SD on 13/6/2025 at 20:37
It's why I can't take anyone from the Americas or Australasia seriously when they lecture other people about colonialism. If you feel that strongly about it, there are ample flights back to wherever your ancestors came from.
Azaran on 13/6/2025 at 20:41
Colonialism has been used by all sorts of people, but only western colonialism is considered bad :erg:
demagogue on 14/6/2025 at 00:47
Working in the human rights world, believe me the same hell is given to the badness of colonialism, majority-ethnicity-supremacy, and discrimination against pretty literally every indigenous group in every country in South, Southeast, and East Asia... Myanmar Burman supremacy, Chinese Han supremacy, India Hindu supremacy etc., etc.
Western colonialism is one input to the dysfunction, since usually after decolonization, the new establishment group inherits all the exploitative systems and just takes over the former colonizer's role. But if you get down to it, it's non-Western colonialism and just as bad as the original brand.
I'm sure there's a parallel story for South America, the Middle East, and Africa -- well I know some case studies -- but I haven't studied them as deeply.
Edit: The basic punchline is that there are general tendencies which can drive any society into authoritarianism, discrimination, and social exclusion which has a settler or power-group / colonized or excluded-group character as one part of that country's problems. If you want to identify the colonial-aspect of it, look for any language like "this X group can't be trusted to rule themselves. They're born and raised terrorists. Everybody is better off if our group is the one in charge." You don't have to get into the weeds about any history of migration, displacements, who controlled what piece of land at what time. That's colonialist rhetoric that drives very familiar "colonial" problems, and that's what people are talking about when they talk about it as a problem.
Nicker on 14/6/2025 at 05:27
Quote Posted by Azaran
Colonialism has been used by all sorts of people, but only western colonialism is considered bad :erg:
While every culture has engaged in colonialism and kept slaves, European expansion, starting with the Conquistadors, was arguably the most devastating version to date. Combining technological superiority and unopposed diseases, it destroyed multiple civilizations and cultures, and an estimated fifty-six million people, following first contact in 1492.
The Pacific North West of North America was, in many ways, the last place on earth for European expansion. By the time Captain Cook arrived, 300 years after Columbus, smallpox, tuberculosis, measles, brought to the southern continent by the Spanish, had killed 80% to 90% of the indigenous populations on both continents.
Previously, individual warlords struck out on their own. In the 1500's an organized gang of thugs was unleashed on the globe, with ships and guns to get the job done. It was gluttony and cruelty on an industrial scale.
Eminent Domain was the name of the game. Basically, "I got here first". "I" being Europeans. The people who had lived there for millennia, didn't count. Later, when that argument wore thin, it was replaced with "terra nullius", recognizing the original inhabitants as members of the human species,
waiting to be turned into real people.
This doctrine was foundational to the formal genocide to come, offering the First Peoples a choice between obscurity and servitude to the invader, or extinction.
So yeah, Western Colonialism, by any objective measure, far more deadly, thorough, cultural and methodical than the depredations of Alexander, Genghis Kahn, Atilla, or any other jolly sociopath with "Great" in their name.
The intent was always the same, but the circumstances and technologies of the 1500's made an impact like nothing in the past.
[ /rant]
Tocky on 14/6/2025 at 23:20
Quote Posted by Pyrian
Machu Picchu substantially predates contact and was abandoned as the Peruvian population was decimated by war and disease post-contact. It seems that it has less European ancestry than, say, Argentina, simply by dint of having less immigration. Same with Ecuador. I wonder if it's mostly just because it's so much harder to sail around the cape?
I could have sworn it was Machu Picchu they fled to. Perhaps it was another Inca stronghold. It has been thirty years since I read about it. This is from WIKI and it was the European diseases that mostly killed the natives same as with those in the US.
"A consensus among archaeologists is that Pachacutec ordered the construction of the royal estate for his use as a retreat, most likely after a successful military campaign. Although Machu Picchu is considered to be a "royal" estate, it would not have been passed down in the line of succession. Rather it was used for 80 years before being abandoned, seemingly because of the Spanish conquests in other parts of the Inca Empire.[1] It is possible that most of its inhabitants died from smallpox introduced by travelers before the Spanish conquistadors even arrived in the area."
DuatDweller on 5/7/2025 at 18:25
Oww do you mean lost history as this kind of history... you know where those ancient civilizations' tombs were found in the 1800s, later the Smithsonian came and whoops no more traces of Assyrian Egyptian, tomb artifacts, you name it VANISHED?
Quote:
Hieroglyphs in Illinois
Another intriguing case revolves around the Burrows Cave, allegedly discovered in southern Illinois by Russell Burrows in the 1980s. The cave reportedly contained tablets covered in Egyptian-like hieroglyphs, as well as artifacts resembling ancient Egyptian relics.
Quote:
Archaeologists are in Disbelief! Ancient Egyptians Found in America
May 11, 2023
In a groundbreaking discovery that could rewrite history, archaeologists have unearthed enigmatic artifacts at the heart of the Grand Canyon, suggesting an astonishing connection between the majestic natural wonder and the distant world of Ancient Egypt. This unprecedented find raises a million questions, as researchers delve deeper into the mysterious intersection of two vastly different civilizations, separated by oceans and time, yet brought together by the sands of the canyon.
(
https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/archaeologists-are-in-disbelief-ancient-egyptians-found-in-america)
You know just thinking out loud you know, but makes you wonder a bit.....
Pyrian on 6/7/2025 at 01:07
...How does anybody read that and come to any other conclusion than that Russell Burrow was full of shit?
Starker on 6/7/2025 at 01:53
People can claim all kinds of crazy things. For something to be history, it has to have actual evidence to back it up.
DuatDweller on 6/7/2025 at 10:35
Ok so how about the CIA (in the late 40s and 50) looking for Hitler who ran away to Argentina and later Chile (heck there were even eyewitnesses of him but without the mustache), as they were looking for the "Amerika Bombers" in Germany at least one prototype (this airplanes had the autonomy to reach America, hence their name) was missing, hint, maybe it was used by Hitler to escape?
Just as they tried so hard to kill Hitler and failed in more than 20 times, either this dude was very lucky or he had a destiny to fulfill.
Or maybe he had a lot of stunt doubles. And the Soviets were just interested in the monetary award for the team who nabbed the guy and killed him.
As a later analysis done by the US scientists revealed that the supposed Hitler's corpse was a female body, sorry Stalin your buddies screw up.
(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerikabomber)
(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_264)
(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Wulf_Ta_400)
