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Same millions of lives were lost to accomodate the current United States of America. Perhaps we should avoid looking at historical events with the current judg

by zzzpaz 5y ago

Same millions of lives were lost to accomodate the current United States of America. Perhaps we should avoid looking at historical events with the current judgement and ideology. It was a different world then and execution were pretty normal (so was slavery for example, which US have kept till 1863)

DrSiemer 5y ago
A huge amount of people being slaughtered in a single location purely for entertainment is not really something you can offset by the amount of lives lost for the "benefit" of half a continent. It's a useless comparison. Besides that, it isn't necessary to drag the USA into every bad situation that has ever occurred.
- zzzpaz 5y ago
  It's not necessary to drag USA, but it's just an example of how stupid these arguments are. Historical facts needs to be analysed with the lens of what was considered normal at that time not with the lens on what we consider to be normal today. As many slaves were used also to build the pyramids for example or to some extend modern slavery is a thing in some countries (look at how Qatar is handling the construction of the stadiums for the 2022 fifa world cup). Why aren't we offended by what happen today as we've the right sensibility to understand this things? If that was not a great similitude is this a good one instead: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_of_U.S._Marines_urinating_on_Taliban_fighters https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_of_U.S._Marines_urinat... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_priso... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_post-invasion_Iraq https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_post-invasio... This are pretty much modern and new example, instead of paying so much attention to what happened 2000 years ago you should consider to fight in order to avoid this things to happen again. Instead of doing some empty consideration on pretty old facts.
  - DrSiemer 5y ago
    Most of the people here will be aware of all the examples you link to, and are generally appalled by them. But the fact that the world is still not perfect does not somehow prevent us from looking at the past through the lens of today's moral standards. Can you at least admit that we, as a species, have grown, because we no longer employ grand scale death pits? Someone can be offended by both historical atrocities AND the Qatar situation. The first we cannot change, the second we can still have some influence on. I would argue this is something we do more because something like the colosseum exists to remind us, not less.
    - ggsp 5y ago
      Honest question—what is the purpose of being offended at something that happened during e.g. Roman times?
      - DrSiemer 5y ago
        In the context of discussing the value of the colosseum I used the wrong word here. The simple remark that started this was just someone expressing wonder over how many people must have died there, purely for the entertainment of the masses. The point that zzzpaz appears to make is that we should be ambiguous to anything that happened in the past, because at the time those things were commonplace. Surely there is some better word that covers both the amazement about countless colosseum deaths and feeling resentment towards modern day atrocities, but I can't think of one. The fact that these things are not really connected is actually the point I am trying to make.
        ALittleLight 5y ago
        I think you "ambivalent" rather than "ambiguous". I agree that there is no reason to judge the past with their "moral lens". Of course the people in ancient Rome (in total) thought it was okay to kill people in the Coliseum - they were the ones doing it and watching it.
        5y ago
rantwasp 5y ago
we totally should look at historical events with the current “lens”. That’s the only way preventing us from regressing. Also, slavery is alive and well today. Just because it’s not called slavery does not make it okay. We are still killing people in mass - it’s just that it’s conveniently hidden from the “civilized” world
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  > we totally should look at historical events with the current “lens”. No, there are things that Romans did better than us today, even looking at them with current lenses, but that are hard to replicate in our times given the complexity of our society, the conflicts, the political systems, and, last but not least, the vastly better education and influence the general population has. We should learn from past mistakes though. If we apply basic statistic, deaths/years of activity, in the Colosseum died ~1 thousand humans every year. It's more or less the number of people shot and killed by the U.S. police every year. That's what we should do better because, of course, we're not sending people to fight to death or against lions anymore. To me, that looks like a solved problem.
  - akiselev 5y ago
    If US police officers killed 1,000 people a year for four centuries, it'd be about 0.13% of the present population of the United States. If I'm reading this right, a single city forced the rest of the Roman empire to violently sacrifice an equivalent of at least 40% of the city's population (which peaked at 1 million iirc) for their own amusement. How is that comparable to the fatalities caused by law enforcement officers operating on behalf of over 320,000,000 people, in any lens?
    - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
      Rome was an empire that extended from Atlantic Ocean to the middle east, from England to Egypt, it wasn't just Rome. and existed 2 thousand years ago, one would think that we learned something during the looooong period that separate us from ancient Romans, don't you think? Wanna look at history with modern eyes? Why don't we look at modern times with history eyes as well?
kaliali 5y ago
Facts About Slavery They Don't Teach You at School https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nuVhEdAgOY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nuVhEdAgOY

by zzzpaz 5y ago

DrSiemer 5y ago

A huge amount of people being slaughtered in a single location purely for entertainment is not really something you can offset by the amount of lives lost for the "benefit" of half a continent. It's a useless comparison. Besides that, it isn't necessary to drag the USA into every bad situation that has ever occurred.

zzzpaz 5y ago
It's not necessary to drag USA, but it's just an example of how stupid these arguments are. Historical facts needs to be analysed with the lens of what was considered normal at that time not with the lens on what we consider to be normal today. As many slaves were used also to build the pyramids for example or to some extend modern slavery is a thing in some countries (look at how Qatar is handling the construction of the stadiums for the 2022 fifa world cup). Why aren't we offended by what happen today as we've the right sensibility to understand this things? If that was not a great similitude is this a good one instead: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_of_U.S._Marines_urinating_on_Taliban_fighters https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_of_U.S._Marines_urinat... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_priso... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_post-invasion_Iraq https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_post-invasio... This are pretty much modern and new example, instead of paying so much attention to what happened 2000 years ago you should consider to fight in order to avoid this things to happen again. Instead of doing some empty consideration on pretty old facts.
- DrSiemer 5y ago
  Most of the people here will be aware of all the examples you link to, and are generally appalled by them. But the fact that the world is still not perfect does not somehow prevent us from looking at the past through the lens of today's moral standards. Can you at least admit that we, as a species, have grown, because we no longer employ grand scale death pits? Someone can be offended by both historical atrocities AND the Qatar situation. The first we cannot change, the second we can still have some influence on. I would argue this is something we do more because something like the colosseum exists to remind us, not less.
  - ggsp 5y ago
    Honest question—what is the purpose of being offended at something that happened during e.g. Roman times?
    - DrSiemer 5y ago
      In the context of discussing the value of the colosseum I used the wrong word here. The simple remark that started this was just someone expressing wonder over how many people must have died there, purely for the entertainment of the masses. The point that zzzpaz appears to make is that we should be ambiguous to anything that happened in the past, because at the time those things were commonplace. Surely there is some better word that covers both the amazement about countless colosseum deaths and feeling resentment towards modern day atrocities, but I can't think of one. The fact that these things are not really connected is actually the point I am trying to make.
      - ALittleLight 5y ago
        I think you "ambivalent" rather than "ambiguous". I agree that there is no reason to judge the past with their "moral lens". Of course the people in ancient Rome (in total) thought it was okay to kill people in the Coliseum - they were the ones doing it and watching it.
        5y ago

rantwasp 5y ago

we totally should look at historical events with the current “lens”. That’s the only way preventing us from regressing. Also, slavery is alive and well today. Just because it’s not called slavery does not make it okay. We are still killing people in mass - it’s just that it’s conveniently hidden from the “civilized” world

peoplefromibiza 5y ago
> we totally should look at historical events with the current “lens”. No, there are things that Romans did better than us today, even looking at them with current lenses, but that are hard to replicate in our times given the complexity of our society, the conflicts, the political systems, and, last but not least, the vastly better education and influence the general population has. We should learn from past mistakes though. If we apply basic statistic, deaths/years of activity, in the Colosseum died ~1 thousand humans every year. It's more or less the number of people shot and killed by the U.S. police every year. That's what we should do better because, of course, we're not sending people to fight to death or against lions anymore. To me, that looks like a solved problem.
- akiselev 5y ago
  If US police officers killed 1,000 people a year for four centuries, it'd be about 0.13% of the present population of the United States. If I'm reading this right, a single city forced the rest of the Roman empire to violently sacrifice an equivalent of at least 40% of the city's population (which peaked at 1 million iirc) for their own amusement. How is that comparable to the fatalities caused by law enforcement officers operating on behalf of over 320,000,000 people, in any lens?
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    Rome was an empire that extended from Atlantic Ocean to the middle east, from England to Egypt, it wasn't just Rome. and existed 2 thousand years ago, one would think that we learned something during the looooong period that separate us from ancient Romans, don't you think? Wanna look at history with modern eyes? Why don't we look at modern times with history eyes as well?

kaliali 5y ago

Facts About Slavery They Don't Teach You at School https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nuVhEdAgOY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nuVhEdAgOY