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Comment by Malarkey73 | Hacker News Reader

The article uses the same "tone" that we regularly use to write about the Romans - who crucified people, ritually strangled prisoners during their triumphs, kept slaves, and made people fight to death for their fun. That said I'm not sure the Gauls or Parthians or Carthaginians were saintly.

I don't think the author is implying that the Aztecs were better or the same or worse than Tlaxcala or Cortez conquistador. The neutral tone is adopted for European and Native American ancestors alike because of the separation of time not cultural sensitivity. And so we adopt this historical voice because we realise that the past was bloody and awful and the same society that had Cicero also had Crassus crucifying 6000 slaves along the Via Appia during the same lifetime. And the same people who built towers of skulls were enslaved and wiped out by Cortes.

But honestly it's not a competition. You adopt the neutral tone to avoid endless whataboutery.

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>You adopt the neutral tone to avoid endless whataboutery.

>It's hard for me to imagine that people wanted to be sacrificed, but that's my own biases and cultural conditioning talking.

You presumably quote that as if there was a contradiction there, but there isn't.

We have fairly recent cases of children willingly blowing themselves up in Syria. All it really takes is the promise of a glorious afterlife, possibly combined with a life of deprivation in the here and now.

Being sacrificed to the Aztec gods was a great honor, it was probably voluntary in the majority of cases. As a rule of thumb, you don't want to sacrifice the unwilling, it kinda ruins the show.

No child (or adult..) on this planet has ever willing blown their self up and that is exactly why we as an “evolved” society have various consent laws.

That's... simply untrue.

First of all, people kill themselves for all kinds of reasons, all the time. Secondly, people are willing to sacrifice their lives for a perceived greater good. Martyrs are revered in many cultures around the world, including Christian culture.

The fact that some martyrs use modern explosives is just an "implementation detail".

Kids aren't martyrs blowing theirselves up to commit murder for some to them imcomphrehisble “greater good” but kids do do what they’re told by sick fuck adults.

Your own refusal to address the primary assertion of my post concedes your agreement.

Kids don't always do what they're told, but they're inclined to believe what they're told. Acting out on a false belief nevertheless can be done willingly.

Similarly, the parent telling their child to do such a thing also believes that their child is getting a ticket to paradise, along with themselves and the whole family. Isn't an eternity in paradise worth it? From that perspective, there's nothing sick or evil about it, it's just a very different perception of how the world works. If you were born in a different time and place, you may share those same beliefs.

> Your own refusal to address the primary assertion of my post concedes your agreement.

I don't disagree that these things are abhorrent, but that's because we happen to share a different system of beliefs. I don't agree with your simplistic explanation that these people are just "sick fucks".

the children sacrificed by the aztecs were captives, prisoners of war, etc. there is zero evidence suggesting anyone voluntarily sacrificed themselves. it was a demonstration of power and terror by the state dressed up in religious garb.

The Aztec culture was exterminated 100s of years ago why politicize it?

Agreed! Am currently reading Charles McCann's '1491' and '1493' which are about the "discovery" and colonisation of the Americas.

A major point he makes is that the Spanish Inquisition and the European religion wars were underway at the same time, and that both American and European societies were horrifically violent, in comparison to modern day.

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