance of their home cities.

The Habsburgs thought they were hot shit until they tried to roll over the early version of the swiss confederacies and then they had like two generations of what passed for knights back then hacked to bits by burly peasants with halberds.

The French held common soldiers in contempt until they got their shit pushed in by common englishmen who were in it to make money instead of looking fancy on a horse.

Warrior culture is about status and personal gain, soldier culture is about practical goals like defending your society or killing everyone who seems like he might become a problem.

Warriors posture, soldiers do what they need to, in the most practical way, and then the warriors scramble to keep up.

Warrior culture glorifies the "traditional way" of fighting because your status leans on a long history and culture of doing things a certain way. Warriors want everyone to do things their way and call everything else cheating or cowardice.

Soldiers just want to win by any means because they're worried about staying alive, not losing status.

I think in the Howard/Conan concept of strength, it had more to do with will/strength of character. Civilized people were "soft" even if they ended up being physically stronger.

Before the mongols came the chinese had beaten:

Xiongnu
Gokturks
Eastern Turks
Wester Turks
Shi people
Xienbei
Blue turks

All horse nomad empires. Mongols are just the excwption.

Better nutrition

Huns. Vikings. Also did pretty well.

Mostly because the Mongols learned. Explicitly, Ghenghis waged total unrestricted warfare and made sure to capture skilled engineers to show the Mongols how to build siege weapons

This. The mongols were surprisingly open-minded compared to most warrior cultures. They did whatever worked and were methodical.

It's like ritualistic warfare didn't solve the fucking problems ever.

That or he just had the engineers build the siege engines and skip the learning part.

Huns did well for 30 years vikings only started doing well after civilising (normans)

They also didn't much care what their conquered lands did as long as they sent tribute and acknowledged the Khan as their emperor. Otherwise governance resumed as it had before.

Don't forget killed himself when his mom died.

>in a 1 on 1 fight, a barbarian would always win against the romans, because that's how they fought.

It's worth noting that the Romans themselves acknowledged this and often prefered barbarians for their bodyguards because they had a reputation for being superior warriors. They were just inferior in logistics, strategy and other things that typically win wars.

It's not surprising that heroic fantasy, which tends to exalt the skill and power of the individual, finds the barbarian ideal more appealing than masses of effective but interchangable soldiers.

Shaka Zulu went apeshit when his mom's died too

You aren't going far enough. Prehistoric hunter-gatherers were, on average, as tall as modern man, while the average person in say Hellenistic Grece was like 5'4. Agricultural society didn't catch up until the last century or so.

>Prehistoric hunter-gatherers were, on average, as tall as modern man,
This doesnt sound right but I don't know (or care) enough to correct you

>Prehistoric hunter-gatherers were, on average, as tall as modern man.

Source?
Not that I don't believe you but I would be really interested to read about this.

Barbarians were not superior duelists, the Romans however were quite noted for being fine swordsmen and brave.

Best source I could find quickly
zo.utexas.edu/courses/thoc/Hunter-gatherers.html

>The average height of hunger-gatherers at the end of the ice ages was 5' 9" for men and 5' 5" for women. Following the adoption of agriculture, heights crashed, and by 3000 B. C. statures had reached a low of only 5' 3" for men and 5' for women.

>A detailed study of 800 American Indian skeletons from burial mounds in Illinois and Ohio river valleys illustrate health changes that occurred around A. D. 1150 when a hunter-gatherer culture gave way to intensive maize farming (Diamond, 1987). Compared to hunter-gatherers who preceded them, farmers had nearly twice as many enamel defects indicative of malnutrition, four times as much iron-deficiency anemia (evidenced by a bone condition), a threefold rise in bone lesions reflecting infectious disease, and an increase in spinal degenerative conditions, a reflection of hard physical labor. Life expectancy at birth decreased from 26 years to only 19 years.

>Agriculture was bad for health for several reasons. Hunter-gatherers enjoyed a more varied diet than early farmers, whose foods consisted of a few starchy crops. Farmers obtained cheap calories, but at the cost of poor nutrition. (Three carbohydrate rich plants -- wheat, rice, and corn -- provide the bulk of the calories consumed by humans today, yet each is deficient in certain essential amino acids or vitamins.) Due to their dependence on a limited number of different crops, farmers ran the risk of starvation if one crop failed. Because agriculture encouraged people to clump together in crowded societies, which then traded with other crowded societies, parasites and infectious diseases spread.

I know Pianka is respected, but this doesn't actually cite anything about the height thing.

>In 1827, Shaka’s mother, Nandi, died, and the Zulu leader lost his mind. In his grief, Shaka had hundreds of Zulus killed, and he outlawed the planting of crops and the use of milk for a year. All women found pregnant were murdered along with their husbands. He sent his army on an extensive military operation, and when they returned exhausted he immediately ordered them out again.
Damn. How come a lot of warrior kings are Momma's boys?

what is Daneland

Not him but it wouldn't surprise me, there is evidence that hunter-gatherers were more healthy than pre-industrial farmers, it's just that farming was better at supporting large numbers of people. This article talks about it a bit:

economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21725276-living-land

Average height and lifespan went down when we stopped being hunter-gatherers.

Agricultural food sources were superior in quantity, not quality. Fossil records from the end of the ice age in modern Greece and Turkey, as well as burial-mound excavations in the america all show that the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural ones led to a population boom, but with lower life expectancy at birth, and lower average height. at the tail end of the ice-age, average height in what is now Europe crashed by 5-6 inches for both men and women.
Evidence from the americas point towards more widespread disease, more spinal deformities and more malnutrition-related diseases.

The average life expectancy and more widespread disease was probably more because of crowding than because of nutrition though, but the average height and enamel/bone deficiencies were diet-related.

There are too many sources for this to just name one, but you can look at stuff like the work by George Amelagos or Iain Mathieson.

Alternatively, the societies that used ritual warfare didn't have the same problems. They weren't like the Romans. They didn't feel the want or need to completely destroy and subjugate everyone else. When they defeated their enemies' champion that was fine enough for them.

IIRC, didn't the Mexica practice ritual warfare but everyone was still champing at the bit to attack the Aztecs again because they were such douchebags?

The "ritual warfare" aspect is massively overstated in this thread. In literally every society mentioned that is claimed to have practiced it, the most common cause of death for men in their prime was still violence.

It's very easy to mistake "they didn't have to exterminate everyone because there was still plenty of room" for "oh they weren't really trying you guys, lol"

Get a better keyboard app.

>If you want to see how the Barbarians, fought each other, this is the closest you can get

Can't find any studies in concrete for the height. Sorry user.

>mfw this thread

>mfw this thread

Something that lasted less then a century

I noted "classic fictional pillaging barbarian nomad" for a reason. But if we are going all historical semantics then barbarians would probably be closer celts, mongols and/or viking raiders than prehistoric hunter-gatherers. Or if was are going real historical it would be every one who wasn't Greek back in the era of Classical Greece.

>Iron mail
>Barbarians

I doubt it.

The Celts invented chainmail soooooooooooooo

>"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

>celts
>barbarians

I doubt it

>Why are civilised men so much more weak than barbarians?
But thats, were you are wrong, dipshit.

And interestingly the mongols were much more soldier than warrior. They promoted based on merit had a dedicated army, and constantly innovated.

Conan was better than civilized men because he kept trying himself and barely surviving by the strenght of his body.
He was better than other barbarians too, because he kept trying himself and barely surviving by the strenght of his mind.

Post-Mortem, Conan is an exaltation of individualism, not barbarism.

Well shucks user the Celts were THE definition of barbarians to the Romans so I don't know what you want from me.

In the barbarian way, the weak are killed and the exceptional individual triumphs.

In the civlized way, the weak are raised up to stand beside the exceptional individual and the society triumphs.

In the """civilized way""", the weak are raised up to stand above exceptional individuals and parasitism triumphs.

Depends on the civilization.

that was:

1) ALL THE THINGS WENT WRONG AT ONCE and North AND South America went through 200 years of one ecological crisis after another

2) the Aztecs were fucking panicing and went hell for leather with human sacrifices

3) (this is the bit that made everything SOOO much worse) they dumped all the dead in the corn fields to invoke the gods' blessing on the harvests

4) all those bodies decomposed... restoring the depleted soil and boosting yeilds...

5) i think you can guess How the Aztecs took that..

6) in need for moar sacrifices, the Aztecs stepped up the whole raiding other peoples for war-booty prisoners to sacrifice

7) Yeilds continued to beat everyone elses...

8) tensions keep rising...

11) oh Hello Mr Cortes...

>individualism
Individualism is barbarism.

>Get acute gastritis at 15 because sugar and hot sauce addict
>Become a soyboy
>28yo only even pity fucked once, balding manlet, obese torso with skinny arms and legs. No goals or aspirations, nobody wants me as a friend, employee or anything.
>Decide I'm killing myself once my mom dies since she's the only one who cares or depends on me.
>Start eating nothing but cheese, chicken, tuna and beef because easy to cook. Drink nothing but matcha and water. Change absolutely nothing else about my routine.
>30yo, 15" biceps, my clothes don't fit because I nowi have shoulders, my hair is growing back, I'm not obese (still have a belly but no longer love handles or moobs), grew an inch and people actually look me in the face when I speak to them now.
>No gastritis or indigestion ever

Fuck agriculture mate.

>t. Pinko scum

THE NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION WAS A MISTAKE!

If anything that just speaks to the success of ritual sacrifice

The aztec used ritual warfare to gather sacrifices not for honor. When Cuitlahuac took his gloves off against Cortez his army killed 10K tlaxcalteca and every spaniard that didn't have a horse to run the fuck away with in a single night.

single mothers

Nah. Conan was stronger than anyone. There was a story where he out-strangled a massive strangler guy while making fun of him. Howard really liked to wank Conan.

>black guy
>absent father

>cheese, chicken, tuna, and beef
>fuck agriculture XDDD

When the only strong and meaningful paternal interaction you've had is with your Mother, whom you probably see and the sweetest and most beloved being in the universe, having that taken from you tends to rock your very foundation.

A father may teach his son how to be strong, but a mother is needed to teach them how to be human. Men who grow up without a strong maternal figure tend to be messed up, emotionally stunted, and hollow people, whereas those who don't have a strong paternal figure tend to not develop good self-worth or personal strength. Having a strong mother and father is most ideal for raising a well adjusted person.

Who needs predatory spirit and tribal honor when you have the musket and the cannon?

He probably means crop agriculture as apposed to animal ranching. In some places there is a significant difference between the two

Eh, I'll buy that.

It's called "animal husbandry" you fucking nog.

>Animal husbandry is the branch of agriculture concerned with animals that are raised for meat, fibre, milk, eggs, or other products.

Checks out, dude is a brainlet.

Husbandry is just the breeding and raising. Ranching includes that, plus pasture/rangeland management, marketing, land development, mixed land use, and all the other aspects that help get that cow well fed and shipped to the city to get slaughter, processed, and sold to city folks

Say that to my face fucker not online and see what happens

Half of those guys look inbred and they have stupid hats.

Probably all of them are inbred but heir hats look classy as hell.

guess what civilization destroys

Objection your honor! Those were both advanced enough civilizations. In fact, Cortes mostly won because he was able to unite the beleaguered barbarian tribes to help him conquer the douchebags they mutually hated

but the united barbaric brown people only won under the organization of the civilized white man, therefore civilization is superior

So, barbarians were larpers

>this

Permanent settlements were a mistake, nomad herding is where true chaddom is at

>go back in time to 1189
>3rd crusade is kicking off
>am 6ft 4
>17st
>play a lot of rugby
>can deadlight 260kg

>Can't understand a thing anybody is saying
>they can't understand you, people would believe you to be speaking in tongues
>you wouldn't know any social protocol and would likely piss off some manlet Lord which would lead to him taking your shit if you even manage to get any in the first place
>If you protest he would stab you or overwhelm you with his midget buddies.
>If you learn to speak and understand what they say and they you. They wll immediately think you a Villian, evil and unrighteous since your modern views will clash so horribly with theirs.
Also
>Get a cold
>village healer cracks open your skull, bleed to death
Better
>cough
>your super advanced flu that has evolved along side humanity kills all of Europe in a matter of months.

Why did they have armor only on their chest and head? Why didn't they use full knightly plate for absolute invincibility? It's not like the aztecs used firearms or heavy crossbows

>die of dysentery/smallpox/plague/lack of own farmland in a month tops
>act like tough shit
>local tough guy who is also 6ft 4 but can actually fight appears to kick your shit in

Armor is expensive, your chest and your head are where your most vital organs are.

This.

One of Genghis's greatest strengths was actually listening to the weedy little adviser his generals mocked when said adviser said "why don't we let them live and tax them?"

His other great strength was the brutality that he killed the ones who wouldn't surrender

>Why are civilised men so much more weak than barbarians?

Because if barbarians survive after living with their own set of barbarian rules, they must be stronger than human.

If many guys decide to live alone at bir tawill (only unclaimed area of earth not at ocean), the ones that survive will be stronger than us.
The important word is "the ones that survive"