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by rfurmani 1658 days ago
It's not quite so simple, since we are looking at single examples. Alexander was predated by leaders (Cyrus the Great) who ruled in a much more progressive gentle way. Recent history has shown major powers performing very cruelly (genocides under colonialism) and there's definitely at least minor world leaders who would want to be just as cruel. So the question becomes more of why was it effective and strategic to be cruel at that scale in the past but not in the present world, and I would attribute that to technology: better communication, travel, and interconnectedness of trade.
2 comments
panick21_ 1656 days ago
Cyrus the Great gets a lot of great press. Partly because he replaced really unpopular empires. And party because those that he really didn't like didn't give us many sources.

Its very questionable if he was all that nice to the Medians and Assyrian cities.

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Super_Jambo 1658 days ago
I would attribute it to democracy. It's very hard to sell war to an electorate unless you can persuade them you're the 'good guys'. Which is harder to sell when you're openly butchering thousands of people.
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yyyk 1658 days ago
Many ancient societies had a very different conception of 'good guys' than the modern one. It was very easy to justify very aggressive war with some of these alternative conceptions.

'Good guys are the ones who worship the right god(s) and therefore we get to kill the bad people next door', or 'Good guys are guys who serve the King/Emperor and anything that advances his glory is good', 'Good guys are cultured people and everyone else is a barbarian' etc.

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Amezarak 1658 days ago
Democracy didn’t stop the Athenians from exterminating the Melians, every adult male being killed and the rest of the population sold into slavery, all because (according to Thucydides), “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
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TheCoelacanth 1658 days ago
Athenians weren't really democratic by modern standards. Only about 10% the population could vote[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy

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fennecfoxen 1658 days ago
But why and how is democracy a thing?
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