5 ms·
No nation is exclusively good, but I would challenge you to name a nation which did both more good and less evil.
by cperciva 1y ago
No nation is exclusively good, but I would challenge you to name a nation which did both more good and less evil.
- closewith 1y agoThan the United Kingdom? The obvious answer in line with my comment is Ireland.
- MangoToupe 1y ago[flagged]
- cperciva 1y ago[flagged]
- arandomusername 1y agoBy siding with the USSR, and letting them take control over eastern Europe? The USSR was just as bad as Nazi Germany.
- cperciva 1y agoFair enough, but I'd say that half of Europe being free is better than none of Europe being free. I don't think there's much the UK could have done to help Eastern Europe.
- graeme 1y agoThe USSR was terrible. Remarkably, the Nazis still managed to be substantially worse. As one example there's the Hunger Plan. Hitler's defeat stopped him from executing it, though they had started. He planned to kill 35-41 million people in eastern europe via starvation and take the land for Germany. The USSR equivalent, Holomodor, killed 3-5 million, and was fully executed. Horrendous. Not as bad as the hunger plan. And that was not the only Nazi mass death plan.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_Plan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_Plan
- arandomusername 1y agoThat's a fair point. USSR soldiers did mass rape women in conquered territories (and even their own). And the Brits did have that famine in India that killed a lot as well. Maybe the Nazis were worse, but wasn't really a good vs evil war.
- hollerith 1y agoThe Europeans invented modern science and technology, with England contributing the most (particularly during the 19th Century). Maybe most nations of the world would've followed a course of colonization and empire if they had been as dominant in wealth, technology and organizational ability as England was.
- xg15 1y agoI mean, they did supply a substantial part of the world's independence days...
- thih9 1y agoWith its own wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_that_have_gained_independence_from_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_that_have_...
- cperciva 1y agoAnd most of those were voluntary, not armed rebellions.
- xg15 1y agoAnd how did they become part of the British Empire in the first place?
- bee_rider 1y agoI mean, you might be able to make some kind of argument about the good outdoing the evil (I think it would be hard, but hey, I won’t call a line of argument impossible until I see it happen). But, the idea that it would be challenging to name a country that did less evil than GB is pretty ridiculous, right? Most countries didn’t have colonial empires, so GB is pretty high up there (arguably not at the top) in the evil rankings.
- cperciva 1y agoSure. The UK has done a lot, both Good and Evil. There are lots of countries which have done less Evil than the UK. There are some countries which have done more Good than the UK. I can't think of any country which is on both lists.
- bee_rider 1y agoI don’t think it is really quantifiable. Like if I say France, how would anyone adjudicate that? In terms of “good,” both contributed in WW2, both made some contributions to the concept of liberal democracy…
- arandomusername 1y ago[flagged]
- bee_rider 1y agoHaving a colonial empire involves countless horrible acts of evil. GB was a little bit ahead of the curve on ending the slave trade (at least compared to particularly shitty countries on this issue, like the US). But is it also a problem that they themselves contributed massively toward, so kind of a mixed bag there.
- arandomusername 1y ago[flagged]
- pvg 1y agobut I would challenge you to name a nation This sort of thing is way offtopic, come on. It's puerile flameframing.