for context, the 10 million inhabitants number is in dispute. some estimates for N. America alone go up towards 20 million or even 50 million (including Mexico).

Part One: Numbers from Nowhere

Mann first treats New England in the 17th century. He disagrees with the popular idea that European technologies were superior to those of Native Americans, using guns as a specific example. The Native Americans considered them little more than "noisemakers", and concluded they were more difficult to aim than arrows. Prominent colonist John Smith of the southern Jamestown colony noted as an "awful truth" that a gun "could not shoot as far as an arrow could fly". Moccasins were more comfortable and sturdy than the boots Europeans wore, and were preferred by most during that era because their padding offered a more silent approach to warfare. The Indian canoes could be paddled faster and were more maneuverable than any small European boats.

The contrasting approaches of "High Counters" and "Low Counters" among historians are discussed. Among the former, anthropologist Henry F. Dobyns estimated the number of pre-Columbian Native Americans as close to 100 million, while critics of the High Counters include David Henige, who wrote Numbers from Nowhere (1998).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_Americas_Before_Columbus

The population debate has often had ideological underpinnings. Low estimates were sometimes reflective of European notions of cultural and racial superiority. Historian Francis Jennings argued, "Scholarly wisdom long held that Indians were so inferior in mind and works that they could not possibly have created or sustained large populations." In 1998, Africanist Historian David Henige said many population estimates are the result of arbitrary formulas applied from unreliable sources.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_the_Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas#Estimations

it's worth noting that Tenoctitlan at around a quarter of a million inhabitants was likely the 4th largest city on earth at the time, with a population larger than current day Paris or Istanbul and had 4x the population of London. the spanish conquistadors purposely fouled it's extremely innovative water and transportation system, making disease rampant.

The plague thing is obviously bullshit beyond the first few decades. Why were there still Indian Wars until the 1920s if they all died of disease?

I've been seeing the term "evergreen" used a lot recently. Is it new zoomer slang?

ngl i remember not really liking it, like i agree with it in general i just don't really like the writing style, imo the False Witnesses essay from 2008 that they also have on the site gets the point across a lot better

Clearly Erdoğan is being paid off by Xi and those Muslim nations are actually all in league with those pesky evil reds!

Not true, because they could go there and lie like the BBC did that one time

May 2018 was when Zenz published his first report to the Jamestown Foundation. It didn't pick up steam until Washington Post's article about him on May 2019. It was pushed extremely hard April-May 2021 by bellingcat, Bloomberg, WSJ and SCMP. There are multiple waves of it because re-wording of the initial "study" findings keeps getting re-published and re-posted to places like Reddit. If you go on Reddit you will see the same debunked Zenz-based Uighur articles posted like clockwork every 3 months for years on end.

On the Jamestown Foundation founder William W. Geimer:

Geimer was described as "a visionary" by Jamestown Foundation Board member and former Central Intelligence Agency director R. James Woolsey, and by Jamestown Foundation Advisory Board member Zbigniew Brzezinski as "a patriot with a vision, an idealist with a program, and a leader who knew how to get things done". Geimer's funeral service was attended by then-Vice President Dick Cheney, also a Jamestown Foundation Board member.

Basically an anti-communist and imperialist DC based think tank published a "study" from Zenz. That study used Radio Free Asia as a source, as well as extremely flawed methods of extrapolation, to come to its conclusions and Zenz never visited Xinjiang nor does he speak or read Chinese or Uighur.