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Comment by umvi | Hacker News Reader

Native Americans had wars and conquered each other for millennia before white man came. It wasn't some unified utopia in the Americas like Pocahontas leads you to believe. It was a huge cycle of tribalism, conquering each other, and bloodshed.

So... because they were conquering each other first, a technologically superior entity isn't allowed to conquer them?

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There was some parity in their conflicts, they had relative stability for thousands of years. The coming of Europeans was definitely a major disruption, to the amount of maybe 100M dead in a few years.

Of course back then Might made Right. Aren't we able to see a little further than that any more?

Might makes Right gave way to White makes Right.

Wow, this response is projecting a whole lot onto my comment.

My only reply in turn is, no, I don’t believe an entity should be “allowed” (by whom?) to conquer a nation in violation with their agreement just because they happen to have different technological capabilities

Your comment upthread was unsubstantive flamebait to begin with, so it's not surprising it got a flamewar response. Please don't do this on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I mean if we're getting into it, "white man" basically genocided their whole population with disease. The Native Americans never did anything nearly so heinous.

I'm not sure I understand your comment. If the genocide happened due to diseases imported from the Old World, how is it "heinous"? It happened at a time where people had no clue what diseases and immune systems were.

I dispute your characterization that people had no clue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Pitt#Biological_...

But that happened in the 18th century though, by then of course, empirical observation had played its role and a few people tried to weaponize it. I'm pretty sure accidental contamination during the 2 preceding centuries had already caused a massive decline in population.

Whether or not they knew they were transporting disease at the time really doesn't excuse the end result: mass genocide. And of course this doesn't authorize taking land.

It totally excuses it. Intent is key. If you have no clue what a disease, a virus, an immune system are I don't see how you can be called "heinous" for unknowingly and unwillingly spread diseases.

As for lands, I don't know, lands all over the world have been changing hands since human beings learnt how to walk, most of the time after violence/war. It happened in 1500 when the concept of "nation" didn't even exist and the only way to say that a land was yours was to be able to keep it.

The genocide of Native Americans extends far beyond the introduction of diseases like smallpox, in much more intentional ways.

Oh I agree. I was originally puzzled by the mention of "death by disease" as a "heinous" thing. I didn't dispute that heinous things were done.

Well, then China is responsible for mass genocide due to Covid-19 then. After all, whether or not they knew they were transporting disease to other countries 6 months back really doesn't excuse the end result.

I don't think accidental genocide is a thing.

Genocide, accidental or not, is surely still a thing.

Eh, better learn you some history, and not just the "history" written by the conquerors.

Your argument is the standard, and ignorant, response. "They were violent TOO!".

The nature of Native American "War" was generally of a completely different nature than the white man take.

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