Hacker News Reader

In your examples, it's about (many) individuals who chose to do bad things together. The article is talking about cultural violence, in the sense that a whole nation was behind it. I see it more comparable to "circus" games in Colosseo, or legally approved slavery, wherever and whenever it happened, rather than to Nazis or ISIS.

View on HN

I disagree completely with you on this. Nazi violence was just as much a product of culture and social forces than Aztec violence, it's merely much closer to home and we know a lot more about it.

I think this 'outlier excuse' works when talking about serial killers or even criminal gangs, but I'm talking about violence on a much bigger scale, a scale where cultural factors are always contributing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com