I agree that discussions on this topic are generally toxic, but nothing in the GP directly assigned blame. It's more or less widely accepted in broader society

I agree that discussions on this topic are generally toxic, but nothing in the GP directly assigned blame. It's more or less widely accepted in broader society that European colonialism laid the foundation for much of the modern world and many historians agree it was in turn partially justified by the "subeuropean-ness" of colonized peoples. I can easily show you papers published in the last decade continuing to justify historic colonialism as bringing civilization. There's an excellent (though dated) book on this called "Machines as the Measure of Men", which I often recommend to other people in tech.