I was listening to his other series about the Mongols, and in the first episode, he talks about how over time, great figures become revered and their atrocities

I was listening to his other series about the Mongols, and in the first episode, he talks about how over time, great figures become revered and their atrocities lessened. For example, Genghis Khan killed 20-50 million people, which would be insane to think about today (and any leader who did so would be vilified, like Hitler) but because he is so removed from today, people think what he did was Great. So too with Alexander. For those who bring up the positive effects of such a figure (Alexander spread Hellenism, Genghis created the Pax Mongolica), Carlin said that these were not intended by such figures but simply happened as a result of their statecraft. Alexander for example did not expressly conquer peoples in order to spread Hellenism, he did so because he was expected to as being the son of a king. People simply have a recency bias as a default cognitive effect. One day, Carlin says, someone will also write about the positive effects of the Third Reich, just as they write about Alexander and Genghis, once all the people who might have been affected have died off.