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Comment by dools | Hacker News Reader

I think what IS unique to Europeans is:

1) Colonised the globe

2) Started a system of global resource extraction and slavery

3) Built an entire system of economic development based on this extraction which vastly enriched said Europeans and disadvantaged the colonised peoples

4) Deliberately nobbled attempts by those from which the wealth is being extracted to share in the economic gains through shady business, military and political tactics

5) Refusal to acknowledge the role of that extraction in their continued success (those [INSERT PEJORATIVE NAME FOR THE COLONISED HERE] just need to do better!)

I mean, I don't know if it's unique in all history but it's certainly unique when comparing local conflict pre-colonisation with European colonisation.

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This is not unique to Europeans to the extent that the suggestion is borderline racist.

It might be more accurate to say that every people engage(d) in this nature to the extent that they are capable, and that, in relatively modern recorded history, Europeans have proven themselves to be by far the most capable in that regard.

So capable that they are perhaps the first people ever to police themselves in moderation of this behaviour, often explicitly and deliberately acting in the interests of alien people to their own detriment. That is unique.

> So capable that they are perhaps the first people ever to police themselves in moderation of this behaviour, often explicitly and deliberately acting in the interests of alien people to their own detriment. That is unique.

Posting that in a thread about the Moriori is rich.

> It might be more accurate to say that every people engage(d) in this nature to the extent that they are capable

Questionable that every people did this, eg:

Aboriginal mitogenomes reveal 50,000 years of regionalism in Australia

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21416

strongly suggests that Australia was first settled by people spreading out, finding an area that suited them, and settling down such that the most recent indigenous DNA in various areas matches (bar evolution) the earliest DNA in those areas (ie no waves of replacement).

How certain can we be that those groups hadn't simply reached the limits of their capacity for expansion?

Aboriginal Australians have one of the lowest average IQs of any ethnic group on earth, they had little to no concept of agriculture or weaponry, and existed in relatively small disjointed tribes rife with infighting and appalling violence in an unforgiving climate.

Were these people capable of organising, planning, equipping, strategising, and executing an assault on their neighbours? Would it have even been worth it - what would they gain? Even if capable, they may have been wisely unwilling.

I think it's incredibly naive to think that a capable tribe of Aboriginal Australians would have left their defenceless neighbours in peace if they stood in the way of valuable resources. Or that this didn't indeed occur countless times in relatively small skirmishes.

What you have described doesn't sound that unique to Europeans. The article this discussion was spawned from describes behaviour by Maori against the Moriori that mirrors most of your described points.

I would argue that throughout history, people have been acting like shits to each other, regardless of their point of origin, race, religion, or culture. We're just finally enlightened enough to be examining this behaviour through a critical eye.

None of these are European...

Europeans were the first to do it across continents, sure? But are you going to blame the culture of the first persons to use electricity to eliminate jobs of manual labour? Or is that just technology paving a way?

Your comment has nothing to do with Europeans specifically.

What is unique to Europeans and their descendants is to lambast their own history and portray themselves as uniquely evil. I am no aware of any other culture which has done the same, possibly/probably because cultures which show this behaviour end up extinct.

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