Comment by thworp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thworp | Hacker News Reader

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> It is interesting that civilizations have engaged in ritual sacrifice. The question is why?

A few thoughts:

- Sacrifice and civilization are closely related. To live in a society you have to sacrifice some autonomy, some of your (and your family's) goals and some resources. Further, to prepare for the future you have to make a sacrifice in the present. Many people even sacrifice their present selves for their future (not born yet) offspring. It is only logical (if a bit esoteric) then, to think that making a bigger sacrifice will transmute into bigger positives.

- Christianity (not that familiar with Judaism or Islam) was revolutionary because Jesus already made the ultimate sacrifice, essentially freeing everyone from the obligation.

- If one takes a sober view, the history of ritual sacrifices has not ended (and probably never will). Mao was willing to sacrifice millions to bring about Communism (read: Paradise / heaven on earth). Similarly for the Bolsheviks, Nazis, Red Khmer, Robespierre etc. They all explicitly stated in their own writing that the deaths were a worthwhile sacrifice. That is the psychopathic variant of ritual sacrifice, slaughtering a goat to Zeus looks a lot more tame and rational in comparison, no?

We can safely add plenty of liberal democracies to that list if the criteria is "willing to cause the deaths of millions to realize their political project". At the very least Britain and the US.

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth bringing it back around to politics (I wish I lived in a world where I didn't have anything to say about it), but cancel culture has shown that people still love to gather 'round for a good old fashioned sacrifice.

We sacrifice millions every year because we

1. Don’t want to change our reliance on cars

2. Don’t want to address hunger and houselessness.

3. We are doing basically nothing about global warming.

A lot of countries COVID strategy was effectively human sacrifice too. This practice never ended.

Homeboy just compared human sacrifice to [current social justice talking points]. Most who died of covid were overweight, old, and had preexisting medical conditions related to lifestyle. They contributed to their own "sacrifice".

People who wonder how we justified sacrificing humans before. This is how.

We legitimately believed that sacrificing humans was helping prosperity, etc. We’re doing the same now with a few extra steps of indirection and abstraction.

Authoritative religious figures stealing baby from a mothers arm and the local shaman sacrificing it on an altar = same as driving a car. Hacker news is a RIOT.

Wait until you realize that a lot of human sacrifice in the past had willing victims.

Willing being a bit of a stretch considering the entire society was conditioned to believe it was necessary.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with that and maybe you’ll go do some research on this topic.

I think it still exists in some extreme groups. Just think about any cause worth dying for an you essentially find an argument for a sacrifice.

In fact I remember the Texas governor Dan Patrick saying a lot of grandparents would be willing to sacrifice themselves during Covid for the economy (oddly he did not seem to be willing to lead by example).

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