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This answer demonstrates a very narrow grasp of history. While about 11 million people died in the Holocaust, the Mongols HALVED the population of China from ab

This answer demonstrates a very narrow grasp of history. While about 11 million people died in the Holocaust, the Mongols HALVED the population of China from about 120 million to about 60 million. Not to mention completely erasing several races (such as the Persians) from the earth. This tendency to have a very short term memory when it comes to these types of events does not serve us well when it comes to these types of discussions.

Retric 13y ago
Genocide was not the Mongols goal. They did not pick some segment of China's population and decide they needed to die. They like the Romans where conquerors. And as all large civilizations have done so at some point there viewed less hardly, and perhaps with a little awe as they created the largest empire in history granted a short lived one. Pol Pot is an example of the other archetype of mass murder. He killed 1/4 of his country's population in 3 years in truly horrific fashion. But, in doing so he caused great harm to his own country's economy. What separates the Nazis is they efficiently eliminated large segments of the population without destroying society. It's horrific but also demonstrates at a somewhat visceral level that a large chunk of society is not that important. If 3/4 of the worlds bankers died tomorrow not much would change, if 3/4 of the worlds farmers died tomorrow there would be huge issues.
- dakinsloss 13y ago
  Where would the farmers get capital then? I think it's misinformed to claim that bankers are less important than farmers. There are clearly huge issues in the world of finance, but banking does serve an important and legitimate function.
  - Retric 13y ago
    Where do you think bankers get capital.
    - dakinsloss 13y ago
      From farmers and other business people. I'm not claiming businesses are unimportant, simply that bankers are (because they redistribute that capital as loans to potentially successful new enterprises).
      - Retric 13y ago
        A less snippy response is bankers are distributing the same finite pool of money so having twice as many bankers might make thing more efficient but it's not going to increase the available Capitol any time soon, ditto for having half as many bankers. Banking is important, but it's also highly automated.
- mseebach 13y ago
  So, settling the Jewish question was more than just killing the jews from one day to the other - the concentration camps were "just" the culmination of years of systematic persecution, beginning with boycotts in 1933, the anti-interracial marriage laws 1935, Kristallnacht 1938. In 1933, 533,000 jews lived in Germany, by the time WWII commenced, it was down to 214,000 - almost all of which were subsequently murdered. The majority of the jews killed in the Holocaust were not German, they were from all the occupied territories, most notably Poland. Endlösung didn't kill anywhere near 1/4th of the population - it killed 1/3 %, and that fraction had already been systematically marginalised. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Germany#Jews_under_the_Nazis_.281933.E2.80.931939.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Germany... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust#Victims_and_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust#Victims_and_deat...
  - Retric 13y ago
    Exactly, the efficiency had little to do with the method of death, the methods where simply the an example of said efficiency. It's a twisted blueprint. First vilify them, second remove them from anything approaching important positions (collage professors etc), third separate them from society (concentration camps), and finally murder them site unseen. Of course each of those steps where rather complex but the specifics are less important than the overall process. Because, it take a huge number of people willing to do horrible things to create atrocities on that scale. Arguably step one had been occurring for hundreds of years before the Nazi's rise to power, but they really pushed the envelope. What I find fascinating is I suspect for a great number of the leaders they really where just looking for something to vilify at the start and things just snowballed. It was only latter in the process as this huge segment of the population because less necessary that the idea of killing them showed up. Something like mass sterilization would have been as effective if there idea really was a twisted form of eugenics and they had been forcibly sterilizing people there and even in the US. However, while the initial idea may have been slave labor they kept sending so many people to these camps that they needed a 'solution'.
gurkendoktor 13y ago
The problem is that none of us agree what "Nazi efficiency" is. E.g. Mao Zedong killed a much larger number of people through his policies than the Nazis did, but letting your own population starve is not defined as "efficiency", rather the opposite of it. The grandparent apparently thinks of efficiency as in technology/engineering, and nothing that the Mongols used to kill people sounds very advanced to us. The Nazis had a very distinct way of using technology and bureaucracy for evil IMHO. And the OP seems to think in terms of economic efficiency.

Retric 13y ago

Genocide was not the Mongols goal. They did not pick some segment of China's population and decide they needed to die. They like the Romans where conquerors. And as all large civilizations have done so at some point there viewed less hardly, and perhaps with a little awe as they created the largest empire in history granted a short lived one. Pol Pot is an example of the other archetype of mass murder. He killed 1/4 of his country's population in 3 years in truly horrific fashion. But, in doing so he caused great harm to his own country's economy. What separates the Nazis is they efficiently eliminated large segments of the population without destroying society. It's horrific but also demonstrates at a somewhat visceral level that a large chunk of society is not that important. If 3/4 of the worlds bankers died tomorrow not much would change, if 3/4 of the worlds farmers died tomorrow there would be huge issues.

dakinsloss 13y ago
Where would the farmers get capital then? I think it's misinformed to claim that bankers are less important than farmers. There are clearly huge issues in the world of finance, but banking does serve an important and legitimate function.
- Retric 13y ago
  Where do you think bankers get capital.
  - dakinsloss 13y ago
    From farmers and other business people. I'm not claiming businesses are unimportant, simply that bankers are (because they redistribute that capital as loans to potentially successful new enterprises).
    - Retric 13y ago
      A less snippy response is bankers are distributing the same finite pool of money so having twice as many bankers might make thing more efficient but it's not going to increase the available Capitol any time soon, ditto for having half as many bankers. Banking is important, but it's also highly automated.
mseebach 13y ago
So, settling the Jewish question was more than just killing the jews from one day to the other - the concentration camps were "just" the culmination of years of systematic persecution, beginning with boycotts in 1933, the anti-interracial marriage laws 1935, Kristallnacht 1938. In 1933, 533,000 jews lived in Germany, by the time WWII commenced, it was down to 214,000 - almost all of which were subsequently murdered. The majority of the jews killed in the Holocaust were not German, they were from all the occupied territories, most notably Poland. Endlösung didn't kill anywhere near 1/4th of the population - it killed 1/3 %, and that fraction had already been systematically marginalised. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Germany#Jews_under_the_Nazis_.281933.E2.80.931939.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Germany... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust#Victims_and_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust#Victims_and_deat...
- Retric 13y ago
  Exactly, the efficiency had little to do with the method of death, the methods where simply the an example of said efficiency. It's a twisted blueprint. First vilify them, second remove them from anything approaching important positions (collage professors etc), third separate them from society (concentration camps), and finally murder them site unseen. Of course each of those steps where rather complex but the specifics are less important than the overall process. Because, it take a huge number of people willing to do horrible things to create atrocities on that scale. Arguably step one had been occurring for hundreds of years before the Nazi's rise to power, but they really pushed the envelope. What I find fascinating is I suspect for a great number of the leaders they really where just looking for something to vilify at the start and things just snowballed. It was only latter in the process as this huge segment of the population because less necessary that the idea of killing them showed up. Something like mass sterilization would have been as effective if there idea really was a twisted form of eugenics and they had been forcibly sterilizing people there and even in the US. However, while the initial idea may have been slave labor they kept sending so many people to these camps that they needed a 'solution'.

gurkendoktor 13y ago

The problem is that none of us agree what "Nazi efficiency" is. E.g. Mao Zedong killed a much larger number of people through his policies than the Nazis did, but letting your own population starve is not defined as "efficiency", rather the opposite of it. The grandparent apparently thinks of efficiency as in technology/engineering, and nothing that the Mongols used to kill people sounds very advanced to us. The Nazis had a very distinct way of using technology and bureaucracy for evil IMHO. And the OP seems to think in terms of economic efficiency.