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While what you say is true, some conquests were considerably more disastrous than others. Compare the impacts of the conquest of the Americas by Europeans and
by lordofgibbons 5y ago
While what you say is true, some conquests were considerably more disastrous than others.
Compare the impacts of the conquest of the Americas by Europeans and the conquest of Central Asia/Middle East by the Mongols vs the European conquest of Egypt. The conquest of Egypt, while colonialism, seems almost benign in comparison to the destruction brought about the former two examples.
- redis_mlc 5y agoNote the Americas already had civil and external wars long before the Spanish arrived. When you know the full history of the Conquistadors and their relationship with the local population, things are not so clear. For example, the Spanish: - didn't teach locals to do mass ritual sacrifice and throw the bodies down the steps of the temples - didn't tell one of the local kings to burn his empire's library to erase any history before his reign - didn't force their "local allies" to march on the capitals of the empires.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoThat’s one opinion. The dead think it’s all disastrous. To say one is more or less disastrous is to make a subjective judgement call as to which is/was a preferable outcome.
- tsimionescu 5y agoThis is absurd absolutism. As if killing 1 person is as bad as killing 1 billion - sure, to the one person that died it's as bad as it gets, but that doesn't mean we should equivocate to this level.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoYou might be engaging in a straw-man argument by comparing 1 person being killed with a billion deaths.
- tsimionescu 5y agoSo it does depend on numbers? The conquest of the Americas killed more than 90% of the population of the Americas. The conquest of Egypt mentioned before maybe killed 1% of the population. Are they the same thing or not?
- mensetmanusman 5y agoIt depends on both the numbers and the point of view. If you feel a part of the winning battle, your conquest was great, if you lost, the conquest was a disaster. When you integrate these feelings and points of view, you could quantify the amount of disaster or conquest felt. In any regard, the last century has been the greatest disaster of conquests in terms of absolute numbers/victims/weapons used/etc.