[dragontamer]

Yeah, because the Opium Wars of 1800s never happened or something.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Opium_War

Your ignorance of history is outstanding and on display. Whatever the TTIP is, it is most certainly not a secret agreement to allow Opium into the Chinese economy to wreak the common people.

We are better and more civilized people today than we were back then. Period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears

Afghanistan was always an awful place:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Afghan_War

And there are certainly fewer outright rebellions like the Boxer Rebellion going on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion

Of course, Imperialism doesn't actually happen anymore. We don't go to war on 100% false pretenses (yeah, WMDs were bad, but "Remember the Maine to Hell with Spain" was significantly worse)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War

The reasoning of the 1900s was that "War is good. Social Darwinism at its finest". Survival of the fittest, lets fight. World War 1 was fought not out of necessity, but out of curiosity. We had new weapons, and we wanted to use them on each other. It was finally time for the great Powers of the World to compete in the glory of War.

We are a hell of a lot more peaceful today. No country actually has the appetite for the amount of warrant-less killing that Imperialism creates. We actually are connected to every other country in the world and care about the citizens of other countries.

In the late 1800s, we didn't even give a damn about the natives of our own country, or Black people, or even Women. (See Jim Crow laws).

[wavefunction]

>>No country actually has the appetite for the amount of warrant-less killing that Imperialism creates

The US drone war has been killing hundreds and thousands of innocent people so I wonder if perhaps we do have an appetite for that sort of murder.

[dragontamer]

Right. You just keep ignoring the good parts of history.

You do realize that America opened up Concentration Camps inside of the Philippine-American War?

Americans retaliated against the Philippinos by creating such lovely orders like "Kill everyone over the age of 10".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_H._Smith#Samar_campaign

> "I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States," General Jacob H. Smith said.

America, F-yeah! And of course, the definition of "capable of bearing arms" is:

> "Persons of ten years and older are those designated as being capable of bearing arms"

------

But yeah, continue to pretend that modern war is worse than the past or something. Hundreds or thousands of innocent civilians? F-ing hell, we did 25,000 to 50,000 for s--- and giggles back then. In a single campaign, by a single general who was never punished.

[wavefunction]

I am responding to a post that claims that countries no longer engage in the sorts of atrocities found in history to claim that things are not that different. I think we actually spend more effort these days "justifying" the carnage whereas in the past it passed with less comment.

You seem to be tilting at windmills that you erected yourself.

[dragontamer]

Scorched Earth was a STRATEGY of war in the late 1800s / early 1900s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_earth

Back then, the US was blowing up hospitals as an EXPLICIT strategy to gain an edge over our foes. (Much like how Russia / Assad seem to be doing in Syria right now).

In contrast, when the US accidentally blows up a hospital today, a massive investigation goes through and everyone basically apologizes for it.

You seriously can't compare the 1800s / early 1900s mentality with the mentality of war we have today.

This S--- doesn't happen anymore, not by American commanders anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Walk_of_the_Navajo

-------------

Strictly by the numbers, the Drone Strikes that the US uses are far more precise at targeting than previous "Scorched Earth" campaigns that the Imperialist US used to take.

Comparing the lol Drone Strikes to Imperialist US is... utterly ridiculous from a historical perspective. The heartlessness and cruelty from that era still haunts us today.

No. We have no appetite for the warmongering that Imperialism used to call for. For every example you bring up today, I'll show you a historical example that is strictly worse.

[PavlovsCat]

The baseline isn't even worse stuff, the baseline is decency.

[dragontamer]

I tend to be a bit more pragmatic.

The human race is composed of neither angels nor devils: but humans. Beings with flawed and incomplete morality. Its best if we judge ourselves by comparing against the actions of our fathers, otherwise we may lose ourselves in idealism.

The claim after all, is that the current time is the most prosperous and peaceful time of all of human existence. And as far as I can tell, actual history agrees with this fact.

Don't believe me? Go back to the root comment if you've forgotten the claim: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11610816

You may be worried about a few thousand innocent deaths here and there, but again, that number is much much MUCH much smaller than the historical norm. But in any case, your idealism is a good thing. It is only further proof that we as a race are beginning to forget the horrors of war, because peace has existed for so long.

(Of course, some humans still exist in war-torn areas. Syrian and Iraqi refugees. And I am peace-loving and idealistic enough that I believe we should open up our country to these people, despite the risks. )

[PavlovsCat]

> Its best if we judge ourselves by comparing against the actions of our fathers, otherwise we may lose ourselves in idealism.

Honesty and decency existed thousands of years ago, too, "our fathers" aren't a monolith, just like the present isn't. But more importantly, I say including 10 different versions of jQuery on one page to color 10 letters makes it load needlessly slow, and you say that's still faster than usenet in the 80s -- if you know what I mean? It is both technically true and completely besides the point.

> The claim after all, is that the current time is the most prosperous and peaceful time of all of human existence.

Nope. The claim was that this is because of countries wanting to dominate each other. I say it's despite of that.

> You may be worried about a few thousand innocent deaths here and there, but again, that number is much much MUCH much smaller than the historical norm.

It's also a rather simplicistic metric. We consider murder bad because it doesn't allow the murdered people to live their lives, right? To develop freely as a person, and whatnot? Well, there's a problem:

> "it's not possible to be fully human if you are being surveilled 24/7"

[ http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130818120421175 ]

The same goes for other things. People are getting fucked in so many ways with it's not really the opposite of murder, but its sibling. And open murder evokes criticism and resistance, while "pumping every home full of sleeping gas" (to paraphrase the lyrics to Bullet In The Head by RATM) works much better.

> I am peace-loving and idealistic enough that I believe we should open up our country to these people, despite the risks.

Call me when you're willing to get war criminals arrested and tried, and I mean American/Western ones. And let's talk about how peaceful the world has become after the wars/genocides over oil and water are over. You know, the ones we do nothing serious to avoid steering into, because we're too busy dominating each other, building little fortresses and kicking away the ladder? The gap between rich and poor is growing, not shrinking. You can't say by the standards of 1900, people today are better off. Well you can, but I can't take it seriously. By the standards of 2016 -- the ones that matter -- many people are worse off. As Stephen Hawking wrote:

> If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.

( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/3nyn5i/science_ama... )

[dragontamer]

    Then the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone,
    All centuries but this, and every country but his own;

-- The Mikado (1885)

Go back just 150 years ago, and Slavery is legalized. 250 years ago, and slavery is widespread. IMO, its going to be rather difficult to be "fully human" when you are legally considered 3/5ths of a person.

Go back 250 years ago, and the entire concept of "privacy" and "security within your home" doesn't even exist (to free-men. Obviously not granted to slaves, who were raped and sold off by their owners. Don't forget that Thomas Jefferson was a slaver, despite being officially against it). The USA is one of the first countries in the world to formally recognize the right to privacy through the 4th Amendment.

Go back 1000 years ago, and you have people dying of the Plague, and divorce court being settled by TRIAL BY COMBAT, to the death! You aren't really a person unless you're from a noble house either.

http://www.ripleys.com/blog/trial-by-combat/

But yeah, go complain about privacy rights. I raise you SLAVERY. Modern civil rights for all people is a concept that is only 50 years old or so, since the 1960s when the concept began to solidify.

Again, ignore history at your peril. Today is the most peaceful, prosperous time of history. And Pax Britannica (the period of peace in the 1800s, the time period when "The Mikado" was written) is also relatively peaceful compared to hundreds of years before that time.

But Pax Americana stands head-and-shoulders better than Pax Britannica. We have women's sufferage / women's rights. Gays aren't literally put to death (even smart gays, like Allan Turing, would be able to live in peace today). Jim Crow laws don't exist anymore, and the Ku Klux Klan aren't lynching randoms, at least out in the open, like they used to.

And of course, we aren't killing tens-of-thousands of innocent civilians at a time (because killing everybody is much easier when conquering a nation than trying to rule).

------------

> Nope. The claim was that this is because of countries wanting to dominate each other. I say it's despite of that.

Imperialism is dead dude. Let it go and rejoice in the present.

On the other hand, if you're the kind of person that "The Mikado" is describing, perhaps you can't. Any century but this, any country but your own??