I even see an argument for the idea that the US is as low as third all time behind the British and Spanish empires, but that's not company you want to be keeping.
I heard someone talking about how, in Cortez’s diaries, you can see he’s constantly obsessing over how he’s going to repay the debt he went into to make the trip to the Americas.
Which isn’t to absolve him of blame for being a ruthless shithead, but rather to point out that he didn’t simply do things because being a shithead was cool (well, I’m sure he blew off steam in abhorrent ways, but I digress). The point was that there were institutional factors at play as well, and that we can’t simply do a “bad apples” analysis.
This all came up in the context of discussing Scheidler’s The End of the Megamachine. I just found it to be a really interesting discussion of things I wasn’t aware of, and wanted to float it into the internet aether. And to say, yeah, the people they sent certainly had many problems
While the British were a stereotypical evil Empire which ultimately caused the most net human suffering, because it fell behind the US in the 20th century much of its violent history is confined to the brutality of 19th century Imperialism, and that checklist of terrorism has been run through almost all European countries.
The US on the other hand not only went through that checklist but developped its intelligence services into what, from a moral perspective, can only be understood as a demonic entities hellbent on producing new ways of human suffering.
Rap analogy: Britain is Eminem, cuz they got the biggest numbers, the US is Kanye West, cuz they're the most creative.
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I even see an argument for the idea that the US is as low as third all time behind the British and Spanish empires, but that's not company you want to be keeping.
Yeah Spain... Spain was real bad folks. Real, real bad.
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I heard someone talking about how, in Cortez’s diaries, you can see he’s constantly obsessing over how he’s going to repay the debt he went into to make the trip to the Americas.
Which isn’t to absolve him of blame for being a ruthless shithead, but rather to point out that he didn’t simply do things because being a shithead was cool (well, I’m sure he blew off steam in abhorrent ways, but I digress). The point was that there were institutional factors at play as well, and that we can’t simply do a “bad apples” analysis.
This all came up in the context of discussing Scheidler’s The End of the Megamachine. I just found it to be a really interesting discussion of things I wasn’t aware of, and wanted to float it into the internet aether. And to say, yeah, the people they sent certainly had many problems
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Makes sense. That's probably the closest thing to a rich person they could make sit on a boat for half a year eating salted meat and lime vinegar.
I want to read some
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Oh also, America is originally the UK's fault, so they're the extra-worst. Even their fucking imperialism does imperialism!
My perspective
While the British were a stereotypical evil Empire which ultimately caused the most net human suffering, because it fell behind the US in the 20th century much of its violent history is confined to the brutality of 19th century Imperialism, and that checklist of terrorism has been run through almost all European countries.
The US on the other hand not only went through that checklist but developped its intelligence services into what, from a moral perspective, can only be understood as a demonic entities hellbent on producing new ways of human suffering.
Rap analogy: Britain is Eminem, cuz they got the biggest numbers, the US is Kanye West, cuz they're the most creative.
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Now that I think about it, Imperial Japan, as short lived as it was, is a very good challenger for top spot.
And the other one are all NATO dogs which answer to it now anyway.