The Deadliest Company In Human History | Answers With Joe

[@joescott]

Hi all! I'm seeing a lot of comments saying I should do the Forgotten Atrocities series, well that first episode is up on Nebula. You can find it here: nebula.app/videos/joescott-forgotten-atrocities-the-banda-nutmeg-massacre

[@TheresaHannahMunns]

Yay

[@likebot.]

You might well make the argument (@1:35) that the spice trade is the one thing that explains the world as it is, and it's arguably so, but around 500 years ago when the spice trade was revolutionized by circumnavigation the entire world economy became driven by the Americas cotton industry for a couple of hundred years. I think that's a contender in the ring and is my pick. _♪I got the horse right here..._

[@MercilessMe]

well you finally did it. a youtuber got me to sign up for something. edit- wait I have to sign up a subscription to both? CS just gives me access to Nebula? What ?

[@ukaszokapa6782]

Do it!

[@zahazuhury]

@@MercilessMe it does, but you will have to set a new password for nebula i think, just click forgot password on nebula and your account will already be there

[@giraffestreet]

As an Indonesian I'm glad more KZbinrs talk about this part of history. Dutch colonialism maybe not as widely known as other western colonialism, Spanish, Portuguese, British, American. Looking at the map it's amazing how tiny the Netherlands is yet controlling thousands of islands many many miles away for hundred of years. And how influential they're through out history but not many people are realizing it.

[@SievertSchreiber]

It’s good that this story is shared!

[@thorthorsen1259]

I always wondered how such a small country could be so powerful. Until I went to Google maps, zoomed in such that I exactly have the whole of Indonesia on my screen, and then scrolled back to Europe, and realized the Dutch controlled a territory as big as the whole of Western Europe (seriously, Indonesia is huge! West to East is basically the same distance as Amsterdam -> Moscow)

[@HuugTuub]

As a dutchman, i hate being reminded of the horrible atrocities.. With the golden age being as glorified as it is, most don't like thinking about the bad parts, and just think about the giant ships and the amazing wealth. How that wealth was gained and those ships were built though.. Is usually left forgotten.

[@yuranbarkey8068]

As a dutch person, couldn't agree more. To add, dutch schools don't teach enough about the bad side of it. Only that we got rich from it. (Also that's not true, rich people got rich, not the main population)

[@Rem_NL]

G E K O L O L O N I S E E R D

[@Hrodholf]

In Dutch we still have the expression of 'peperduur', which literally translates to 'expensive as pepper'. It's used for anything prohibitively expensive.

[@dariadarling]

Huh, I never connected that... Grappig :-D

[@SievertSchreiber]

Factually correct!

[@danielwalker3042]

kijk opa! een bruin reetje

[@bemysty]

German has "Pfeffersack", pepper sack, which denotes a man of extreme wealth. The word is a bit old-fashioned, but yeah, same idea.

[@thorthorsen1259]

What about 'Oost-Indisch doof' (East Indian deaf). It basically means you pretend to not hear a question being asked to you. Such a weird saying...

[@tiagol8200]

11:50 Portuguese guy here! During the times our sailors were trying to surpass this Cape, they would call it the *Cape of Storms* ("Cabo das Tormentas") because, like you said, the place was constantly under heavy storms. Only after many tries, when they actually managed to sail arround it, did they name it *Cabo da Boa Esperença* (literally "Cape of Good Hope"), because of the new hope it brought in our quest to get to India. Hope this explains the name!

[@amystair8308]

I would definitely watch a Forgotten Atrocities series! As much as I love your science-based videos, Joe, I think you have a very special touch with videos of a historical nature, and I'm always drawn to them.

[@radaro.9682]

Check out the "Behind the Bastards" podcast.

[@Horticarter41]

THIS! THIS! JUST SO MUCH THIS!

[@fluffybunny5518]

Yes. Please. Oh and... yes please.

[@JacobBax]

@@radaro.9682 Can you be more specific? about the behind the bastards podcast?

[@davidbalkevitch1990]

100% he should. science , crazy history he does good research, tells facts , theories but doesnt lead you on to believe false information of whats actual facts i watch every episode either way i wanna smoke a bowl with him

[@SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

The plant that produces saffron is something you can actually grow in a lot of places (ranging from Spain to Iran), the reason it's so pricy is because of the tiny window the actual saffron is ready/available to pick on top of the fact the process is SO labor-intensive. The harvesting has to be done manually. It takes 75,000 saffron flowers to make ONE POUND of it And Dias actually named it the Cabo das Tormentas (Cape of Storms), it wasn't called the Cape of Good Hope until after Vasco da Gama when the Portuguese King John II renamed it

[@marlonmoncrieffe0728]

I wonder if perfecting vertical farms will bring the price down.

[@jasonjacoby]

@@Stevie-J wtf 🤣

[@LillibitOfHere]

I’m growing it in west Michigan. It cost less than $30 for a couple dozen bulbs.

[@jacobvreeland6147]

@@jasonjacoby look at OPs name.

[@jacobvreeland6147]

@@jasonjacoby Nice last name btw.

[@rienparhan7346]

The Netherlands used to be so big in the spice trade, but never learned to properly use them. There is barely anyone here that cooks properly with spices. Most of our food is bland, low salt and no spice. People here think a little bit of black pepper is already spicy enough...

[@lindareed8265]

As someone with severe spice sensitivity, and a lot of various northern European ancestry, yes, black pepper is spicy. And besides the lack of salt, I'd probably really like Dutch food. I like German food a lot because they use herbs and spices (but not spicy) that don't rely on the heat. I think if you can't make something thattastes good without burning, ten you aren't really a good cook.

[@jannetteberends8730]

The Dutch use them a lot. But not in the regular food, but in pastries and cookies. And ontbijtkoek.

[@kaasmeester5903]

I read somewhere that this has to do with a certain cookbook. Dutch cuisine used to be fairly rich and varied, but early in the 20th century, some lady published a cookbook aimed at the lower classes. It was meant to teach how to cook meals that were cheap and nutritious, but devoid of any nuanced flavours. The book was wildly popular, and it is credited with wiping out most of the good Dutch dishes that people used to cook.

[@DevicharanDasgupta]

​@@lindareed8265 couldn't agree more. If you can't produce a tasty dish without using heat, you're not a good cook. I'm an Indian with a heat sensitive palate and I find a lot of Indian food very one dimensional because of the over reliance on spices, and within the spices, on the ones used to produce heat. I feel like I can't taste the dish. The vegetables or the meat the spices are supposed to season are buried deep beneath the overpowering, overwhelming, loud heat.

[@_D_P_]

Dealers don't get high off their own supply.

[@anthonymorris8891]

A while back, I was stocking spices at work when I turned to the other guy working in the aisle and said, "it's crazy to think that wars were fought over stuff like this". Now it's so common it's just assumed everyone has a cupboard for their forgotten treasures.

[@willmfrank]

Next time you munch on a Hershey Bar, look up The Chocolate Wars.

[@ckl9390]

@@willmfrank Calling Hershey's "chocolate flavoured" product "chocolate" is a bit of a stretch.

[@annajane7860]

@@ckl9390 hershey used to be a lot more chocolate, but yk capitalism stepped in and decreased the actual cocoa in it

[@willmfrank]

@@ckl9390 Hence the Chocolate Wars. I mean, if this is what we've got now, imagine what people had to go through to get the real thing!

[@elcidgaming]

@@willmfrank Or when you sip tea the whole opium wars (because of Tea)

[@TheSteveBoyd]

I'd love to see a video on the story of the "retired" pirate Tomas Bacxter, who was contracted by Nieuw Amsterdam to build a wall to protect against indigenous tribes, but it failed because he used cheap materials and pocketed the money. I love the fact that an act of fraud by a pirate would ultimately be the origin story behind the name Wall Street.

[@Games_and_Music]

Hah! yes i love that as well. I had never actually looked up whatever became of that Wall, i only knew that it had a Dutch origin and that the Wallstreet stock market is based on the Dutch capitalist origins as well. I was looking into it when Donald was going on about how walls work against invasions, and i wanted to make an ironic link to his money and his wall theories, but i guess i got sidetracked, because all i remember from that is that the wall failed. EDIT: Whoops, forgot to mention the actual irony, of a guy pocketing the money and a shoddy wall as a result, which is exactly what happened with Donald's wall, pity that i didn't connect the dots back then, but thanks for pointing it out.

[@malcolmhardwick4258]

Americans love their walls !

[@meesalikeu]

@@malcolmhardwick4258 yes they do pip - good fences make good neighbors.

[@RobVollat]

That reminds me every Russian general.. Instead of buying their tanks new tread or trucks new tires, they pocketed the money and are using tires from the 1990s.. hence them not working!

[@malcolmhardwick4258]

@@Stevie-JLets just hope Europe dosent try to destroy itself again !

[@Tehn00bA]

"He or she who controls the Spice, controls the universe!" - Dune

[@inisipisTV]

Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

[@angusmatheson8906]

Thanks, we never would have gotten the reference if you hadn't added the: "Dune"

[@ramonantoniodejuanbennett6239]

The spice must flow!

[@TheAndroidNextDoor]

Well today I learned that the cyberpunk future everyone fears kind of already happened centuries ago with spices and wooden ships but with the same horrifically huge mega corporations.

[@lukeh2556]

Even more fun as Canadian I get to tell people that the company that once owned and controlled the country and the land I lived most my life in is now just a department store in the city.

[@hemidas]

History moves in cycles.

[@RustOnWheels]

@@lukeh2556 And in The Netherlands HBC couldn’t successfully run its ventures and left again after only four years of failure.

[@VosperCDN]

Everything new under the sun has already been thought of, sort of thing?

[@renanfelipedossantos5913]

Think of stock-issuing multinational slave and cash crop trade corporations.

[@bradeurich5183]

I went down an East India Company rabbit whole a month or two ago. My favorite part was that the merchants would come up with some crazy ass stories to sell their exotic goods. "This cinnamon could only be harvested once per year, because the island was guarded by gremlins, who could not protect the crops for one day a year because reasons."

[@phillip_iv_planetking6354]

Corporations were around during the Roman era too. In fact, the Romans even stamped their goods to show where they came from.

[@VeganV5912]

@@phillip_iv_planetking6354 , Gold is useless. Spice is anticancer !!! That’s why I’m vegan. 4% cancer if you’re vegan. Gorillas never eat animals, and onepercent cancer in the wild. Humans eating animals, 51% death rate, causes a heart attack clogging up your arteries and cancer and high blood pressure no fibre. Stays in your body and rots a way : kzbin.info/www/bejne/gaWuZH6diLJ7m5Y .. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pavMqHV3gbB2e7M 🤮

[@ak101farhan]

Nootka

[@mycosys]

@@phillip_iv_planetking6354 PUBLICLY TRADED companies werent

[@ryantwombly720]

Part of the reason they did this was to hide their sources. They didn't want competitors thinking just anybody could harvest spices.

[@fmtpulmanns7593]

Interesting co-occurence, if my memory of history lessons in high school is correct, King Pillip II of Spain was also the one who kicked off the 80-Years War between (catholic) Spain and (mostly protestant) Netherlands; one of the reasons the Dutch set up the VOC was to be able to pay for the war.

[@historybuff7491]

I understand the expense of saffron. I grow my own, because I can't afford it. Interesting side note: saffron is not only a spice, it is also a dye. I had a bumper crop, one year, and used the extra for dye. I wanted to see what the historically most expensive dye looked like. It is a beautiful pale yellow.

[@meesalikeu]

its charming to hear about very young people discovering things.

[@xJavelin1]

Wasn't the historically most expensive dye purple? As in Imperial purple? Saffron is still great though.

[@historybuff7491]

@@xJavelin1 Yes, you have a point. I think it was more expensive. Saffron would have cost less than that. Sorry. Wasn't thinking about that.

[@PBeringer]

That's pretty cool that you grow it. Is it still considered a spice if it's the stamen of a flower, or is spice a much more generally defined than say nuts vs. legumes and fruits vs. vegetables? Fairly sure saffron dyes are what give Buddhist monks' robes their distinct colour too; but it's such a dark tone, you'd think it'd take A LOT of saffron to achieve.

[@jcfiggy]

@@meesalikeu Did you really have to make a “Aw looka da baby making his vewy first steps” comment?

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

Constantinople wasn't renamed to Istanbul until 1930, seven years after the modern-day Republic of Turkey was declared. The Ottomans called it Kostantiniyye (an Arabic calque of Constantinople) while Istanbul was colloquial. And Brazil becoming Portuguese had to do with the Treaty of Tordesillas which was signed six years BEFORE Pedro's sail, this divided the Americas with a line. Anything west of the line belonged to Spain, anything east of the line belonged to Portugal. So under this treaty, Portugal got the eastern coast of what is now Brazil. That's why Pedro landed there.

[@andresaofelipe]

thank you, so very few people know the history of my country. There's still people that think brazillians speak spanish, it's kinda weird.

[@emitindustries8304]

That's the way I heard it. Something to do with the Pope, also.

[@eliurbaitel]

Istanbul was Constantinople now it’s Istanbul not Constantinople been a long time gone since Constantinople, Turkish delight on a moonlit night, Istanbul was Constantinople now it’s Istanbul not Constantinople so if you’ve a date in Constantinople she’ll be wating in Istanbul, even old New York was once new Amsterdam, why’d they change it I can’t say, people just liked it better that way, so take me back to Constantinople, no you can’t go back to Constantinople, been a long time gone since Constantinople, why did Constantinople get the works? That’s nobody’s business but the turks

[@rubenramos8900]

Some even say that Portugal already had discovered Brazil by then but kept it as a secret to better negotiate the Treaty of Tordesillas and claim those lands after.

[@perfilgenerico8717]

@@rubenramos8900 i've heard that too, but the tordesillas treaty line was drawn taking to acount spanish discoveries in america and portuguese colony in Africa, being located half way between those two, i don't know if it has much ground to hold itself into

[@juniorferro4664]

This is probably my favorite video of the channel. You guys did an amazing job "simplifying" the subject to make the big picture understandable, while at the same time making clear that are way more details and complex things involved on the process.

[@larsrademakers6070]

Tbf he did make a few mistakes to my knowledge, but the Idea was right

[@rahadianramadhan5554]

As a citizen of a former Dutch colony, it def feels a bit weird seeing videos about VoC from western creators because we're already learning about it in schools. Keep up the good work, Joe

[@GAZEREAPER]

In dutch schools the VoC is also a reocurring topic, horrible stuff.

[@rvaneman]

What we learned at school and young kids still should be illegal that still those murders being honoured as hero's and have a statue in their birth town..

[@jasonlast7091]

This is fascinating. What if any perspective differences are there?

[@GAZEREAPER]

@@rvaneman I dont remember them ever being made out to be heroes at school but go off

[@sig5816]

@@rvaneman history classes in the Netherlands are very objective actually... these people are never treated as heroes in Dutch history classes, but just as big players who were important to significant events... the only way you could NOT see this as objective is if you *wanted* them to be demonized

[@AP-kl3qe]

I would love to see the "forgotten Atrocities" series! An interesting part of that could be how these subjects are taught in current history classes in those countries. For instance: 30 years ago I was taught to be proud of the dutch history in Indonesia. I was never taught the horrible things my country did to the local people.

[@petersilva037]

I don´t know if it counts as an atrocity, but I was fascinated to hear the origin of "to the shores of Tripoli" and the founding of the US Navy... being the result of Barbary coast pirates and how they used to raid Europe, as far north as England? but mostly by capturing ships in the mediterranean, to enslave europeans to sell ... somewhere... was never clear where. It sounds completely wacky to modern ears, but there it is.

[@kattenbelletje]

25 years ago I was tought that the VOC brought us great wealth, but that we got that wealth through many atrosities. The statue at 17:46 is Jan Pieterszoon Coen. It stands on the Roode steen in Hoorn. (which used to be a major port for the VOC) During history class we went in to town to see all the old buildings and learn of their history. At the statue we were tought that this man slaughtered whole villages for daring to trade with the English. Now there are people who want to remove the statue. But I don't know if I would have learned of the bad side of our history if it hadn't been there.

[@camiloaa]

The first episode was excellent. Nebula subscription is cheap, and just the companion videos for Joe Scott and Real Life Lore are worth the price. Yes, I'm giving free advertisement for a company. If they become shitty in the future, please don't quote me.

[@AP-kl3qe]

@@camiloaa I just wish they accepted PayPal...

[@Thurgosh_OG]

@@petersilva037 This was the US joining the already establish British slavery blockades 35 years after Britain ended slavery and set up the West Africa Squadron, to prevent any more slave trade from Africa and to blockade the Barbary Coast Pirates from raiding into Europe for white slaves (which got a higher price than their local peoples). Reports of Barbary raids and kidnappings of those in Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, England, Netherlands, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and as far north as Iceland exist from between the 16th to the 19th centuries..

[@kaylarobertson6611]

I lived in Indonesia for a while and there are a lot of similarities in the language to Afrikaans. It was surprising, but now the Dutch influence makes sense. Very sad about how the influence was brought about, but I suppose similar to how it was in South Africa too.

[@christoduplessis8177]

Interesting, in South Africa we have quite a big Malay influence due to slaves brought back from the East by the Dutch. From our food to our language. Afrikaans at the time mainly spoken by white Europeans in South Africa is an interesting point. While most Afrikaans speakers are Christian (or aligned to descendants of Protestant Christians) the first book written in Afrikaans was the Quran. A fact that most Afrikaans people today does not know.

[@qlue7881]

The oldest Afrikaans writing is written using the Arabic alphabet The Malaysian language influenced the Afrikaans language too What would Afrikaans be without piesang en bobotie

[@TheaSvendsen]

Apparently you could RENT a pineapple for display at your house back then. Kinda beats the purpose today but at the time it was a status symbol showcasing your wealth. So this became a profitable business. Also, fun fact: when you’re eating a pineapple, it’s actually eating you too! It’s the only known source in nature with the enzyme Bromelain which digest protein. Both fascinating and unsettling :)

[@FrankHeuvelman]

Today people rent a Ferrari or a Lamborghini for a day to show off to their neighbors. Only problem is that the bulk of these people don't know the power of the engines and crash them by putting the pedal to the metal, making the wheels spin out of control and brace themselves with one foot on the throttle, hahahah!

[@michaelwalsh5048]

Yes I read an article about a year ago which mentioned that eating pineapple every day can get rid of "eye-floaters", due to the bromelain.

[@rhov-anion]

As a kid in the 90s, my mouth would break out in nasty sores from eating pineapple, and my mother joked, "It's like the pineapple is eating YOU." Now it turns out... MY MOTHER WAS RIGHT!

[@TalesOfWar]

@@rhov-anion Mother knows best!

[@amarketing8749]

@@michaelwalsh5048 More likely to have diarrhea eating it everyday. Was this a scientific article??

[@KokkiePiet]

The horrific things that happend on the Banda Islands for Nutmeg was repeated by the Dutch in Indonesia on Atjeh, where the population was killed off because there was a hell of lot of oil. The Dutch king send an army to "Pacify" the region and started a company for the Oil, Koninklijke Olie, or as it is known now, Royal Dutch Shell,

[@roryasrorri701]

🤯

[@marsupius]

I was like "deadliest company? I wonder what that was." But then Joe started stacking spices, and I was like "I know where this is going "

[@cherrydragon3120]

It went to my country, just sad it turned from one of the worlds biggest to a shadowy empty shell

[@mostlyimpulsive3462]

@@cherrydragon3120 Sad? They killed and enslaved thousands of us Indonesians. It's certainly strange, even fascinating to see a titan fall like that, but not *sad* I don't think!

[@gram.]

@@mostlyimpulsive3462 unfair to hold them to today's standards

[@Prodigi50]

@@gram. Even by the standards of the time it was brutal.

[@theothertonydutch]

@@gram. Can you spell "tone deaf"?

[@ps3crazyness]

As a Portuguese, I can tell you that it's pretty commun knowledge that Brasil was not a happy coincidence, but had already been discovered before 1500. That's why on the Tordesilhas treaty Portugal insisted on moving the line that devided the world a 100 miles west, so it would include Brasil

[@sig5816]

there are many things wrong with this video in terms of specifics... he also says New Amsterdam was traded for some small island but the Dutch also got back Suriname after the British occupied it

[@willkrummeck]

@@sig5816 yeah but the main point was good, spice and how companies influenced the world? it good to talk out this to unders=tan urrent events.

[@SmartStart24]

lol yeah I’d say Brasil had been discovered before 1500… people had been living there thousands of years before that!

[@JoopKarelSpank1]

in the Netherlands we still have a saying regarding the 'VOC mentality" it's something our Neo-liberal politicians like to say. They use it like our past was a good thing and we should go back to the good old days, Or the golden century like were being taught in school. We choose to ignore the pitchblack parts off our past and glorify it so we don't learn from it like good Dutch capitalists are supposed to do

[@atelier_AG]

I am a Dutch guy, and I was completely shook when I first learned about the business practice of the VOC. In high school we were taught that this era was the 'Golden Age' for the Netherlands, and the slave trade and genocide was conveniently left out. I read a book recently by a Dutch writer, Roofstaat (roughly translates as 'State of Plunderers') by Ewald Vanvugt, which details the history of the Netherlands in much more detail. I am not sure if it has been translated into English, but if so, I would highly recommend it!

[@autohmae]

What I would like to understand is: was it common in those days or did the Dutch do far worse than others.

[@Ruben-]

@@autohmae It was common but the VOC just did it on a larger scale

[@wp12mv]

Everyone did it, and jt was practiced for much longer than you even realized. It's just the nations that were top great powers that committed some of the most memorable crimes because well, they were the big boys

[@sqdtnz]

What is interesting to think about is, the fact that you recognize some of the behavior from back then as being bad, is not as obvious as you might think. That thinking had to be developed by philosophers, writers, politicians and other thinkers. In that time it was regarded as normal for any conqueror to subjugate the conquered. Just as today people find it normal to put pigs in small boxes, cut down forests for growing soy, feed the pigs with this soy, then kill the pigs after a worthless life, and eat this.

[@h3x6g0n6]

@@wp12mv It's still going. The wealth of the rich is still based on exploiting poor and unschooled human beings around the globe. And not just the ones in poor and developping countries either. Just take a look at the environment the poor are living in your own country and how much of a chance they really have to turn their situation around.

[@garychisholm2174]

Joe, the eclectic nature of your catalog is invigorating as well as educational. I feel your work has gone beyond "info-tainment" and can truly be regarded as simply- important.

[@tbrown8721]

Great video. I appreciate your care in discussing tough subjects. I learned, in American schools, about the VoC. I think some people do not realize that students in America can often elect to take more advanced or specific history classes. Mine was AP European History in high school, and the instructor was well-versed in the subject. He did not hold back on his disdain for the EIC, VoC, and other organizations and governments that committed atrocities in the name of money and power. Keep it up, Mr. Scott.

[@robertsparks3685]

Thanks. I really like these videos. I especially like that you delve into the background or history of a topic so that it can be better understood.

[@moonliteX]

joe: "not making a dune reference" also joe: "THE SPICE MUST FLOW!"

[@josephledux8598]

Frank Herbert was a bit of a scholar himself with a deep interest in history and ecology, which is why Arrakis was such a detailed creation. I have no doubt at all that Herbert researched and had a deep understanding of the historical spice trade when he began writing Dune. One thing that makes his complex books so accessible to the average reader is his tying in parts of the story to actual historical events and concepts that the reader likely already has some knowledge of. That's one of the reasons Herbert was one of the best SF writers in history. With books like Dune and others, for every single fact written in the book there was probably ten or twenty pages of background and backstory material that Herbert researched and wrote to prepare for writing that into the book. His overriding interest in ecology (in a scientific sense, not as an environmentalist) can be seen in most of his books, with _Hellstrom's Hive_ and _The Jesus Incident_ being great examples. The amount of research he must have done to prepare for writing his books must have been absolutely staggering. For most of his stories, the story itself is only the very tip of a vast, unseen iceberg. It's a reason why he was the best, period.

[@elcidgaming]

A dune reference of a Dune's reference to the real world history

[@doeeyedfaun4020]

I work for a home infusion company, in particular in the Enteral Dept. Enterals are what you might know as Tube feedings. People that had GI issues and can’t process solid food properly or people with cancer of the mouth, esophagus or GI tract are all patients I talk to on a regular basis. And doing g this job has really driven home just how important food is in people lives. This past Christmas we had an elderly lady who tried to commit suicide because during the family Christmas celebration dinner she was unable to partake in eating with her family. It upset her so much she felt like she had lost so much from missing the experience that she felt like life wasn’t worth living anymore. It was heartbreaking and really eye opening just how much sharing a meal with family during a holiday means to us mentally and emotionally!

[@johnryan5133]

I just watched the forgotten Atrocity video and all I can say is please make it a semi-regular series, so much of our world is underpinned by this stuff that gets glossed over.

[@kierenhotine1310]

Could you just imagine how boring and tedious food would be without such commodity... it isn't surprising people would pay soo much for it! How lucky we are today to experience the power of spices for fraction of the price! Great video!

[@VeganV5912]

Timelapse, 5-10 days 🧟‍♂️🦠🍖🔴... (inside your stomach) kzbin.info/www/bejne/gaWuZH6diLJ7m5Y .. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pavMqHV3gbB2e7M 🤮 NO fibre !!! Stays in your body and rots away 🤮🤮🤮🤮..... That’s why I’m vegan, lots of fibre if you eat plants and fruit and nuts and berries and tubers and lentils beans et cetera. PH 7, no smell. Which side of history are you on, Jeeffrey Dahmer 👓😩🦠🍖🔴... Or veganism ✅❤️💪😬😉 ??. You don’t hurt your cute little dog 😍🤗🐶🤥🤥🤥......

[@taylorbug9]

And yet us white people still don't know how to use them to this day.

[@GreenAppelPie]

It’s no wonder people were thinner back then. Some people just don’t use spices and yeah, their food is bland. While it’s technically not bad, it is bland.

[@radaro.9682]

I'd give up a lot of that to reduce human suffering. I kinda hate that our lives are only a thing because of how much people and the world's resources are exploited to make possible. I'd limit myself to locally sourced foodstuffs to reduce the impact of that. Easily. My quality of life isn't worth others pain. The world doesn't have to be zero sum like that.

[@radaro.9682]

@@GreenAppelPie people were smaller because of less nutritional content while lack of wealth meant less access to concentrated fats and sugars. Processed food has kinda done the worst of both worlds. Lacks nutrition and ups fat and sugar to addict. That plus general lack of time and money to care for oneself always has poor health consequences regardless of size of person. And this is a problem that has plagued humanity as long as we have had disparity in power. Leaders never seem to starve, do they? Edited for clarity of meaning and to remove fat phobic reasoning.

[@Timelord774]

One of my favorite documentary series in the 80's was a BBC production called "The Spice of Life". Presented by Edward Woodward, it was in equal parts a history of the spice trade, a cooking show and a travelogue. Well worth a look if you can find it.

[@richardgoldsmith7278]

Forgotten Atrocities! Yes, history suddenly becomes interesting to a committed technophile like me when presented in your inimitable way.

[@VicodinElmo]

I think my love of tech actually stems from my enjoyment of history. There’s something amazing about how far we’ve come (for better or worse)

[@Chris-hx3om]

Have a look at Simon Whistler's "Into the Shadows".

[@SynysterNick]

My man, I’m a Brazilian, and Pedro Álvares Cabral is one of the few things I remember from our history lessons. THANK YOU so much for finally explaining why the heck do the Portuguese sail further west when their goal was in the east! Why couldn’t history teachers have touched on the geography of ocean currents?!? Simply amazing how you me understand my own history better than my teachers! And yes please make that Nebula show! Can’t wait!

[@WVgrl59]

He has an additional video but the nebula thing is on curiosity isn't it?

[@sjoerdvanmierlo9541]

I'm dutch so this video is highly contrasting for me. It's really weird to think about what we achieved as such a small country, but also how much hurt we caused in the process

[@kaasmeester5903]

Meh. Back then pretty much every country was involved in slavery, warfare and colonization; it was pretty much the norm. The ones that did not partake did not do so out of moral considerations, but practical ones. So I do not pass judgment on the Dutch heroes of that age: they were (probably) moral men for the most part. And we were better at it than most countries. That is still something to be proud of. With that said, I also think it is good to view that part of our history through a modern lens. It's a sobering view. But I think it's important to remember that the West did not invent slavery, nor were we the biggest perpetrator of the practice. But the West can be thanked for abolishing slavery... one of the few instances were slavery was abolished not on practical grounds, but on moral ones.

[@andrasbiro3007]

Tea was also big. I once read a book about 19th century British naval strategies, and one thing in it was really telling. When convoys left India, loaded with tea and spice, the whole navy went to defend them. Even ship that were in the middle of a battle.

[@AMakersSpace]

100% support the idea of Forgotten Atrocities. If we forget history, we are doomed to repeat it

[@Chris-hx3om]

Have a look at Simon Whistler's "Into the Shadows".

[@NotDaJayC]

That's my favorite quote

[@burcinhekimoglu654]

Ottomans didn't change Constantinople's name when they conquered it (sort of, they called it Konstantiniyye). Stan Poli was already an informal name of the city among the habitants. Turks used to say it as Istanbul. Throughout all of Ottoman history, its formal name remained Konstantiniyye. Later, when the new state of Turkey was formed, its formal name was changed to Istanbul.

[@IstasPumaNevada]

It's always a good idea to expose the horrors that were committed in the past, as it's one of the best ways to warn people about the possibilities of them happening again (if maybe not in the exact same way).

[@TheSiameseDreamer]

It was not only white people wiping out other tribes/peoples - In Africa, Black tribes were contastnly waring and wiping each other out. The Zulus for one erased many other peoples. The muslims have done it. The chinese have done it. The Japanese and on and on.

[@babagandu]

Not really ...

[@adrianes6777]

@@babagandu what about the food Africa wants out of Ukraine right now? Definitely not 1:1 comparable but still quite similar… don’t just use one source/stream for something food related…

[@liquidsnake6879]

Except people only expect horrors to be exposed one-way, the same old way, the white people bad way, if you dare to talk about the role african empires and the already-existing trans-saharan trade had in slavery you get discredited and called a racist. So if people aren't willing to discuss the horrors that aren't convenient to their narrative i'm not interested in discussing the ones that are.

[@Fred-mp1vf]

We should also expose current atrocities and try to stop them.

[@macneijenhoff4711]

As a dutch guy i can say the dark history of the voc is really interesting great video 👍🏻

[@AiluridaeAureus]

The Netherlands and Portugal really are WAY up there with Poland in the ranks of "Holy shit how does this tiny country I only know about because they bordered fascist monsters in WW2 have such a long, blood soaked history?!"

[@viezeman]

thats true its dark but still the beginning of the world economic system. and so much more we the dutch are small but we sure made our impact in human and world history.

[@furallds]

As an Indonesian, the VOC is like a main antagonist in our history books.

[@painterly_porcine262]

I don't even like nutmeg ~ and Dutch food (sorry) seems so bland - ???? (Facepalm - a very dark - dark -dark facepalm...).

[@macneijenhoff4711]

@@painterly_porcine262 honestly our food is indeed really bland but thats fine we have foods from other countrys to enjoy

[@tresjordan982]

I ❤ the “ Hidden Atrocities” idea! When people talk of slavery we tend to think of recently….we forget this is something that all civilizations have done to some degree or another.

[@pigeoncubes]

it was only a side comment, but i think it would be fascinating to see a video on why tulips were so valuable. i think tulip mania is getting to be fairly common knowledge, but what's more fascinating to me than the market crash, is how the biology of tulips played a role in their value

[@jamescrawford1534]

If you're wondering about how it happened, just look at Prime drinks at the moment.

[@mmornelas]

Good job in compacting this theme and complex history in a short video. I follow you in Portugal and it's always nice to hear from others about our history (the good and the bad).

[@jasonfoy452]

You always give me a chuckle, even when I’m low. Thank you and keep up the great work. Love to you and your team 😊

[@sheshd]

One of the very, very few times I've known just about everything in a video you've shared... Year 9 history teacher to thank!

[@Games_and_Music]

Same here, as i am Dutch and got taught this in the 90s in elementary school, but still cool to see it pop up here.

[@JoshDoingLinux]

I was confused about the spices then realized "oh yeah that's a thing that has happened"

[@JerseyTeal]

JOE this was so good…I need more of these historical videos. Love the science, love the weird stuff but this was fabulous!

[@toxicpadda]

Both my parents were Dutch. They moved to South Africa after the second world war. As a kid born in South Africa were taught amount Dutch East India Company at school. The Portuguese came to South Africa first, then Dutch "kick them out", then the English came and got rid of the Dutch. To make things even more messed up my wife is Portuguese. 🤣.

[@babagandu]

Traitor !!!

[@ericvardek4108]

@@babagandu Valindaba.

[@SPOOKY-HAZE]

robert eerlijk gezegd voc was niet alleen bezig met slaven handel maar ook geobsedeerd door specerijen(english translation robert to be fair the voc wasnt only bussy with slavery but they also where obsessed with spices and herbs, they would go nuts for that btw besides your parents, any other dutch people on here? laat het me weten, het is altijd interessant om andermans mening te horen over dit onderwerp, plus we krijgen dit al jong geleerd in school, zelfs kinderen van 6 /7 krijgen al les over wereld oorlog twee in bepaalde scholen

[@mnemosynevermont5524]

It happens, I have Native American and European blood, not to mention US North AND South - a walking war.

[@willywonka4340]

16:03 Scott skipped through a very important historical milestone here that bears some mentioning. Taiwan, AKA Ilha Formosa, as known to the 15th century Portuguese sailors, was the VOC's base of operations for a good 70 years before they were driven out by the Chinese/Japanese hybrid pirate General Koxinga around 1660s and claimed the island for Ming Dynasty China. If it weren't for this, the VOC wouldn't have relocated their base to Indonesia, and Taiwan would've stayed as a Dutch colony until after WWII's end and Ming & Qing Dynasty China wouldn't have their claim of the island as part of their territory, nor would Republic of China government had a place to retreat to after their defeat by the Communists in 1949. Interesting what-ifs of alternate history. 😀 The VOC built a Military Fort on southwestern part of Taiwan (Fort Zeelandia) and employed local Formosan aboriginal laborers as well as Southern Chinese migrants from the Fujian province to work on the fields, growing sugar canes and spices. These Chinese migrants stayed on the island after the Dutch left and married local aboriginal women. Their descendants now makes up 80% of modern Taiwan's population of hybrid Han/Aboriginal ethnicity. The 10% of Taiwan's current population came over to the island as war refugees from the Chinese mainland after their defeat by the Communists in 1949. Qing Dynasty China didn't lay claim to Taiwan as part of its territory for another 70 years or so after the VOC left. In addition, there are the Spanish and the Portuguese, who also built their forts on Taiwan around the same time frame in the Northwestern coastal areas. The remnants of these forts, along with Fort Zeelandia, still exists today; still mostly intact. As a history buff wishing to travel to East Asia, a stopover in Taiwan is more than worth your time to check them out. As you can see, even then, Taiwan was geopolitically / strategically important in the 17th century as is now. The Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, and Chinese once "owned" Taiwan or at least a portion of it at one point or another. More on Taiwan's historical ties with the VOC can be found on wiki. P.S. About 5 years ago, I was on a tour to visit one of the famous local indigenous tribes. To my amazement, some of them have red hair and green eyes, though their skin tones are not quite as light as Europeans. Then it occurred to me that some of the VOC sailors and soldiers never left Taiwan, but instead retreated to the mountains where they intermingled with the locals 💜xo💋💕xo😹

[@Games_and_Music]

Interesting stuff, thanks

[@willywonka4340]

​@@Games_and_Music you're quite welcome!

[@FrankDijkstra]

I've been to Fort Zeelandia. It's a nice place🙂

[@willywonka4340]

​@@FrankDijkstra were you in Taiwan strictly to visit the Fort, or was it for other reasons 🤔? I'm asking Out of Curiosity.. 😁

[@FrankDijkstra]

@@willywonka4340 I've been to Taiwan 3 times. First to Taichung, then to Hsinchu, and lastly to Tainan. That was for work. I work for a big tech company in the south of the Netherlands.

[@cmaven4762]

I was thinking the other day about how people treat vanilla like the most boring ubiquitous thing ever, when 200 years ago it was one of the most expensive food items going, and thus a total luxury ...

[@Tokru86]

One factor to consider about the popularity of spices as trade goods you didn't mention: They are extremely easy to transport. Back when voyages took month and ship space was very limited spices were the perfect commodity to trade in. They don't spoil and take up very little space compared to their value in Europe. Other sought after luxury goods were much more difficult to transport around the world. Living exotic animals/plants, chinese porcelain and the like.

[@AutoReport1]

Porcelain was used as ballast. Tea and spices are bulky, but they don't weigh much, so fill up the hold with porcelain first. If it breaks, doesn't matter, is only to weigh the ship down so it doesn't fall over.

[@alst4817]

That’s cool, thanks for that! Kind of like how diamonds and gold are great trading goods because you get so much value for little weight.

[@phillaird976]

He who controls the spice, controls the universe.

[@CrystalShaman]

Dune...

[@laurelhill3505]

The spice must flow.

[@Whole-Milk]

I see you like spice. You gotta try Utica grind crushed red pepper. You wouldn’t think there’s a superior crushed red pepper, but there is.

[@matthijsblomjous3671]

Dutch history lessons in school have entire chapters devoted to the VOC, but as far as I can remember they never really went into the gruesome details. Really a shame in my opinion

[@vincentsmit8436]

Same, it mostly glorified it, talking about how rich and influential the VOC was

[@duckboi8794]

maar het is wel ongeveer de enige reden dat nederland nu zo rijk is, dus ik ben wel trots op de nederlandse geschiedenis

[@matthijsblomjous3671]

@@duckboi8794 gaat altijd 2 kanten op, we mogen best trots zijn op de VOC en het tegelijkertijd niet eens zijn met een aantal dingen die ze hebben gedaan

[@Incorruptus1]

Depends on the school in the Netherlands. I am 50 years old now. And in my classes on history and about the VoC, all gruesome details where certainly mentioned. Maybe you had a lesser version of what happened. But overall this harsch details, where certainly mentioned in some schools. I can be a living example of that. So I can imagine what you say, but hereby, I can verify, that not every Dutch school, shoved the gruesome details under the carpet. It depends on the school. In my class, we had also people from many cultures. So maybe that was a reason to be honest about all details. It might have been a reason. I don't know, but what I do know is that most details known also today, I was certainly thought about. Have a great day!

[@matthijsblomjous3671]

@@Incorruptus1 thanks for your comment, good to hear not every school ignores it. I grew up in a small town in the east so most my classmates were white, maybe that had influence like you say. Have a great day, good luck with the cold today😉

[@rafbambam]

Like always great video. Being a duch speeking person (I'm from Blgium), I did know the VOC, and that they owned the spice industrie, but that they where that brutal was not known by me. Also a nice fact; if something is very expensive we say in dutch it is "peperduur" translated it says as expensive as pepper. hanks for the video and greetings from Belgium.

[@davidcrosthwaite]

Love your videos, Joe. Just finished your video on the Nebula and loved it. Can’t wait for more! ☺️

[@granudisimo]

The spice Melange is the perfect marriage of everything wrong about the history of spices and oil.

[@threeballedtomcat9380]

Another entertaining and informative upload, Joe ! Great job, as usual....

[@philliplamoureux9489]

Stunningly good overview with a broad perspective! Excellent storyline pulling one thread that ties so much together. Bravo!!

[@ryanmichaelhaley]

This was very interesting, I had no idea the VOC was bigger than the EIC, and how much this affected modern capitalism.

[@Sir-Worthington]

I had to look it up but turns out the VOC value adjusted for inflation was worth about 8 Trillon.

[@slcpunk2740]

Yeah I saw this title and immediately thought either the British or Dutch East India company and then saw the symbol.

[@kalaharikreef7371]

It is the same thing. V.O.C. Is the Dutch abbrevition Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie

[@lordjzargo7940]

It's the same thing bruh

[@aaronlittle5478]

I really want to see a "history of capitalism" video featuring company ships engaged in battle Swiss-cheeseing each other with cannons.

[@Mr.Noones_Art]

Fun fact, actually Cape of Good Hope was called Cape of Torments before. They only started calling it Cape of Good Hope after Bartolomeu's expedition successfully passed the cape

[@romapires]

Bartolomeu Dias, as he was the first captain there, named it Torments. That was because his ships faced terrible storms getting there and passing it. When the João II got the word that a ship had cornered Africa and where now able to travel north along its coasts that meant there was hope of reaching India The King decided the cape should be named Good Hope as it is to this day.

[@martijnspruit]

And the Dutch founded Capetown to restock the supplies on board their ships.

[@wrendavey]

I’ve been slogging my way through the book Merchant Kings, which goes into detail about the progression of events of the spice trade. Absolutely mind blowing information

[@scottygordon3280]

What an amazing video. And yes, please pursue that "Forgotten Atrocities" project-There have been too many of those in history, and they deserve to be remembered.

[@josephledux8598]

The name "Forgotten Atrocities" is a bit illogical. Atrocities on a national scale are usually only forgotten by the perpetrators and their descendants. The victims of it never forget. But it's something we descendants of European slavers and colonizers need to and must be reminded of it. So Joe's series of that name is a great idea.

[@TheSteveBoyd]

"I have something downstairs that's actually pretty impressive. C'mere, let me just show you." Also Joe's best pickup line. 🤣

[@russellmarra8520]

@@i.b.640 Don't we all.

[@RobVollat]

I used to smoke spices until they banned them. That was some wicked shit. Felt like you were dying if you smoked too much. (Some people did die.)

[@jenniferfullmer4783]

Holy guacamole, I have learned so much on this channel! It's great! I both more appreciate and am now a bit nauseous thinking about my spice cupboard.

[@timsullivan4566]

Although "Forgotten Atrocities" has a nice ring to it, any chance you could do a series on "Abusive Landlords"? It could be a mix of notorious historical money-grubbers as well as contemporary equivalents like Mr. Hankernon who still hasn't fixed that faucet and is hardly one to talk when it comes to people playing their music too loud... for example. Just an idea...

[@dutchy1121]

As someone who lives in NL, I can tell you that many of the families of the "heroes" that you mention from the VOC are super rich today due to wealth being in their families for over 400 years

[@cherrydragon3120]

Yeap, sadly enough

[@MyBuzzL]

as someone who lives in Indonesia, that's quite shocking

[@zil1832]

@@josephk4932 seconded.

[@MyBuzzL]

@@josephk4932 Third

[@psscalvin5492]

as someone who used to live in NL I can tell you that at least over there all of this is general knowledge

[@RedSapphireFly]

As far as I know the word Drug came from the dutch word 'droog', meaning 'dry' of 'dried'. So spices were indeed a drug-trade.

[@jfdbcpv1983]

Regarding the Cape of Good Hope (Cabo da Boa Esperança) part, it was actually renamed by the portuguese king D. João II, after he received news that it had been passed successfully by Bartolomeu Dias. Before that, it was known as Cape of Storms (Cabo das Tormentas) - rightfully named by Dias himself the moment he unsuccessfully tried to pass it the first time in February 1488.

[@niceperson6084]

Im from Indonesia, and i think the story of VOC is very undertold in the international world

[@bethdumont9020]

Also, the wealthiest company in history - at the height of the tulip boom, the Dutch East India Coy was valued at $7 TRILLION in modern-day economic terms. That's right - a coy that operated a couple hundred years ago was worth MORE than Google, Apple & Facebook COMBINED!! Despite being a private company, they also became an extension of the Dutch state.

[@davepx1]

Beware these supposed modern valuations. In real terms the market valuation of everything on the planet probably came to no more than $5trn in today's terms even at the end of the 18th century, most of it still in the form of land - and the VOC was only a relatively small part of the whole, for all its phenomenal wealth and reach. A company's market valuation may well exceed its true worth, but it can't surpass all of humanity's capital. Today's bloated tech titans are safe from early modern Dutch competition until their wares too go the way of the tulips!

[@bethdumont9020]

@davepx1 you raise a valid point I'm curious about. I'm Australian, so these figures are in $AUD. During my Masters I was able to track the development of a piece of infrastructure (specifically a regional centre airport), including real-time costs. This airport was originally constructed in 1938 at a cost of £7500 (roughly $15000), costs noted in minutes of the relevant local authority (Townsville, which operated the airport) printed in the local newspaper (Townsville Daily Bulletin). This newspaper's archive can be accessed via the website of the National Library of Australia, which has digitised copies of Australia's early newpapers. The Reserve Bank of Australia has an inflation calculator on its website. According to this calculator, $15000 in 1938 equates to $590000 in 2013. In 2013, there was a budget allocation to resurface the runway and replace the airfield lighting. The budget allocation to do these jobs was $11, 500,000!!! So, to build the airport in 1938 (so building AND sealing runways PLUS installation of lighting), the cost was - after correction for inflation - $590000, so just over half a million $AUD. To resurface those runways and replace the lighting in 2013 - $11.5 MILLION. So an increase in costs by a factor of THIRTY times - sorry, but maths isn't my strong point, and accordingly, I suck at stats. So my question is : Why not that valuation of $7 trillion for the Dutch East India Co? Why not a valuation for the silver alone that made its way back to Spain alone from the Americas of $165 trillion? Why not an estimate of the value to the US economy of slave labour between 1619 & 1864 of $97 trillion? A plan to tax the 3000 highest net worth individuals 2% would raise $250 billion!!! This figure leads to a valuation of these individuals' net worth combined of $10 TRILLION!!! I'm not an economist. I'm a humanitarian. My degrees are in social work & psychology. My Masters was in social policy. But history does record that a lot of people were annoyed at FDR in 1932 because he abolished the Gold Standard. My understanding of this concept was that paper currency was underpinned by gold bars held in Fort Knox - the value of the paper currency in circulation was pegged to the value of gold bars kept in Fort Knox & various other locations. FDR did away with this concept. I don't know if this had an influence on inflation or in what fashion. But common sense & logic say it had to have some kind of effect. But inflation is also about rising costs. And the biggest cost to anyone these days is the cost of labour. As wages rise to compensate workers for the rise in costs, the costs to produce will rise accordingly up AND down the supply chain. This leads to a never-ending cycle - we increase wages to compensate for the rise in costs, which leads to another rise in costs to compensate for the increased wages. Interested in your thoughts. Or those of an economist.

[@JohnSmith-to5ow]

This video, with the rich pinpoints of history, images, graphs, was easy to submerse myself. It's the kind of history that feels vital in a variety of ways.

[@readmeat4vegans829]

"The spice must flow!". I think the analogy to the illicit drug trade is an apt one. Where else can you find unfettered (unfettered from any controls or regulations or laws to 'interfere' in 'commerce') capitalism? A hostile takeover is pretty hostile - you literally kill your competition. Anyway, I think a new series on 'Forgotten Atrocities' would be an excellent service to remind us of humanities worst instincts. And by remembering forgotten history - maybe we will be less likely to repeat it. I will sign up for Nebula if you create this series.

[@The88Cheat]

This is the first video of yours I've ever seen and the nerdy spice joke at the beginning is right up my alley.

[@ishaanupreti6438]

Is it a spice company ? Just guessing before watching. I am an Indian, hence when I think about "power" and "company" together, I think about spices.

[@VeganV5912]

; Timelapse, 5-10 days 🧟‍♂️🦠🍖🔴... (inside your stomach) kzbin.info/www/bejne/gaWuZH6diLJ7m5Y .. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pavMqHV3gbB2e7M 🤮 NO fibre !!! Stays in your body and rots away 🤮🤮🤮🤮..... That’s why I’m vegan, lots of fibre if you eat plants and fruit and nuts and berries and tubers and lentils beans et cetera. PH 7, no smell. Which side of history are you on, Jeeffrey Dahmer 👓😩🦠🍖🔴... Or veganism ✅❤️💪😬😉 ??. You don’t hurt your cute little dog 😍🤗🐶🤥🤥🤥......

[@benjaminoake]

Great reasoning 👌

[@jerrebruins85]

@@benjaminoake *seasoning

[@forg4308]

One of my favorite parts of The Count of Montecristo is when Dantes has a party and spends 5 pages ranting about how crazy it is that there is a fish from the Baltic Sea on the same table as as a fish from the Mediterranean Sea.

[@bobyoung1698]

Your remarks about the Silk Road and Marco Polo got me thinking about a legend that is wildly intriguing yet unknown to much of the world. It would also fit your format perfectly. The legend is about a mysterious leader in the far East, a ruler known to the West as "Prester John "

[@icemeoutlikeelsa]

Joe: "...the way our ancestors lived" (talking about people who had no spices in their food) People with non-European ancestors:

[@It-b-Blair]

Eurocentrist indoctrination is really hard to buck. I’ve done several personal inventories and still find vestiges I have to address. It’s even harder if you don’t travel internationally.

[@icemeoutlikeelsa]

@@It-b-Blair It wasn't that serious, I meant it more comically lol

[@safs3098]

@@It-b-Blair bruh, it's not that deep. He's european descent so of course when he says "our ancestors" He's talking about people of european descent. Chill out

[@Games_and_Music]

@@It-b-Blair There is no need for me to buck it, since i'm a white guy born and living in Holland, most of my recent ancestry is from Germany, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia etc., so for me, it is the way my ancestors lived. Not sure what ethnicity you are, maybe you are more certain about it, but apparently you struggle with placing yourself in an ethnic bloodline, because why would it be so hard to shake off this "Eurocentrist indoctrination"? If you're anything but white, it shouldn't be too hard to do (aside from the possible European family you might have by now). Or are you saying that he should've specified it as "European ancestors"? He could have, but it's not like he _should_ have, in my opinion, of course.

[@It-b-Blair]

@@Games_and_Music it’s how the global structure is formed… I’m descended from a Welsh King 🤪 doesn’t change reality. Glad you’re a nationalist 🤦‍♂️

[@idontwantahandlethough]

I love thinking about how ridiculous my spices would seem to someone even a couple centuries ago. I'm sure I have 5 more kinds of pepper alone than even the fanciest and most rotund kings of their day, so that's pretty neat (how neat is that?)! It also makes me pretty glad that I live now in my spicy, flavor filled world. Idk if I could ever be happy without access to all the fun curries and flavors and everything else the modern world gives me access to (I mean, I live in the Midwest so I KNOW what flavorless food is like.. it's all around me! I'd go insane in about a week if all I could eat was bland casseroles!)

[@tylerdurden3722]

If one thinks of running water, flushing toilets, medical advancements, education, etc. Basic stuff. Even the poorest people in developed countries live better now, than kings did in the past.

[@Games_and_Music]

Yeah, forget iPhones, cars and electricity, their world revolved around spices, so that is what they'll probably notice most and be most amazed by, then again, maybe not, but it's likely.

[@Games_and_Music]

@@tylerdurden3722 Yeah, even homeless people are in some ways better off, as they at least have healthcare if something happens to them (at least here in Holland, that is).

[@BILLY-px3hw]

Can't imagine how much a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos would be worth

[@cherrydragon3120]

It is crazy to think our supermarkets sell pepper for like a few euro's per Kilogram. For a kilogram of pepper the VOC would literaly murder you and your entire family as your Human Lives would be less worth the a kilogram of pepper

[@wsegen]

In Nathaniel's Nutmeg there is told the story from one captain's diarist, about making the crew take a few drops of lemon each day. His ship was the only one that could do the england>>>banda>>>england, almost 2 years, without a case of scurvy. About 170 years before capt. cook. Believe capt's name was lancaster and time was 1603. Amazing how no one else realised it at the time.

[@joethomas5216]

Great video as always Joe! Have you considered a video on the West Africa Squadron? The absolute legends that risked their lives to end slavery?

[@marcusfranconium3392]

You mean when brits suddenly changed their minds on slave trade as it would benefit that troublesom colony that was having an inependence war? Preventing them of cheap labour .

[@joethomas5216]

@@marcusfranconium3392 I think it would be worth your while studying the history of slavery around the world: the slavs; the Romans, Norse, Irish and Gaul slavers; William the Conqueror and why Britain didn't have slaves after 1066; the Portuguese and their influence on slavery; the African slavers; the identity of the people that actually owned the slave ships; the myth of non-African slavers capturing slaves within Africa itself, the Arabs and their castration of slaves; etc. There is a great deal that the "US history" education leaves out. There are numerous videos on KZbin that explain this that are both entertaining and educational. Nothing quite as entertaining as Joe's videos, of course, but they're still worth watching before commenting.

[@macklinillustration]

Pineapple history fun fact: They were status symbols for wealth. But if you wanted to make yourself 'look' wealthier than you were, you could rent a pineapple. That's right, people would pay to have a pineapple to be on display at their party, display only absolutely no eating. Pineapple renters would sometimes dip the pineapples in wax to make them last longer.

[@cherrydragon3120]

Wait... that was actualy a thing?.

[@clintanderson4591]

Excellent. Pausing here, at 2min 24sec to give you props on the introduction. Certainly I learned about the Dutch East India Company several times in school, and just thought..."OK. Trading salt. Um, yup. It's important. Pepper too." But, I think you're about to explain in a few min, its importance. So, even if THAT part might have been mentioned in school, no way it would have drawn my attention. The way to introduce something like this is EXACTLY what you did in the first 2 min of this video. I'm drawn, I understand the implications, I'm eager to become smarter to have this future knowledge in discussions with peers later in my life. Good teaching style, as a fellow educator myself, bravo, you get the well-earned like. Unless you kill it with some mumbo-jumbo later in the vid.

[@shaneofcanada7042]

Wow! That was Joe's spiciest episode yet! He got a bit salty but managed to make up for it by peppering in some nice food clips.

[@Siska0Robert]

I'd take everything he says with a grain of salt, though.

[@josephledux8598]

Puns, ugh. You deserve a thumbs-down because they were so awful. But you get a thumbs-up because they were so awesome.

[@enriquegarciacota3914]

My experience growing up and learning about Spanish conquistadors in Spain is that my textbooks didn’t stress enough how bad that was for the native people living in South America. But they were definitely not portrayed as “heroic figures”. I wonder how this history is taught in The Netherlands in schools. I have been told that Gengis Khan is a national hero in Mongolia.

[@ckl9390]

As for Ghengis Khan, as vicious warlords go, he wasn't that bad for the people he conquered. To my comprehension it was mostly "submit and live" and "live however you want as long as the tithe flows in".

[@mormacil]

@@ckl9390 He was horrific to the people who resisted his conquest. He wasn't that bad for the people who voluntarily surrendered. But he leveled entire cities with the people still in it. He was arguably also a serial rapist.

[@mormacil]

They're not remotely described as heroes in any of the text books made in the last few decades.

[@douglasfaichnie]

THAT was the best video you’ve created to date (imho). And I’m a closet physicist. That’s how fascinating it is, and your endnote regarding what we value today & why, was well worth adding. Thank you Joe.

[@confuciuslola]

Here in the Netherlands we learn about the VOC in school but like with slavery in America the atrocities are very much glossed over. And it's true that a lot of those war criminals responsible for genocides are still being honored with statues.

[@SaltiBebe]

I wrote a paper on the Banda Islands spice monopoly and Jan Pieterszoon Coen once. That was one of the darker history I really studied, considering it all happened because of spice (and money which is always a big factor tbh)

[@elainebelzDetroit]

Someone else probably mentioned this already, but another reason Brazil was claimed by Portugal is because the line the Pope had drawn through the Atlantic Ocean, granting (through the Doctrine of Discovery) Spain any territories west of the line and Portugal any territories east of it, went through South America. (Europeans didn't know S. America was so far to the east, so the Pope thought he was just drawing a line in the ocean. Portugal was busy colonizing Asia while Spain was colonizing the Americas, to put it a bit simplistically.)

[@albevanhanoy]

Imagine how different history would have been if the Ottomans lost the siege of Constantinople and it never became Istanbul. That was probably one of the biggest turning points in history, and one of the most impactful conflits.

[@precursors]

"never became Istanbul" Citizens of Constantinople and the surrounding area already called it "sthn poli" (downtown)

[@IgorFioli]

One of the best videos I´ve ever seen on YT. Congrats!

[@curiousworld7912]

I had a feeling the Dutch East India Co. would be 'the' company, as I knew it was the first publicly-traded corporation. I'm grateful for spices, of course, but not so much for what transpired because of our desire for them.

[@curiousworld7912]

@@josephk4932 I didn't know that.

[@Positive_Pepper]

Really great video, one of my favorite topics is how spices really were the start of globalization and capitalism. Great work!

[@HNedel]

First it was spices, then sugar and tobacco. Then came oil. The similarities are there, for over 3000 years trade has been shaping the world

[@wingieman]

Thanks!

[@JonFrumTheFirst]

Corrections: 1. Constantinople was not renamed Istanbul at the time of the Ottoman conquest. While the name had been used before, the official renaming didn't take place until the founding of Turkey after WWI. 2. The slavery thing. The West African slave trade did not shift from buying from African chiefs to 'kidnapping.' Europeans who tried to land on the mainland to take slaves died of infectious diseases. They continued to pick up slaves at coastal outposts controlled by local African leaders. The Portuguese did, the Spanish did, the Dutch did and the English did. They COULDN'T kidnap Africans - they knew better than to try.

[@sherk3286]

Also Istanbul actually evolved from a greek shorthand, not a turkish name to make constantinople more islamic.

[@kudostothewiz2703]

Yeah. He often gets his political bias in the way of facts. Bacteria and virus doesn't care about skin color. He is still interesting to watch though.

[@douglasscott3541]

Hi Joe, I am the engineer aboad a replica of a VOC ship that in 1606 was the first to come to Australia. For all there horrendous faults they were skilled but brave seafarers. The shipping was a genuinely risky affair with much loss of life and cargo. But to it we ow much of what Europeans came to know of the world including Australia, Japan and Korea .

[@carlosrvra]

Sad to say you probably wouldn't run out of content anytime soon with "Forgotten Atrocities"... which is to say, it's very needed. GO FOR IT!

[@JD-fk4qq]

"The Spice Must Flow" Also, regarding the horrible atrocities, some suggestions : Armenian Genocide, Pontian Genocide, Stalin's Famine and Purges and Kurdish Genocides. A worth book to read, regarding Asia Minor atrocites (displacements ,killings, rapings, capturing and enslaving citizens, forced ultra-Long marches under pretexts of going somewhere else, etc) the book " Τhe Number 31328" by Ilias Venezis, a survivor of such cruel events. Shameful, to even read of others doing such things and the shrewd, cunning propaganda and misinformation that existed since a long time ago. Most shameful than everything, these regimes keeps existing , not just by Denying History but Actively doing everything they can to change it. The Attackers posing as the peacekeepers and victims.

[@paavobergmann4920]

I´d add Julius Caesar´s "Gallic Wars" (special feature: the demise of the Eburones), both the propaganda book he wrote and what actually happened, and the utter destruction of Karthage, and Korinth, and Otto I.´s genocide of the slavic people´s of north eastern germany.

[@cudanmang_theog]

Native American genocides...

[@joerig96]

Still colonialism, imperialism and capitalism is happened for thousand of years (until today) and casualties is beyond of our imagination

[@pseudotasuki]

Your closing remarks reminded me of something from a novel I read. This organization developed time travel and at one point brought an ancient warrior to the present. The thing he was most amazed by? Topical pain relievers. Electricity, telephones, cars, airplanes, guns? All impressive stuff. But lidocaine was *magic*.

[@jannetteberends8730]

If it had been a woman, it would have been the birth control pill.

[@darkwing3713]

In a guy from the past novel I read, the ancient dude is absolutely astounded by chef's knives. The best sword he's ever seen is sitting in a drawer in the kitchen. I love novels like that.

[@pseudotasuki]

@@darkwing3713 We're surrounded by miraculous technologies.