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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

>It is also arguably the greatest achievement of the human species.

This belief, and a horrid past (and present) of exploiting, plundering, murdering, etc all over the world, from the Crusades and colonial times to the Holocaust and onwards, is what makes it one of the most bloody and backwards "achievements of the human species".

Some exhibits from the "greatest achievement of the human species":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_the_Congo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years%27_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961

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You can make a laundry list equally as terrible for any civilization that has ever existed. Atrocities are not limited to one particular culture, they are a shared human failing. I would argue that the character of a culture is not set by its lowest points but by how it claws its way back towards the light of liberté, égalité, fraternité.

>You can make a laundry list equally as terrible for any civilization that has ever existed.

A lot of civilizations at worse were at war with some other. This list is like a cancer spreading over the whole planet -- including some of its "achievements" that can wipe out the whole planet literally, like nukes.

The Holocaust, for example, doesn't leave much to trivialize. Plus at least those other civilizations had a lot of excuses (ignorance etc). Most of those things in the list have done in the era of "lights" and "science" with no excuse but pure greed.

>I would argue that the character of a culture is not set by its lowest points but by how it claws its way back towards the light of liberté, égalité, fraternité

I would argue that liberté, égalité, fraternité is just a way of seeing the world of a particular culture, not the be all end all of morality and civilization.

Plus it has been a hypocritical slogan for centuries, one used to beat other peoples to make them "civilized" or "bring democracy" (the white man's burden), when underneath it was profits and greed doing the work.

> one of the most bloody and backwards "achievements of the human species"

You know very well he is celebrating where this has taken Europe and not the brutal aspects of its history, which, if you're honest, you'll agree are present in all cultures, especially when they rise materially and technologically above neighboring ones. If you stand by your statement, would you prefer to have western civilization go back to pre-roman times? Was it less bloody and more civilized than present-day Europe? C'mon.

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