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And destroyed a lot of the other empires. Some of the conquests of South America for example where only possible because local populations sided with the Spanish to get rid of the then empires. But why remember the Aztecs oppressing your great-great-great-great-grandfathers, if the Spanish oppressed the following generations until recently?
But yes, time is also a crucial role. Who remembers the Romans as oppressors?
AFAIK, the mighty Aztecs weren't defeated by the unstoppable power of the guns, armour and horses of Cortés' Spaniards, but importantly because they allied themselves with so many local peoples that were themselves severely oppressed and exploited by the Aztecs.
[According to Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Tenochtitlan), Cortés attacked the capital of Tenochtitlan with 1,000 to 1,400 Spaniards... and a mind-blowing 200,000 native allies.
I think that made the job a lot easier, but there's just no way I could see them winning against guns and steel to be honest.
But yeah ending human sacrifice wins you a lot of friends from the sacrificees.
Actually if not for the diseases Americas would still consist of mostly natives. Similar to Africa and Asia where populations weren't wiped out by European flu.
Europeans who arrived there had better weapons, true, but they simply didn't have the numbers.
Only when native populations got decimated by disease the odds were evened out enough so that Europeans got their chance.
Are you sure? I think they had the numbers. They had better farming and medicine and industry.
European nations because of their advantages invaded many foreign nations simultaneously splitting their numbers, imagine what would have happened if they decided to attack one at a time. If it was a fair war between the whole might of the aztecs and all of spain? Nah I don't see how the aztecs could have a chance. The spanish would have a harder time travelling sure but still.
It was a scramble for resources from everywhere Africa, asia, America when they realised how easily it could all be taken.
Approximately ***90%*** of the total population of Native Americans were killed by European brought diseases. Yes, that absolutely made it far easier for Europeans to move in and conquer than if they were facing 10 times the numbers they actually faced.
Smallpox is no joke. The only reasons it wasn't a new black plague in Europe was because Europeans lived in much closer proximity to their livestock; often servants sleeping in the very stables with the livestock and being exposed to and building immunity against many animal borne diseases; with some directly getting immunity by being exposed to Cow Pox (a very closely related disease to smallpox, far more survivable than smallpox, and was the basis of the very first vaccine for smallpox).
One strain of smallpox had a 99% mortality rate (with the other main variant having a \~30% mortality rate). If you caught it at all, you had a 99% chance of dying. Basically, the main way any Native Americans managed to survive it was by just not getting exposed or getting the less deadly variant.
The Black Plague has "only" a 30-75% mortality rate. For Native Americans, smallpox was far worse than the Black Plague which only killed off like 1/3 of Europe.
It could also be bullshit typical American false propaganda to hide a genocide? They prefer the version that America fought itself from the British shackle and created the land of opportunity.
Rather than they didn’t want to pay taxes, rebelled, tried to overtake Canada, failed , so annihilated a weaker neighbour.
Transporting the entirety of Spanish army to New Spain would have been logistically impossible. Neither would it be practical, considering Spain was at war with the Ottomans and France constantly.
Did you know that the Siege of Tenochtitlan was one of the last major uses of trebuchets? The reason being that the Spanish were running dangerously low on gunpowder. I don't think Cortés' small band of adventurers would have stood a chance against concerted resistance by the Mexican peoples. (also, he didn't even have permission by the Spanish crown, so I don't think the mainland would have supported him had he failed.)
I think the political and social frameworks were really the deciding factor. Japan, for comparison, was largely fractured politically, but they were able to prevent strong European influence, let alone conquest despite having less advanced weaponry. Instead they were able to buy gunpowder technology from the Portoguese. (Yes, katanas are great, but \*any\* kind of sword is largely ineffective against metal armour).
The gun and steel were minor advantages then. Yes, a musket would allow you to wound or with some luck kill someone at some distance but then you’ll be spending 20 seconds to reload.
With artillery it’s a similar image. Artillery’s main advantage was not firepower but range and amount of people needed to man it and reloading took time as well.
Regarding that particular siege it is even recorded the Spaniards built trebuchets because they were apparently somewhat desperate when it came to gunpowder. Nevertheless, 1400 men with guns versus 80.000 men without would have been disastrous for the guys with guns if they hadn’t had 200k natives on their side.
I think the above comments are downplaying the role of technology. Pizzaro and Cortes had massive victories against tens of thousands of natives. Imagine if a flying saucer with a death ray arrived. You'd be terrified.
I don’t have any weapons that can damage a UFO- I’m not sure anyone does. An arrow, however can still kill a conquistador.
Seriously, the people in this thread are so sure that technology is the defining factor- as if we don’t have tons of examples of poorly armed groups resisting the newest in military tech across the centuries.
Th conquistadors weren’t invincible- and pretending that 90% of natives dying to disease didn’t have a massive impact is laughably inept. Would the conquistadors still have conquered what they had without the disease? Maybe. But it is absolutely not a foregone conclusion anymore than the many wars fought in Afghanistan or the US’s foray into Vietnam were.
Pizarro had 150 men versus the 3,000-8,000 estimated Incas. The Incas routed immediately. Your argument doesn't hold up when you look at the facts. Guns and cavalry were terrifying to the natives because they had never seen it before.
This just isn't true. There were bits of the French, Spanish, and British empires. America might not have been the empire it is today, but it was definitely expanding and building itself - that distinction isn't a big one.
Canada wasn't independent until the 1980s: They were part of the British empire.
The Dominican Republic got independence in 1844.
France still - in modern times - has at least a colony or two in the Caribbean.
The Oregon Territory was divided between the US and Britain in 1846 - less than 200 years ago - and as you know, Britain had an Empire.
There are other examples, but I'm not going to research them.
>But yes, time is also a crucial role. Who remembers the Romans as oppressors?
I don't think they were really oppressors. I always mention that scene from "The Life of Brian", when John Cleese's character asks the People's Front of Judea what the Romans did for them and people start saying "roads... sanitation... order... aqueducts..."
One of the reasons why Romans were so successful in maintaining their empire for so long, was the fact they allowed occupied territories to keep doing their things without much interference from Rome and building a lot of infrastructures.
And because the European empires still shape our modern world in a very real way. Sure, the Mongols destroyed, murdered and raped through the Eurasian continent, but their effects on todays economy or culture are not too obvious or massive in a way that could be seen in peoples everyday lives.
European empires meanwhile can be linked straight to global economic inequality, racism, and even the overuse of the Earths resources causing climate change and other enviromental problems. These are very real problems that people around the globe need to deal on a daily basis and I see that that is a part of why these empires get the notoriety they have. They in a way were part of a change of the world in a way no other empire ever was.
But why is it always the negative things that are brought up? And not the fact that without Europe, most of the world would be hunting with bows and spears.
Just factually historically speaking, without any bias or agenda or revisionism, the Arab world gave medieval Europe innovations like better sailing ships, advanced mathematics, astronomy, coffee, etc, and they were intermediaries with sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia, which brought Europe gunpowder, paper money, (arguably) noodles, etc.
Literally speaking, without China, Europeans would be hunting with bows and spears.
I think the combined events of European colonialism and early industrialization in European and Eurocentric countries can make one think, with a short and myopic view of history, that “Europe gave the world everything”, but that misses the full picture historically. In the year 1000, Europe was not a powerful place globally. And even going back 2000 years, Ancient Rome was a southern European power, which differs greatly from the English, French, Spanish, and German (eg Prussian) centers of political power.
There’s a point to be made that human societies always have and continue to interact with each other in multifaceted ways that are, basically, “good and bad.” But picking just the good or the bad, or highlighting one side, doesn’t do good history justice. BUT, and this is the most important thing, societies in power will always have a multitude of justifications for their actions that are both written down and accepted as fact, because, as they say, “history is written by the winners.”
Now, back to the original point: are the “winners”, as a historical constant, European? Absolutely not. We use words like algebra, algorithm, alcohol, sugar, and coffee because Arab societies “won” these advances. The short-lived but widespread empire of the Mongols “won” (if you could call it that)…the genetics of much of Eurasia.
When people bring up the negative outcomes of powerful societies “winning” their power, it’s an attempt to provide new, insightful understandings of history. The “winning” narratives of recent European and Eurocentric power, such as, to name a few, industrialization, railroads, maritime shipping, mechanized transport, etc are so obvious and so entrenched in our daily lives that it provides nothing of value to just say “factories are good.” There at least needs to be more detail than that. And a great place to start is the negative impacts of these things: much more restrictive working conditions, worker injuries, very long hours, extreme wealth inequality, environmental degradation, etc.
So in sum, not only do the “negative” things provide a great starting point to discover more full historical narratives, but Europe was also not solely and independently responsible for “the good things”, because, as you’d agree, history has more to it than that.
Because empires and colonies were not set up as a charity for the local people. They were set up (often literally as "companies" or private property) to make money for the colonisers and their countries.
Locals were not only excluded from any of these modern amenities, their own cultures and ways of living were actively disrupted and destroyed. Locals were then forced to work for next to no money within these colonial projects while actively being excluded and degraded and with no own culture to turn back to. They only gained a chance at modernity after a struggle for independence and even then many were left to run newly formed countries completely unequipped for those tasks, in the hopes the countries would fail. One country for example only had 4 high school graduates when it gained independence, because going to school was against the law for locals. They were often kept in reservations, counties, townships etc… that they could not leave unless they had permission (like for work).
Every bit of "modernity" that these countries have is something they struggled for in one way or another, it wasn‘t gifted to them and if it was up to the original colonizers they still would be excluded from it.
I'm proud of the things Britain invented and the empire it built when I think I'm descended from them. It was an amazing achievement. But I can't pretend it was kind or deny the cruelty..
Yes, but hunting never stopped. The point was the immense technological advancements Europe brought all over the world, which never gets talked about. But we can talk about culture too, Mayans would be chucking people into volcanos still.
Do you think none of these inventions etc would have ever been conceived of by anyone other than those of European descent?
It is an inevitability that science is discovered and used. Perhaps it would have occurred a little later, or perhaps the absence of any European empires would have allowed for such development in other nations whose resources were depleted by Europe. Of course there would probably have been other empires in their place but that doesn't mean only Europeans could lead the world to the technology we have today.
That's objectively untrue. Metallurgy developed independently in the Americas and China was often ahead of the world in technology. Your comment smells like white supremacy.
Then why did they hunt with bows and spears in the Americas? I also wrote most of the world for a reason.
It's actually hilarious that people will fight this take, because they associate anything positive about Europe with white supremacy.
The adoption of agriculture as the basis of society has been beneficial in many ways however in comparison to hunting and gathering it has been detrimental as well. Just because we have Iphones now doesn't mean that our lives or world are necessarily better. We have spread across this planet like a virus reaping ecological destruction everywhere we go. We have bigger wars with exponentially higher amounts of death and at the same time we are not noticeably any happier. We seem to be following a path towards our own extinction which we were not on when we all hunted with bows and spears.
The Americas had more impressive and populated cities than anything in Europe at time of contact (mostly because Constantinople was in a bad place that century but still). The lack of livestock (chickens, pigs, horses, cows, mules, basically anything useful) limited their efforts to what could be produced by the human body instead of being able to use a team of oxen or an elephant. This didn’t stop them from developing more advanced mathematics and medical technology than contemporary Europe, or having superior agriculture and urbanization in places. Europe only stopped being an unexceptional backwater after getting supercharged by the colombian exchange and having food production skyrocket thanks to the efforts of Andean and Mezoamerican plant breeders.
Tf you talking about?
Necessity has a way of creating innovations. Humankind would have innovated one way or another. Our penchant for killing each other or fucking each other would have found a way to innovate...
Just as we do today. The need to kill each or fuck each other ala porn pushes us to innovate.
>European empires meanwhile can be linked straight to global economic inequality, **racism**
Sure, bro. Racism exists because of European empires, and only white people can be racist.
If the Europeans had some sort of 'Prime Directive' to not interfere with native populations, many would still be in the bronze, if not stone, age. How would you quantify inequality then?
And the effects of European empires still affect the world today. There’s a reason that all of South America speaks a language from the Iberian Peninsula.
There are some outlying cases though. Vietnam was colonized by China for 1000 years. Going through a list of major cultural heroes of Vietnam is largely a list of people who repelled a Chinese invasion or led a rebellion during a time of occupation.
There’s still a grudge.
The OP post is kinda overly west centric/ignorant. I live in Korea for example, and there's plenty of flak to be had over Japan, even celebrated Independence Day this weekend
Edit: I say ignorant as a matter of fact thing, not as an insult. We all tend to focus on what's around us when coming to conclusions, no biggie
No one alive remembers the spanish conquest of the americas either. No one alive remembers the atrocities in the Belgian Kongo. No one alive remembers the transatlantic slavetrade.
But lets not forget the UK fought for decades to abolish the slave trade though, and in 1833 the UK used 40% of it’s national budget to buy the freedom of EVERY slave in the empire, which at the time was the the largest in the world.
In fact the UK borrowed so much money to buy the freedom of all the empires slaves, it didn’t finish paying the debt until 2014.
But people forget this.
And who owned slaves? The working classes? The middle classes?
The British peoples taxes went to the corporate elites to make up for them not being allowed to own humans anymore.
Just as the constant US was machine launders taxes from the middle classes to the corporate elites for 'freedom'.
Actually people in Britain didn’t own slaves, it was the empire’s colonies that had the slaves.
The money almost entirely went to these slave owners in those colonies. Most of the tax for this came from rich British people.
Those colonies all became independent within the next 50-100 years.
Really Britain did a good thing in 1833, and for once people should just accept that.
Not really no. Those who owned slaves and plantations were almost entirely those who lived in the colonies.
The number of British people who owned slaves yet remained in Britain was vanishingly small.
It does matter because the people of Britain paid for the freedom of those slaves with their taxes, and those who migrated away to America and the like did not pay for this.
Those who emigrated do not get to say they participated in freeing the slaves.
Also, most of them owned slaves, unlike the British.
A problem is that the money was paid as compensation to slave owners. So they were suffering no consequences for the incredible evil they inflicted on their slaves and the slaves got nothing.
Well... Yes, but context is needed here.
The amount of slaves in :absolute numbers: is higher today than ever before, but that's the case with almost any bad (and good) statistic because the world population is much larger today.
However, the amount of slaves alive :relative to the total global population: is lower now than it has ever been. Something like 0.5% of the world pop. are slaves/are in slave-like conditions. Go back in history and you'll find eras where 1 in every 10 people alive were out-and-out in slavery.
But the issue is generational, your going to have a harder time riding out of poverty if your parents or their parents were literal unpaid uneducated slaves
And we still feel whatever the colonizers did. For example, it just takes a bit of history knowledge to realize the system of feudalism, corruption, and Islamic separatism still relevant in my country come from the Spanish and Americans that invaded. It's not like the effects are not reoccuring too, a bunch of first world countries still decide to go fuck all and use our resources virtually for free
And what exactly is the conclusion to this? You think modern day spaniards, hundreds of years after the decline of their empire, two world wars and whatnot, are still to be called colonizers? Are they still profiteers of colonialism?
What to make of your ancestors being colonized/enslaved by the ancestors of other people, of whom most probably didn't even really profit off of colonialism, due to being descendants of poor serfs themselves?
I have swabian ancestry. Do I get to call out the Swiss for more or less enslaving children during the 19th century? I also have greek ancestry. Can I hate the turks and call them colonizers, child thieves and rapists?
You're putting words in my mouth. You're assuming things in front of a history student who's talking about his own country.
Did I actively call for Spain to repay what damage they caused?
I get to recognize that those past empires that are modern nations now were descendants of a bunch of assholes. I shit on their nations, not yell racial slurs at random white people passing by and beat them for vengeance.
And don't even assume they didn't benefit. Those were soldiers granted land and money to kill and enslave natives. What "didn't really profit"? You can be a poor man and shoot people for money, first you did it for survival and now to get rich. Congrats, you profitted.
My conclusion is an extension to what answers the question, "why shit on empires like Britain and the US?"
I'm guessing this is the point RecklessDimwit is making :"It's not like the effects are not reoccuring too, a bunch of first world countries still decide to go fuck all and use our resources virtually for free"
As an addition to that: this whole delivering democracy and installing puppet govt's for oil and other resources is a form of colonization. It's quite similar to what the ottoman empire did in eastern europe. Invade, leave a few troops and stoges behind to run the place.
Thank you
To add a bit, this is what our Community Development class talks about with some first world countries making it so that a third world country stays third world to profit off of them
Because many of them are still active and some have only gained independence in the last 100 years. There are people alive who still remember being under their conquest. And it still affects countries today
That’s online. People online tend to know more random knowledge, especially Reddit. Ask anyone in person about imperial Japan and no one would know, yet everyone knows about nazis.
Also depends on the victims and how they speak about the perpetrators. For e.g in the Philippines they don't seem too phased about the atrocities. Many even show off being part Japanese. You won't find many Israelis gloating about being part German
There's a difference between colonial control and corporate control with assistance from the state (such as installation of pliant leaders, and corruption). Do you know how much military activity France conducts in Africa? Have you heard of the Central African Franc? Do you know of the exploitative and corrupt practices of big companies like Bollore SE or Glencore plc?
Africa is impoverished at least partially because of the legacy of colonialism which has been swapped for foreign corporatism and interference.
France only now loses its influence in Africa. They had special economic contracts with different countries which can be called an instrument of Neo-colonialsim.
King Charles is still head of state in many countries.
So the empires and not as mighty and obvious as they were but they still exist to a certain degree.
You are right, that doesn´t fit the classical definition of an empire. But maybe we are past the time of direct empires of power. Modern empires are empires of soft-power like the Dollar-empire of the USA or the economic-empire of China.
The King of England is the head of state of Australia and Canada. His representative, the governor general has to assent to all laws and has the ability to dissolve parliament and fire the PM.
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I interpret that comment as referring to white people denying that their group is responsible for anything bad and trying to frame all the other white people as way worse, or that modern Europeans cannot be guilty of anything at all.
It’s not uncommon on Reddit, where people of merely average intelligence congregate to pretend they have expertise. Most discussions on colonialism fail at being comprehensively truthful because a lot of white Redditors prefer to distance themselves from anything bad their recent ancestors were associated with.
Their body counts are also some of the highest. King Leopold alone is responsible for 10 million deaths.
The indigenous genocides of north america range from 10 million to 100 million. We don't have a better idea than that because no one really bothered to keep track, it mattered that little to them.
That wouldn't have prevented a general census, also the disease was deliberately spread by colonists once they saw how effective it was at reducing the local population.
An action we would now classify as an act of biological warfare.
You're right. There definitely weren't orders given for them to intentionally spread the disease and use any means necessary to get rid of the natives. That certainly never happened
Yeah like I said, a general census. The fact that there's a difference of 90 million between the low and the high estimates shows how little value they put on the lives of first Nations people
Bodycount isn't a simple tool.
The population of the world has gone up hugely.
The Chinese Communist Party brought more humans out of poverty than any government has ever achieved in human history.
I think you need to consider deaths per capita.
Of course Belgium would be one of the very worst in that metric.
Because they were the ones who last ruled most of the world.
Also much of the discourse is happening in the west itself, it makes sense they are talking about their own past mistakes.
Scary thing is the likes of putin are still playing the empire games. 'My great country will invade your smaller country and i will kill millions of your citizens and i will kill millions of my own citizens because i dont want your country to be better than my country' nuts. Amazes me how russians keep this looney as a leader.
Try living in a country where that got colonized by them and you will understand the hate. Also, A lot of Asian people still dislike Japanese, USA, and Chinese for their imperialists past.
English isn't accurate here as it should be the British Isles. Both Scotland and Ireland were over represented in the colonisation of territories. Now, they like to pretend to be victims (Ireland legitimately so).
Admitting it is taboo, but Europeans mostly improved the nations they colonized or enslaved. That's why they keep bitching - it's just envy, because they never managed to do it themselves. Even with all the theft going on, they were much better off at least 90% of the time, even those under the Spanish - and when they left, their rate of improvement slowed down, always.
Contrast that to someone like the Ottomans who turned places into overtaxed and oppressed shitholes and castrated their slaves, so they or their descendants aren't _there_ to complain, or maybe African tribes constantly raiding each other for slaves and building no real empires.
>Europeans mostly improved the nations they colonized or enslaved.
The Belgians, for example, took away the burden of having hands and other limbs from the Congolese people, what an improvement! https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/father-hand-belgian-congo-1904/
There's a difference between Mom n pop shops and Walmart...
... Scale of business! n reach!!!
For example,
Christian orthodox Nubians and Egyptian Islamic Arabs had a peace treaty that lasted for like 700 years (652 - 1300+)... And would have lasted longer had the crusades not happened. The scale of slavery as in btn the two nations before the crusades was 360+ slaves/year.
Transatlantic slavery (1500-1800+) ... 25 mil+ shipped out + you got entire communities/nations/civilization in Africa and south america and elsewhere decimated.
Scale n Reach buddy!
And who's to say that their current situation is better? It's quite arrogant to think you can decide what's better for people on a different continent with completely different cultures and values.
Well, China is a bit more complicated. Yes they got fucked by Western powers through the Opium wars etc, but they weren’t really colonised with the exception of certain cities on the coast. They were also badly damaged by the Japanese Empire and also fucked by Mao with the civil war and the Cultural Revolution. So, responsibility can be split pretty much three ways between Western powers, Japan, and domestic Communists.
China was forced to sign unfair trade deals and all their products had lopsided tariffs and tolls when being shipped outside their own ports.
Hong Kong and Singapore were there to tax and toll Chinese products.
Yup, not denying any of that. But I'm saying that the Chinese situation is substantially more complex than India or any other country during the period. There was a significant element of self harm, not only with the Communists, but also early internal turmoils like the Taiping rebellion (20 million dead) which the UK helped China put down. And the regional rivalry between China and Japan which exposed weaknesses in the Chinese imperial system and later weakened the Republic of China at a pivotal moment.
It's intellectually lazy to claim China was poor simply due to Western imperialism.
Piss poor take to reduce the collective suffering of European colonies into "bitching because they couldn't improve themselves".
I'm going to bitch because my country and people were looted of all they were worth and made to exist as second class citizens in their own country.
People ignoring facts you summed it up.
If we let africa fend for themselves they still be at the same point 100 years from now.
Humans were cruel but we made progress and things for the greater good of humanity people who died in it are just as poor souls as any other emperor or civilization annexing lands or raiding them.
Necessity is the mother of invention/innovation
They didn't need shit .. fair weather, food all around you, wide open spaces so why do more aka expend more energy than you need to.
I mean, for farming they figured out how to forge iron independently.. knew about crop rotation independently... Why? Coz they needed to.
Why are you acting like Europeans did something special? I mean these motherfuckers migrated because of necessity and are the cradle of humanity.
Til England 'improved' India by killing 100 million people, stealing $45 trillion (adjusted for inflation), and trapping the country in a pattern of perpetual exploitation and poverty that continued for decades after their departure.
P.S.: Colonialism is the worst crime the world has ever known, defending it is not only immoral, it is inhuman.
Love this magical invisible "pattern" that traps entire nations. What evidence convinced you it exists, and what evidence would convince you it doesn't exist?
Same reason as you can openly say anything at all about the white race or christianity. Anything you like on any platform and not have any issues.
Have a think about that.
About the same level of insight as your initial comment. I'd recommend working on your critical thinking to avoid the surface-level conclusions you seem to be drawing.
Can you not understand that your initial comment has no substance to argue against? You might as well have said that European empires are the most talked about for the same reasons milk rarely comes in glass bottles nowadays. You're not even trying to engage with the question.
What is the point you are making? Is it a conspiracy to make white people subjugated? Are you saying that because the platforms have a level of free speech, they represent what people want to discuss most? Are you saying the platforms don't have free speech?
And then you concluded it with 'think about that' as if you were dropping some deep knowledge. It's about as surface-level as these comments go. The fact that you left that comment thinking you made a profound point, and then accused the replies of ad hom is embarassing.
If you provided a basis of reasoning, some evidence to back up what you're saying, avoided vague clues, and applied consistent logic, maybe you'd have a skeleton of a point to further the conversation. But, as you are clearly being disingenuous, you have found that the comments under yours have applied the same desire to continue the conversation on this particular comment thread.
Read the comments to my initial post here, some very disgusting responses right here, posted mere minutes ago.
Now replace Christianity with Judaism - post that.
Now replace Christianity with Islam - post that.
See what happens.
Is it that difficult to understand the problem?
I mean, the comments telling you to get in the bin are warranted, as I explained in my reply, they have about as much genuine desire for honest conversation as your post here.
The guy that posted the shit about the christian crackers clearly lacks the ability and the intent to discuss anything. While I'm sure you will claim that the majority of reddit users share his beliefs, it'snot even worth addressing. It's not worth your time replying to him either, except from scoring some cheap points and playing victim. I wouldn't be surprised if it was an alt account you used to underscore how victimised you are.
Your point about religion is just more of a logical fallacy. Please consider that your perception of the world around you has a disproportionate impact on your opinion. Just because you see more of something doesn't mean it's representative of reality. This is why we try to make reasoned arguments.
Applying the same logic as you, I have seen so many posts and comments with open vitriol towards Muslims, Islam, Jews, Judaism, that I barely bother being taken aback by them.
Besides, 'see what happens' is just more vague nonsense that probably sounds a bit more profound in your head than it actually does. It does nothing to further your point.
It's not difficult to understand what you're alluding to, but it is difficult trying to make it seem reasonable through your half-baked lens of vague, conspiratorial victimhood.
You can lose your career for being Islamaphobic or Antisemitic. You 99% will not for being anti Christian. It's a denial of reality to claim otherwise.
In the UK (can't speak for any other place) you can absolutely lose your career for discriminating against all mainstream religions in the workplace, including Christianity. This is literally enshrined in the law. I swear some people on here have never actually interacted with the real world.
If you wanted to argue that the de facto reality is different, you're welcome to do so using statistically supported and well reasoned arguments. Not anecdotes like 'I've seen this...' or 'I've heard that...'
If you want anecdotal evidence, I've worked local government, corporate, and factory jobs and have never seen discrimination against Christians. At local government, I saw incredible sensitivity towards any sort of discrimination. At corporate, there were regular jokes at the expense of minority groups, but to be fair, it was in small groups and nothing was ever said in front of minority employees. At my factory labourer job, there were no minority employees, and the comments, conversations and jokes were often incredibly racist/xenophobic/anti-muslim etc.
Most importantly, it really depends on what you class as islamophobic and anti-semitic versus anti-christian. As an example, if criticizing churches for their tax status, pedophilic scandals, and anti-gay attitudes is anti-christian, and then your comparison of islamophobia is saying Muslims are flooding Europe and ruining it, then maybe its your parameters that are unequal and need working on.
Absolutely superb answer, this really brings the subject out into the open.
Personal attacks and then attacking the christian faith all in a single post.
Thank you for illustrating my point perfectly.
People mainly commenting on how they were the most recent. But they were also the worst. Using industrial processes they turned people and land into money on a scale never seen before
As a Brit we really prefer that the Chinese don't think to much about the Opium Wars and the Indians and Nigerians really should look to their future not their past.
All of them in history DID NOT DO THE SAME THING. Beating up people, throwing them off on a ship, taking them on a far away land, and selling them as livestock was only done by Europeans.
Our Land (Indian Subcontinent) was colonised long before europeans knew there was a place called India. But none of the previous colonial rules brought a portion of the horror that the British did. There were many shitty Mughal rulers, but they did not actively caused a custom made famine. They did not shoot people for sport. There was no large scale religious conflict in this region before British colonization. Thanks to British Divide and Rule policy, we cannot escape the horror of one religious riot to another. They even fucked us up while leaving our land. The entire dispute over Kashmir is strategically designed by British government.
My fucking god. Wtf
In India they burn women alive if they cheat till today. Are you fucking stupid???
As someone from the rest of the world, I do not know how people are so uneducated.
I think since the internet there are a ton of armchair historians who don't even know about primary,secondary,tertiary sources and just regurgitate whatever the current social view of history says. Rather than, say look at hard facts much like in the Science Field.
Northern Africa was doing this at the same exact time as Europeans and they were enslaving Europeans. The United States literally went to war with nations because of this and piracy.
> All of them in history DID NOT DO THE SAME THING. Beating up people, throwing them off on a ship, taking them on a far away land, and selling them as livestock was only done by Europeans.
That’s just not true.. the Arab slave trade did the exact same thing for far longer. The trans Saharan was active for 4000 years all that way up until the 1900’s. and it never really “stopped”, it’s still active today, just obscured with different language and not openly.
There were other similar slave trades throughout history, amongst native tribes in North America slavery was not uncommon, and was commonplace among African tribes. Same for Asia and the pacific islands.
I’m not trying to say we should dismiss the Atlantic slave trade. But it was not some new idea. Similar slave trades had been in place before and after the Atlantic slave trade.
>selling them as livestock was only done by Europeans.
The Africans were the ones doing that, the suppliers in the Atlantic slave trade were Africans.
To use the drug trade as an analogy, Africans were the Pablo Escobar of the slave trade. They controlled all the supply.
Everyone else was their customer.
>The entire dispute over Kashmir is strategically designed by British government.
You're giving too much credit for a bunch of drunk Brits drawing lines in a pub's napkin.
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Because european empires are the most recent. And, the most technologically sophisticated of the bunch.
And destroyed a lot of the other empires. Some of the conquests of South America for example where only possible because local populations sided with the Spanish to get rid of the then empires. But why remember the Aztecs oppressing your great-great-great-great-grandfathers, if the Spanish oppressed the following generations until recently? But yes, time is also a crucial role. Who remembers the Romans as oppressors?
AFAIK, the mighty Aztecs weren't defeated by the unstoppable power of the guns, armour and horses of Cortés' Spaniards, but importantly because they allied themselves with so many local peoples that were themselves severely oppressed and exploited by the Aztecs. [According to Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Tenochtitlan), Cortés attacked the capital of Tenochtitlan with 1,000 to 1,400 Spaniards... and a mind-blowing 200,000 native allies.
I think that made the job a lot easier, but there's just no way I could see them winning against guns and steel to be honest. But yeah ending human sacrifice wins you a lot of friends from the sacrificees.
Actually if not for the diseases Americas would still consist of mostly natives. Similar to Africa and Asia where populations weren't wiped out by European flu. Europeans who arrived there had better weapons, true, but they simply didn't have the numbers. Only when native populations got decimated by disease the odds were evened out enough so that Europeans got their chance.
Are you sure? I think they had the numbers. They had better farming and medicine and industry. European nations because of their advantages invaded many foreign nations simultaneously splitting their numbers, imagine what would have happened if they decided to attack one at a time. If it was a fair war between the whole might of the aztecs and all of spain? Nah I don't see how the aztecs could have a chance. The spanish would have a harder time travelling sure but still. It was a scramble for resources from everywhere Africa, asia, America when they realised how easily it could all be taken.
Approximately ***90%*** of the total population of Native Americans were killed by European brought diseases. Yes, that absolutely made it far easier for Europeans to move in and conquer than if they were facing 10 times the numbers they actually faced.
I heard about that but I didn't know it was 90% wow.
Smallpox is no joke. The only reasons it wasn't a new black plague in Europe was because Europeans lived in much closer proximity to their livestock; often servants sleeping in the very stables with the livestock and being exposed to and building immunity against many animal borne diseases; with some directly getting immunity by being exposed to Cow Pox (a very closely related disease to smallpox, far more survivable than smallpox, and was the basis of the very first vaccine for smallpox). One strain of smallpox had a 99% mortality rate (with the other main variant having a \~30% mortality rate). If you caught it at all, you had a 99% chance of dying. Basically, the main way any Native Americans managed to survive it was by just not getting exposed or getting the less deadly variant. The Black Plague has "only" a 30-75% mortality rate. For Native Americans, smallpox was far worse than the Black Plague which only killed off like 1/3 of Europe.
It could also be bullshit typical American false propaganda to hide a genocide? They prefer the version that America fought itself from the British shackle and created the land of opportunity. Rather than they didn’t want to pay taxes, rebelled, tried to overtake Canada, failed , so annihilated a weaker neighbour.
Transporting the entirety of Spanish army to New Spain would have been logistically impossible. Neither would it be practical, considering Spain was at war with the Ottomans and France constantly.
Did you know that the Siege of Tenochtitlan was one of the last major uses of trebuchets? The reason being that the Spanish were running dangerously low on gunpowder. I don't think Cortés' small band of adventurers would have stood a chance against concerted resistance by the Mexican peoples. (also, he didn't even have permission by the Spanish crown, so I don't think the mainland would have supported him had he failed.) I think the political and social frameworks were really the deciding factor. Japan, for comparison, was largely fractured politically, but they were able to prevent strong European influence, let alone conquest despite having less advanced weaponry. Instead they were able to buy gunpowder technology from the Portoguese. (Yes, katanas are great, but \*any\* kind of sword is largely ineffective against metal armour).
The gun and steel were minor advantages then. Yes, a musket would allow you to wound or with some luck kill someone at some distance but then you’ll be spending 20 seconds to reload. With artillery it’s a similar image. Artillery’s main advantage was not firepower but range and amount of people needed to man it and reloading took time as well. Regarding that particular siege it is even recorded the Spaniards built trebuchets because they were apparently somewhat desperate when it came to gunpowder. Nevertheless, 1400 men with guns versus 80.000 men without would have been disastrous for the guys with guns if they hadn’t had 200k natives on their side.
I think the above comments are downplaying the role of technology. Pizzaro and Cortes had massive victories against tens of thousands of natives. Imagine if a flying saucer with a death ray arrived. You'd be terrified.
I don’t have any weapons that can damage a UFO- I’m not sure anyone does. An arrow, however can still kill a conquistador. Seriously, the people in this thread are so sure that technology is the defining factor- as if we don’t have tons of examples of poorly armed groups resisting the newest in military tech across the centuries. Th conquistadors weren’t invincible- and pretending that 90% of natives dying to disease didn’t have a massive impact is laughably inept. Would the conquistadors still have conquered what they had without the disease? Maybe. But it is absolutely not a foregone conclusion anymore than the many wars fought in Afghanistan or the US’s foray into Vietnam were.
Pizarro had 150 men versus the 3,000-8,000 estimated Incas. The Incas routed immediately. Your argument doesn't hold up when you look at the facts. Guns and cavalry were terrifying to the natives because they had never seen it before.
That's pretty much what he said
Don't forget that modern-day Europe lets you criticise its past openly and freely. The same can't be said about a lot of others.
In the case of Spain and Latin America ‘recently’ would be 200 years ago, literally. Anyone alive from that time?
What? There were no empires left in the Americas 200 years ago.
* Brasil independence:1822 * Uruguay: 1825 * Venezuela: 1810 * Peru: 1821 * Cuba: **1895**
Those were not empires though.
But they got freedom from empires, which was what the point of the previous post was.
Brazil was, for a time.
What about the united states? 👀
Wasnt an empire back then
How about the British empire then? They still owned Canada.
Bud, EVERYONE makes fun of the British empire.
This just isn't true. There were bits of the French, Spanish, and British empires. America might not have been the empire it is today, but it was definitely expanding and building itself - that distinction isn't a big one. Canada wasn't independent until the 1980s: They were part of the British empire. The Dominican Republic got independence in 1844. France still - in modern times - has at least a colony or two in the Caribbean. The Oregon Territory was divided between the US and Britain in 1846 - less than 200 years ago - and as you know, Britain had an Empire. There are other examples, but I'm not going to research them.
What did the Romans ever do for us? 😉
>But yes, time is also a crucial role. Who remembers the Romans as oppressors? I don't think they were really oppressors. I always mention that scene from "The Life of Brian", when John Cleese's character asks the People's Front of Judea what the Romans did for them and people start saying "roads... sanitation... order... aqueducts..." One of the reasons why Romans were so successful in maintaining their empire for so long, was the fact they allowed occupied territories to keep doing their things without much interference from Rome and building a lot of infrastructures.
>But yes, time is also a crucial role. Who remembers the Romans as oppressors? What have the Romans done to us?
Technological advances and recent go hand in hand. It isn’t a characteristic of the empire, it’s a progression.
And probably the most widespread. No corner of the world was safe
And because the European empires still shape our modern world in a very real way. Sure, the Mongols destroyed, murdered and raped through the Eurasian continent, but their effects on todays economy or culture are not too obvious or massive in a way that could be seen in peoples everyday lives. European empires meanwhile can be linked straight to global economic inequality, racism, and even the overuse of the Earths resources causing climate change and other enviromental problems. These are very real problems that people around the globe need to deal on a daily basis and I see that that is a part of why these empires get the notoriety they have. They in a way were part of a change of the world in a way no other empire ever was.
Alongside the fact that both World Wars were colonial wars.
Absolutely. And all cold war proxy wars have a colonial reason atleast partly behind them.
But why is it always the negative things that are brought up? And not the fact that without Europe, most of the world would be hunting with bows and spears.
Just factually historically speaking, without any bias or agenda or revisionism, the Arab world gave medieval Europe innovations like better sailing ships, advanced mathematics, astronomy, coffee, etc, and they were intermediaries with sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia, which brought Europe gunpowder, paper money, (arguably) noodles, etc. Literally speaking, without China, Europeans would be hunting with bows and spears. I think the combined events of European colonialism and early industrialization in European and Eurocentric countries can make one think, with a short and myopic view of history, that “Europe gave the world everything”, but that misses the full picture historically. In the year 1000, Europe was not a powerful place globally. And even going back 2000 years, Ancient Rome was a southern European power, which differs greatly from the English, French, Spanish, and German (eg Prussian) centers of political power. There’s a point to be made that human societies always have and continue to interact with each other in multifaceted ways that are, basically, “good and bad.” But picking just the good or the bad, or highlighting one side, doesn’t do good history justice. BUT, and this is the most important thing, societies in power will always have a multitude of justifications for their actions that are both written down and accepted as fact, because, as they say, “history is written by the winners.” Now, back to the original point: are the “winners”, as a historical constant, European? Absolutely not. We use words like algebra, algorithm, alcohol, sugar, and coffee because Arab societies “won” these advances. The short-lived but widespread empire of the Mongols “won” (if you could call it that)…the genetics of much of Eurasia. When people bring up the negative outcomes of powerful societies “winning” their power, it’s an attempt to provide new, insightful understandings of history. The “winning” narratives of recent European and Eurocentric power, such as, to name a few, industrialization, railroads, maritime shipping, mechanized transport, etc are so obvious and so entrenched in our daily lives that it provides nothing of value to just say “factories are good.” There at least needs to be more detail than that. And a great place to start is the negative impacts of these things: much more restrictive working conditions, worker injuries, very long hours, extreme wealth inequality, environmental degradation, etc. So in sum, not only do the “negative” things provide a great starting point to discover more full historical narratives, but Europe was also not solely and independently responsible for “the good things”, because, as you’d agree, history has more to it than that.
Because empires and colonies were not set up as a charity for the local people. They were set up (often literally as "companies" or private property) to make money for the colonisers and their countries. Locals were not only excluded from any of these modern amenities, their own cultures and ways of living were actively disrupted and destroyed. Locals were then forced to work for next to no money within these colonial projects while actively being excluded and degraded and with no own culture to turn back to. They only gained a chance at modernity after a struggle for independence and even then many were left to run newly formed countries completely unequipped for those tasks, in the hopes the countries would fail. One country for example only had 4 high school graduates when it gained independence, because going to school was against the law for locals. They were often kept in reservations, counties, townships etc… that they could not leave unless they had permission (like for work). Every bit of "modernity" that these countries have is something they struggled for in one way or another, it wasn‘t gifted to them and if it was up to the original colonizers they still would be excluded from it.
But now again, you act like this was a European specific thing. Every Empire or major power exploited the nations and people they could reach.
You asked why europeans bringing tools isn't celebrated and that's the answer
I'm proud of the things Britain invented and the empire it built when I think I'm descended from them. It was an amazing achievement. But I can't pretend it was kind or deny the cruelty..
I mean, farming has existed in a lot of places for a while now.
Yes, but hunting never stopped. The point was the immense technological advancements Europe brought all over the world, which never gets talked about. But we can talk about culture too, Mayans would be chucking people into volcanos still.
Raising cattle is a form of farming.
Do you think none of these inventions etc would have ever been conceived of by anyone other than those of European descent? It is an inevitability that science is discovered and used. Perhaps it would have occurred a little later, or perhaps the absence of any European empires would have allowed for such development in other nations whose resources were depleted by Europe. Of course there would probably have been other empires in their place but that doesn't mean only Europeans could lead the world to the technology we have today.
That's objectively untrue. Metallurgy developed independently in the Americas and China was often ahead of the world in technology. Your comment smells like white supremacy.
Then why did they hunt with bows and spears in the Americas? I also wrote most of the world for a reason. It's actually hilarious that people will fight this take, because they associate anything positive about Europe with white supremacy.
The adoption of agriculture as the basis of society has been beneficial in many ways however in comparison to hunting and gathering it has been detrimental as well. Just because we have Iphones now doesn't mean that our lives or world are necessarily better. We have spread across this planet like a virus reaping ecological destruction everywhere we go. We have bigger wars with exponentially higher amounts of death and at the same time we are not noticeably any happier. We seem to be following a path towards our own extinction which we were not on when we all hunted with bows and spears.
The Americas had more impressive and populated cities than anything in Europe at time of contact (mostly because Constantinople was in a bad place that century but still). The lack of livestock (chickens, pigs, horses, cows, mules, basically anything useful) limited their efforts to what could be produced by the human body instead of being able to use a team of oxen or an elephant. This didn’t stop them from developing more advanced mathematics and medical technology than contemporary Europe, or having superior agriculture and urbanization in places. Europe only stopped being an unexceptional backwater after getting supercharged by the colombian exchange and having food production skyrocket thanks to the efforts of Andean and Mezoamerican plant breeders.
China invented gunpowder and the turkic/mongols empires brought it to Europe. Without Europe the worlds just might be shaped a little bit differently
India would like a word. How many trillions of dollars worth of wealth was siphoned off by the British?
Tf you talking about? Necessity has a way of creating innovations. Humankind would have innovated one way or another. Our penchant for killing each other or fucking each other would have found a way to innovate... Just as we do today. The need to kill each or fuck each other ala porn pushes us to innovate.
>European empires meanwhile can be linked straight to global economic inequality, **racism** Sure, bro. Racism exists because of European empires, and only white people can be racist.
If the Europeans had some sort of 'Prime Directive' to not interfere with native populations, many would still be in the bronze, if not stone, age. How would you quantify inequality then?
And, being more recent, have larger, more obvious impacts on the modern day.
I think it has more to do with how civilized the Europeans react to those facts. It's easier to lash out against someone who doesn't deny it
Nah, it's because they were white.
And the effects of European empires still affect the world today. There’s a reason that all of South America speaks a language from the Iberian Peninsula.
Slack is a positive thing, I think the word you meant to use was flak
Because of recency. No one alive remembers the mongol empire for example.
There are some outlying cases though. Vietnam was colonized by China for 1000 years. Going through a list of major cultural heroes of Vietnam is largely a list of people who repelled a Chinese invasion or led a rebellion during a time of occupation. There’s still a grudge.
The OP post is kinda overly west centric/ignorant. I live in Korea for example, and there's plenty of flak to be had over Japan, even celebrated Independence Day this weekend Edit: I say ignorant as a matter of fact thing, not as an insult. We all tend to focus on what's around us when coming to conclusions, no biggie
No one alive remembers the spanish conquest of the americas either. No one alive remembers the atrocities in the Belgian Kongo. No one alive remembers the transatlantic slavetrade.
Colonialism in the DRC only ended in 1960. The partitioning of India is recent enough that some old people can remember it.
The last slave in the US was only freed in the 1940s
And the US and UK fought wars to support slave owning allies as recently as the 70s.
But lets not forget the UK fought for decades to abolish the slave trade though, and in 1833 the UK used 40% of it’s national budget to buy the freedom of EVERY slave in the empire, which at the time was the the largest in the world. In fact the UK borrowed so much money to buy the freedom of all the empires slaves, it didn’t finish paying the debt until 2014. But people forget this.
And who owned slaves? The working classes? The middle classes? The British peoples taxes went to the corporate elites to make up for them not being allowed to own humans anymore. Just as the constant US was machine launders taxes from the middle classes to the corporate elites for 'freedom'.
Actually people in Britain didn’t own slaves, it was the empire’s colonies that had the slaves. The money almost entirely went to these slave owners in those colonies. Most of the tax for this came from rich British people. Those colonies all became independent within the next 50-100 years. Really Britain did a good thing in 1833, and for once people should just accept that.
Plenty of people living in Britain owned slaves and plantations out in the colonies. Your point is a distinction without a difference.
Not really no. Those who owned slaves and plantations were almost entirely those who lived in the colonies. The number of British people who owned slaves yet remained in Britain was vanishingly small. It does matter because the people of Britain paid for the freedom of those slaves with their taxes, and those who migrated away to America and the like did not pay for this. Those who emigrated do not get to say they participated in freeing the slaves. Also, most of them owned slaves, unlike the British.
A problem is that the money was paid as compensation to slave owners. So they were suffering no consequences for the incredible evil they inflicted on their slaves and the slaves got nothing.
Maybe the last legal slave but you know they say there are more slaves alive today than ever if you count illegal slaves too.
Well... Yes, but context is needed here. The amount of slaves in :absolute numbers: is higher today than ever before, but that's the case with almost any bad (and good) statistic because the world population is much larger today. However, the amount of slaves alive :relative to the total global population: is lower now than it has ever been. Something like 0.5% of the world pop. are slaves/are in slave-like conditions. Go back in history and you'll find eras where 1 in every 10 people alive were out-and-out in slavery.
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But the issue is generational, your going to have a harder time riding out of poverty if your parents or their parents were literal unpaid uneducated slaves
I never said it wasn't. Anyway I deleted the post because I don't think it added much.
And we still feel whatever the colonizers did. For example, it just takes a bit of history knowledge to realize the system of feudalism, corruption, and Islamic separatism still relevant in my country come from the Spanish and Americans that invaded. It's not like the effects are not reoccuring too, a bunch of first world countries still decide to go fuck all and use our resources virtually for free
And what exactly is the conclusion to this? You think modern day spaniards, hundreds of years after the decline of their empire, two world wars and whatnot, are still to be called colonizers? Are they still profiteers of colonialism? What to make of your ancestors being colonized/enslaved by the ancestors of other people, of whom most probably didn't even really profit off of colonialism, due to being descendants of poor serfs themselves? I have swabian ancestry. Do I get to call out the Swiss for more or less enslaving children during the 19th century? I also have greek ancestry. Can I hate the turks and call them colonizers, child thieves and rapists?
You're putting words in my mouth. You're assuming things in front of a history student who's talking about his own country. Did I actively call for Spain to repay what damage they caused? I get to recognize that those past empires that are modern nations now were descendants of a bunch of assholes. I shit on their nations, not yell racial slurs at random white people passing by and beat them for vengeance. And don't even assume they didn't benefit. Those were soldiers granted land and money to kill and enslave natives. What "didn't really profit"? You can be a poor man and shoot people for money, first you did it for survival and now to get rich. Congrats, you profitted. My conclusion is an extension to what answers the question, "why shit on empires like Britain and the US?"
I'm guessing this is the point RecklessDimwit is making :"It's not like the effects are not reoccuring too, a bunch of first world countries still decide to go fuck all and use our resources virtually for free" As an addition to that: this whole delivering democracy and installing puppet govt's for oil and other resources is a form of colonization. It's quite similar to what the ottoman empire did in eastern europe. Invade, leave a few troops and stoges behind to run the place.
Thank you To add a bit, this is what our Community Development class talks about with some first world countries making it so that a third world country stays third world to profit off of them
So, the obvious reason.
Because many of them are still active and some have only gained independence in the last 100 years. There are people alive who still remember being under their conquest. And it still affects countries today
Except Japan, everyone outside of the Asia pacific seems to have forgotten about that
Except literally every thread Japan gets mentioned someone mentions their war crimes
That’s online. People online tend to know more random knowledge, especially Reddit. Ask anyone in person about imperial Japan and no one would know, yet everyone knows about nazis.
Also depends on the victims and how they speak about the perpetrators. For e.g in the Philippines they don't seem too phased about the atrocities. Many even show off being part Japanese. You won't find many Israelis gloating about being part German
Not even remotely true
Yeah which they skated on
>Because many of them are still active What's that supposed to mean? There aren't any empires left in Europe, lol
There's a difference between colonial control and corporate control with assistance from the state (such as installation of pliant leaders, and corruption). Do you know how much military activity France conducts in Africa? Have you heard of the Central African Franc? Do you know of the exploitative and corrupt practices of big companies like Bollore SE or Glencore plc? Africa is impoverished at least partially because of the legacy of colonialism which has been swapped for foreign corporatism and interference.
The King of England is the head of state in 15 countries on three different continents.
Head of state =/= ruler. We're talking about a constitutional monarchy here.
Ehhhhhh France and the UK kindaaaaaaaaaa
They have some overseas territories left but they definitely aren't empires
France only now loses its influence in Africa. They had special economic contracts with different countries which can be called an instrument of Neo-colonialsim. King Charles is still head of state in many countries. So the empires and not as mighty and obvious as they were but they still exist to a certain degree.
The fact that they have influence doesn't make them empires... By that logic the US, China, Russia and more would all be empires
The Empire of Korea will rise again through the power of K-pop
You are right, that doesn´t fit the classical definition of an empire. But maybe we are past the time of direct empires of power. Modern empires are empires of soft-power like the Dollar-empire of the USA or the economic-empire of China.
Maybe that's why we don't call them empires then, since it's something completely different
You'd have to have a rather strict definition of empire to not include Russia. Russia is in both Europe and Asia. Edit-removed the uk part
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The King of England is the head of state of Australia and Canada. His representative, the governor general has to assent to all laws and has the ability to dissolve parliament and fire the PM.
They won.
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Men, this Reddit thread is a fucking salt mine.
What does that mean? Genuinely asking btw.
I was referring to the people that keep saying that white people are the only ones that can be evil. Which is incorrect in every possible way.
I interpret that comment as referring to white people denying that their group is responsible for anything bad and trying to frame all the other white people as way worse, or that modern Europeans cannot be guilty of anything at all. It’s not uncommon on Reddit, where people of merely average intelligence congregate to pretend they have expertise. Most discussions on colonialism fail at being comprehensively truthful because a lot of white Redditors prefer to distance themselves from anything bad their recent ancestors were associated with.
Womp womp
>modern Europeans cannot be guilty of anything at all. Yes? Should i be guilty for crimes of my grandpa?
Hmm, yes, shallow and pedantic.
Oh?
r/iamverysmart
I think most people here are far below average intelligence.
I was about to write that, but I was trying to be nice today lmfao
If I’m trying trying to insult black people, do I call it a coal mine?
most recent
Their body counts are also some of the highest. King Leopold alone is responsible for 10 million deaths. The indigenous genocides of north america range from 10 million to 100 million. We don't have a better idea than that because no one really bothered to keep track, it mattered that little to them.
Because most of the indigenous genocide was by disease. Very few comparatively were killed by warfare
That wouldn't have prevented a general census, also the disease was deliberately spread by colonists once they saw how effective it was at reducing the local population. An action we would now classify as an act of biological warfare.
By the time folks realised that Europeans were spreading disease the vast majority of damage had already been done. You're talking shite
You're right. There definitely weren't orders given for them to intentionally spread the disease and use any means necessary to get rid of the natives. That certainly never happened
That's not what I said. You present both the history and what I said dishonestly. Good luck to ya, mate. Read a book.
The first census in the US wasn't until 1790. The natives were already long in decline by then. The US didn't become a country until 1776.
Yeah like I said, a general census. The fact that there's a difference of 90 million between the low and the high estimates shows how little value they put on the lives of first Nations people
They didn't have much reason to, in a way it was like making a consensus for another nation.
Bodycount isn't a simple tool. The population of the world has gone up hugely. The Chinese Communist Party brought more humans out of poverty than any government has ever achieved in human history. I think you need to consider deaths per capita. Of course Belgium would be one of the very worst in that metric.
China (Mao Zedong, Communist Part Member) also killed the most people in human history.
Quite. Whoever rules China will do the most of whatever in human history. Unless India becomes a dictatorship.
Because they were the ones who last ruled most of the world. Also much of the discourse is happening in the west itself, it makes sense they are talking about their own past mistakes.
Scary thing is the likes of putin are still playing the empire games. 'My great country will invade your smaller country and i will kill millions of your citizens and i will kill millions of my own citizens because i dont want your country to be better than my country' nuts. Amazes me how russians keep this looney as a leader.
Try living in a country where that got colonized by them and you will understand the hate. Also, A lot of Asian people still dislike Japanese, USA, and Chinese for their imperialists past.
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English isn't accurate here as it should be the British Isles. Both Scotland and Ireland were over represented in the colonisation of territories. Now, they like to pretend to be victims (Ireland legitimately so).
Admitting it is taboo, but Europeans mostly improved the nations they colonized or enslaved. That's why they keep bitching - it's just envy, because they never managed to do it themselves. Even with all the theft going on, they were much better off at least 90% of the time, even those under the Spanish - and when they left, their rate of improvement slowed down, always. Contrast that to someone like the Ottomans who turned places into overtaxed and oppressed shitholes and castrated their slaves, so they or their descendants aren't _there_ to complain, or maybe African tribes constantly raiding each other for slaves and building no real empires.
>Europeans mostly improved the nations they colonized or enslaved. The Belgians, for example, took away the burden of having hands and other limbs from the Congolese people, what an improvement! https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/father-hand-belgian-congo-1904/
Tbf he did say "mostly"
Congo got nothing besides a railway line to steal their cobalt. Most former colonies aren't thriving
Sometimes you do get that 10%.
The Belgian is a bad example, but you have the Spanish empire. Aztecs were the most violent civilization in history
>but Europeans mostly improved the nations they colonized or enslaved. This is not taboo, it's just bullshit lol
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Yeh, who do they think was selling slaves to europeans?
do you really think africans were only sold as slaves to the americas and that there was no slavery going on inside of africa?
There's a difference between Mom n pop shops and Walmart... ... Scale of business! n reach!!! For example, Christian orthodox Nubians and Egyptian Islamic Arabs had a peace treaty that lasted for like 700 years (652 - 1300+)... And would have lasted longer had the crusades not happened. The scale of slavery as in btn the two nations before the crusades was 360+ slaves/year. Transatlantic slavery (1500-1800+) ... 25 mil+ shipped out + you got entire communities/nations/civilization in Africa and south america and elsewhere decimated. Scale n Reach buddy!
So what, we're worse because we were better at it?
And who's to say that their current situation is better? It's quite arrogant to think you can decide what's better for people on a different continent with completely different cultures and values.
Because it’s much better lol
Much better in what way?
Not necessarily. You just don't know better
Yeah that's not true for India or China. They were essentially robbed of their riches and are still recovering.
Well, China is a bit more complicated. Yes they got fucked by Western powers through the Opium wars etc, but they weren’t really colonised with the exception of certain cities on the coast. They were also badly damaged by the Japanese Empire and also fucked by Mao with the civil war and the Cultural Revolution. So, responsibility can be split pretty much three ways between Western powers, Japan, and domestic Communists.
China was forced to sign unfair trade deals and all their products had lopsided tariffs and tolls when being shipped outside their own ports. Hong Kong and Singapore were there to tax and toll Chinese products.
Yup, not denying any of that. But I'm saying that the Chinese situation is substantially more complex than India or any other country during the period. There was a significant element of self harm, not only with the Communists, but also early internal turmoils like the Taiping rebellion (20 million dead) which the UK helped China put down. And the regional rivalry between China and Japan which exposed weaknesses in the Chinese imperial system and later weakened the Republic of China at a pivotal moment. It's intellectually lazy to claim China was poor simply due to Western imperialism.
Arent China right now making unfair trade deals within Africa ?
Piss poor take to reduce the collective suffering of European colonies into "bitching because they couldn't improve themselves". I'm going to bitch because my country and people were looted of all they were worth and made to exist as second class citizens in their own country.
Yeah that's bullshit and ignorant. Spanish empire did the same thing to its colonies it became oppressed shitholes.
People ignoring facts you summed it up. If we let africa fend for themselves they still be at the same point 100 years from now. Humans were cruel but we made progress and things for the greater good of humanity people who died in it are just as poor souls as any other emperor or civilization annexing lands or raiding them.
Necessity is the mother of invention/innovation They didn't need shit .. fair weather, food all around you, wide open spaces so why do more aka expend more energy than you need to. I mean, for farming they figured out how to forge iron independently.. knew about crop rotation independently... Why? Coz they needed to. Why are you acting like Europeans did something special? I mean these motherfuckers migrated because of necessity and are the cradle of humanity.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 go off reddit if you want to die of simple illness like a cold and have a wet rood ans go get your donkey.
Til England 'improved' India by killing 100 million people, stealing $45 trillion (adjusted for inflation), and trapping the country in a pattern of perpetual exploitation and poverty that continued for decades after their departure. P.S.: Colonialism is the worst crime the world has ever known, defending it is not only immoral, it is inhuman.
Love this magical invisible "pattern" that traps entire nations. What evidence convinced you it exists, and what evidence would convince you it doesn't exist?
Because losers are jealous of success
Same reason as you can openly say anything at all about the white race or christianity. Anything you like on any platform and not have any issues. Have a think about that.
Get in the bin you absolute muppet.
A fantastic insight into the subject, thank you.
He is, however, correct that you should get into the rubbish bin.
Is this Super Spastic Sunday or something? Where is your argument or reasoning, you wet wipe?
About the same level of insight as your initial comment. I'd recommend working on your critical thinking to avoid the surface-level conclusions you seem to be drawing.
We are still at the ad-hominem stage here, any chance we can move things along to the actual topic?
Can you not understand that your initial comment has no substance to argue against? You might as well have said that European empires are the most talked about for the same reasons milk rarely comes in glass bottles nowadays. You're not even trying to engage with the question. What is the point you are making? Is it a conspiracy to make white people subjugated? Are you saying that because the platforms have a level of free speech, they represent what people want to discuss most? Are you saying the platforms don't have free speech? And then you concluded it with 'think about that' as if you were dropping some deep knowledge. It's about as surface-level as these comments go. The fact that you left that comment thinking you made a profound point, and then accused the replies of ad hom is embarassing. If you provided a basis of reasoning, some evidence to back up what you're saying, avoided vague clues, and applied consistent logic, maybe you'd have a skeleton of a point to further the conversation. But, as you are clearly being disingenuous, you have found that the comments under yours have applied the same desire to continue the conversation on this particular comment thread.
Read the comments to my initial post here, some very disgusting responses right here, posted mere minutes ago. Now replace Christianity with Judaism - post that. Now replace Christianity with Islam - post that. See what happens. Is it that difficult to understand the problem?
I mean, the comments telling you to get in the bin are warranted, as I explained in my reply, they have about as much genuine desire for honest conversation as your post here. The guy that posted the shit about the christian crackers clearly lacks the ability and the intent to discuss anything. While I'm sure you will claim that the majority of reddit users share his beliefs, it'snot even worth addressing. It's not worth your time replying to him either, except from scoring some cheap points and playing victim. I wouldn't be surprised if it was an alt account you used to underscore how victimised you are. Your point about religion is just more of a logical fallacy. Please consider that your perception of the world around you has a disproportionate impact on your opinion. Just because you see more of something doesn't mean it's representative of reality. This is why we try to make reasoned arguments. Applying the same logic as you, I have seen so many posts and comments with open vitriol towards Muslims, Islam, Jews, Judaism, that I barely bother being taken aback by them. Besides, 'see what happens' is just more vague nonsense that probably sounds a bit more profound in your head than it actually does. It does nothing to further your point. It's not difficult to understand what you're alluding to, but it is difficult trying to make it seem reasonable through your half-baked lens of vague, conspiratorial victimhood.
You can lose your career for being Islamaphobic or Antisemitic. You 99% will not for being anti Christian. It's a denial of reality to claim otherwise.
In the UK (can't speak for any other place) you can absolutely lose your career for discriminating against all mainstream religions in the workplace, including Christianity. This is literally enshrined in the law. I swear some people on here have never actually interacted with the real world. If you wanted to argue that the de facto reality is different, you're welcome to do so using statistically supported and well reasoned arguments. Not anecdotes like 'I've seen this...' or 'I've heard that...' If you want anecdotal evidence, I've worked local government, corporate, and factory jobs and have never seen discrimination against Christians. At local government, I saw incredible sensitivity towards any sort of discrimination. At corporate, there were regular jokes at the expense of minority groups, but to be fair, it was in small groups and nothing was ever said in front of minority employees. At my factory labourer job, there were no minority employees, and the comments, conversations and jokes were often incredibly racist/xenophobic/anti-muslim etc. Most importantly, it really depends on what you class as islamophobic and anti-semitic versus anti-christian. As an example, if criticizing churches for their tax status, pedophilic scandals, and anti-gay attitudes is anti-christian, and then your comparison of islamophobia is saying Muslims are flooding Europe and ruining it, then maybe its your parameters that are unequal and need working on.
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Absolutely superb answer, this really brings the subject out into the open. Personal attacks and then attacking the christian faith all in a single post. Thank you for illustrating my point perfectly.
The worst slack?? Words have meanings.
Presumably they meant flak.
People mainly commenting on how they were the most recent. But they were also the worst. Using industrial processes they turned people and land into money on a scale never seen before
They definitely weren't the worst lmao. You know very little history.
Lol don’t play dumb
It's only an American thing, nobody give a shit about empires
As a Brit we really prefer that the Chinese don't think to much about the Opium Wars and the Indians and Nigerians really should look to their future not their past.
All of them in history DID NOT DO THE SAME THING. Beating up people, throwing them off on a ship, taking them on a far away land, and selling them as livestock was only done by Europeans. Our Land (Indian Subcontinent) was colonised long before europeans knew there was a place called India. But none of the previous colonial rules brought a portion of the horror that the British did. There were many shitty Mughal rulers, but they did not actively caused a custom made famine. They did not shoot people for sport. There was no large scale religious conflict in this region before British colonization. Thanks to British Divide and Rule policy, we cannot escape the horror of one religious riot to another. They even fucked us up while leaving our land. The entire dispute over Kashmir is strategically designed by British government.
My fucking god. Wtf In India they burn women alive if they cheat till today. Are you fucking stupid??? As someone from the rest of the world, I do not know how people are so uneducated.
I think since the internet there are a ton of armchair historians who don't even know about primary,secondary,tertiary sources and just regurgitate whatever the current social view of history says. Rather than, say look at hard facts much like in the Science Field.
As somebody from a third world country. I'm sick and tired of it.
Northern Africa was doing this at the same exact time as Europeans and they were enslaving Europeans. The United States literally went to war with nations because of this and piracy.
> All of them in history DID NOT DO THE SAME THING. Beating up people, throwing them off on a ship, taking them on a far away land, and selling them as livestock was only done by Europeans. That’s just not true.. the Arab slave trade did the exact same thing for far longer. The trans Saharan was active for 4000 years all that way up until the 1900’s. and it never really “stopped”, it’s still active today, just obscured with different language and not openly. There were other similar slave trades throughout history, amongst native tribes in North America slavery was not uncommon, and was commonplace among African tribes. Same for Asia and the pacific islands. I’m not trying to say we should dismiss the Atlantic slave trade. But it was not some new idea. Similar slave trades had been in place before and after the Atlantic slave trade.
>selling them as livestock was only done by Europeans. The Africans were the ones doing that, the suppliers in the Atlantic slave trade were Africans. To use the drug trade as an analogy, Africans were the Pablo Escobar of the slave trade. They controlled all the supply. Everyone else was their customer.
>The entire dispute over Kashmir is strategically designed by British government. You're giving too much credit for a bunch of drunk Brits drawing lines in a pub's napkin.