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Comment by perl4ever | Hacker News Reader

Do you find the following inaccurate or biased, and if so, for the uninformed, briefly why?

"Campaigns initiated in his lifetime include those against the Qara Khitai, Khwarezmia, and the Western Xia and Jin dynasties, and raids into Medieval Georgia, the Kievan Rus', and Volga Bulgaria. These campaigns were often accompanied by large-scale massacres of the civilian populations, especially in the Khwarazmian- and Western Xia–controlled lands. Because of this brutality, which left millions dead, he is considered by many to have been a brutal ruler"

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From what I've seen Ganghis Khan was brutal against non-surrendering nations, but beneficial for those who followed him. E.g. you woulsn't see him cutting his subjects heads, and his brutality was pretty much an intimidation tactic so others army would join him.

That's how authoritarian regimes usually work. Do everything they say and you'll be okay. The problem is a decent number of people don't want to be absolutely subservient.

>Do everything they say and you'll be okay

This is an extremely odd thing to say about authoritarians right now, although this may be my American perspective, since people have been pointing out recently how futile it can be when dealing with police in the US. Still, I kind of think it's universal - being polite to authority is utterly useless once you are a suspect, thought to be dangerous, or have something they want.

It made a lasting impression on me when I was stopped in my car as a teenager and an officer decided that I must be a drug smuggler because I was too quiet/nervous.

Edit: I guess if you interpret "everything" broadly enough, your statement is somewhat plausible, but "everything" includes many situations where an authority asks you something that is theoretically or ought to be voluntary and you have to be aware that it's not really a choice. And it's still not always true.

>brutal against non-surrendering nations

This is ambiguous about cities or nations that resisted and then surrendered. There seem to be a lot of references to how surrender was followed by everyone being killed or enslaved. I kind of think that's an area of contrast between their standards and today's. You can point to "civilized" countries destroying whole cities in the 20th century, but doing it after your enemy is defeated is much more frowned on.

Also, when you say "beneficial for those who followed him" it elides what it meant when they enslaved the women and children from a conquered population. I don't think they generally allowed individuals to choose whether to be among those massacred or not. And what happened next probably wasn't consistent with modern human rights standards, which again, I think goes back to the original point that started the subthread.

Oh it’s ok then

> considered by many to have been a brutal ruler

He raided these places in military campaigns; he did not rule them at the time of the raids. So he was not a brutal ruler. In fact, he was a benevolent ruler, distributing loot equally and promoting on merit rather than nepotism.

As another commentator has pointed out, the brutality was an intimidation tactic. It was very selectively applied. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23708182

He also did much to bring modern human rights to his subjects. You can read about it in Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford, an anthropologist who lives in Mongolia part-time. https://amzn.com/B000FCK206

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