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Interesting. I just read a long expose on Mao's party and the tens of millions of Chinese people they are responsible for killing. Can you recount a similar sto

Interesting. I just read a long expose on Mao's party and the tens of millions of Chinese people they are responsible for killing. Can you recount a similar story of the West? Just trying to understand how it compares.

pphysch 2y ago
There's a huge amount of documented history of mass killings, destruction of institutions, and economic exploitation by the West and USA in particular. By American authors, too. Frankly, I'm astonished that you aren't aware of this.
- FredPret 2y ago
  Name one on par with Stalin’s agricultural reforms or the Cultural Revolution or the madness in Cambodia.
  - pphysch 2y ago
    Genocide of Native American peoples, enslavement of Africans, political subjugation of LatAm, largest modern gulag system (#1 prisoners per capita, prison slavery still practiced).
    - FredPret 2y ago
      Unquestionably some of these were unacceptable acts. But the numbers don't stack up. There's also a huge qualitative difference. According to [0] there was a population decline adding up to 4 million native deaths (from all causes, including hunger and disease) over the past half a millennium. Russia and China killed 5-10 million of their own people just in the past century. They had cannibal banquets where they quite literally ate the rich in public ceremonies. China, right now, has more than a million Muslims in prison camps, churning out gadgets for the communist economic machine. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_genocide_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_genocide_in_th... If the issue is that you hate the United States, you'll always find something to criticize, and I think we'll never find common ground. I grew up surrounded by many anti-American ideas. But when I tried to examine that place from a neutral point of view, in the proper context, after traveling to and living in many places, I found it impossible not to become a raving fan.
      - aliasxneo 2y ago
        I had a really hard time stomaching the cannibalism. I had no idea this all happened until I started digging into it more recently. The stories of people being disemboweled while still alive and having their intestines feasted on just seems incomprehensible.
        FredPret 2y ago
        Puts a new spin on it when lefties tweet to "eat the rich". Stomach churning stuff.
      - pphysch 2y ago
        > If the issue is that you hate the United States, you'll always find something to criticize, and I think we'll never find common ground. That's the issue, I'm not viewing this through a moral lens. I know you believe a priori the West is essentially Good and communism is essentially Bad, because that is what we are taught in school. Then it becomes easy to find evidence that fits your conclusion, there is literally a government-backed industry manufacturing such "evidence" (USG has earmarked something like $3B purely for funding anti-China propaganda). There's no point trying to reason someone out of an opinion they didn't reason themselves into. I think both systems have pros/cons, and the proof is in the pudding. China evolved out of a difficult colonial period and civil war to become world leader in many technologies. "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
        corimaith 2y ago
        > I know you believe a priori the West is essentially Good and communism is essentially Bad, because that is what we are taught in school. I think you're attacking a strawman here, what OP is pointing out for the faults of the West, it is still a preferable choice in comparison to the brutality the Communists performed on on their own people. It's ironic really because the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward very much is a difficult thing to ignore, if at all neccessary given that Asian Tigers that China modeled itself from, in Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan did not have to resort to such policies to achieve their wealth.
- aliasxneo 2y ago
  I never said I wasn't aware of the faults of the West. I'm not naive enough to think Western culture is anything close to being innocent of crimes (many which are, as you pointed out, documented). However, I'm simply pointing out that the collectivist culture of these countries in the 20th century was responsible for killing vast swathes of their own populations. My question was, of the documented horrors influenced by Western culture, which do you see as being comparative to this unfathomable death toll?
wat10000 2y ago
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pphysch 2y ago

There's a huge amount of documented history of mass killings, destruction of institutions, and economic exploitation by the West and USA in particular. By American authors, too. Frankly, I'm astonished that you aren't aware of this.

FredPret 2y ago
Name one on par with Stalin’s agricultural reforms or the Cultural Revolution or the madness in Cambodia.
- pphysch 2y ago
  Genocide of Native American peoples, enslavement of Africans, political subjugation of LatAm, largest modern gulag system (#1 prisoners per capita, prison slavery still practiced).
  - FredPret 2y ago
    Unquestionably some of these were unacceptable acts. But the numbers don't stack up. There's also a huge qualitative difference. According to [0] there was a population decline adding up to 4 million native deaths (from all causes, including hunger and disease) over the past half a millennium. Russia and China killed 5-10 million of their own people just in the past century. They had cannibal banquets where they quite literally ate the rich in public ceremonies. China, right now, has more than a million Muslims in prison camps, churning out gadgets for the communist economic machine. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_genocide_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_genocide_in_th... If the issue is that you hate the United States, you'll always find something to criticize, and I think we'll never find common ground. I grew up surrounded by many anti-American ideas. But when I tried to examine that place from a neutral point of view, in the proper context, after traveling to and living in many places, I found it impossible not to become a raving fan.
    - aliasxneo 2y ago
      I had a really hard time stomaching the cannibalism. I had no idea this all happened until I started digging into it more recently. The stories of people being disemboweled while still alive and having their intestines feasted on just seems incomprehensible.
      - FredPret 2y ago
        Puts a new spin on it when lefties tweet to "eat the rich". Stomach churning stuff.
    - pphysch 2y ago
      > If the issue is that you hate the United States, you'll always find something to criticize, and I think we'll never find common ground. That's the issue, I'm not viewing this through a moral lens. I know you believe a priori the West is essentially Good and communism is essentially Bad, because that is what we are taught in school. Then it becomes easy to find evidence that fits your conclusion, there is literally a government-backed industry manufacturing such "evidence" (USG has earmarked something like $3B purely for funding anti-China propaganda). There's no point trying to reason someone out of an opinion they didn't reason themselves into. I think both systems have pros/cons, and the proof is in the pudding. China evolved out of a difficult colonial period and civil war to become world leader in many technologies. "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
      - corimaith 2y ago
        > I know you believe a priori the West is essentially Good and communism is essentially Bad, because that is what we are taught in school. I think you're attacking a strawman here, what OP is pointing out for the faults of the West, it is still a preferable choice in comparison to the brutality the Communists performed on on their own people. It's ironic really because the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward very much is a difficult thing to ignore, if at all neccessary given that Asian Tigers that China modeled itself from, in Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan did not have to resort to such policies to achieve their wealth.
aliasxneo 2y ago
I never said I wasn't aware of the faults of the West. I'm not naive enough to think Western culture is anything close to being innocent of crimes (many which are, as you pointed out, documented). However, I'm simply pointing out that the collectivist culture of these countries in the 20th century was responsible for killing vast swathes of their own populations. My question was, of the documented horrors influenced by Western culture, which do you see as being comparative to this unfathomable death toll?

wat10000 2y ago

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