I disagree with this assessment. Rome was stagnant and I see no reason to think that a Western Empire that survived would have behaved any differently than the East. Byzantium (a Christian nation, by the way) wasn't hurtling toward the space age, so I don't see any reason to think the West would have, either. The Dark Ages were overstated by 19th century historians, in any case.
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
I disagree with this assessment. Rome was stagnant and I see no reason to think that a Western Empire that survived would have behaved any differently than the East. Byzantium (a Christian nation, by the way) wasn't hurtling toward the space age, so I don't see any reason to think the West would have, either. The Dark Ages were overstated by 19th century historians, in any case.
If you cut the racial surpremacy aspect out of Hitler, for the purpose of building a "better future" there's very little difference between him and all mad leaders bent on world conquest. Alexanders, Napoleons, first Mongol Khans, Tojos, first Caliphs, Timurs, and the sort. All of them would only stop their conquests once their own countries had imploded (Alexander, Caliphs, Khans) or once their numerous enemies in all directions crushed them.
The racial supremacy aspect was a fairly major thing, though. It's like saying dog poop is like ice cream, if you cut out the taste and smell.
But you don't need to mention every time you speak about the man, in an unrelated thing. If I'm talking about how Hitler's hairdue looks ridiculous, I don't need people bringing me up that he wanted to eradicate Jews, gays, and minorities, e.g. I don't think he started World War 2 with the intention of ridding the world of jews.
Godwin's law exists for a reason. If you don't want to discuss Hitler's hatred of Jews, a very simple strategy: DON'T DISCUSS HITLER.
We've done decades of experiments on the internet on this, going back to the usenet days, and it is impossible to bring up Hitler and stay on topic, unless the topic is "Hitler." Take the time to come up with other examples, it's cheaper in the long run.
Even more, Nazi state was a totalitarian state, which is something no previous age has seen before. Totalitarianism, with its all-controling and all-embrancing state is something of entirely dfferent kind than all empires built by kings, emperors, khans or caliphs.
Medieval/Classical Empires/totalitarian states are a far stretch from the modern dictatorship. Especially in feudal times, a king/duke/emperor had to keep his subjects, at least the nobility, happy or at least content. To force them to capitulate under the threat of arms was not the way to go. Instead, they made concessions, gave out land, did what they could to keep their people happy, who in turn gave what they could to keep their people happy, and so on. Meanwhile, a modern totalitarian society lacks the feudal system, and all that dictators would have to do to seize power, especially in the post-WW2 era, would be seize the right weapons, or gain the right allies, or earn fleeting "popular support", (Astiride of Haiti comes to mind.) and then they can keep power by putting a gun barrel to the heads of the opposition.
Any social system that is not anarchy needs leaders. The feudal system has them pretty prominently but the totalitarian one also needs leaders. Without leaders, your totalitarian system consists just of one angry man on a soap box and an angry mob who forgets that he is angry after the pogrom.
Did I ever imply that I don't believe in leaders/leadership? If so, that was not my intention after all. Leaders are ultimately necessary for development, it has been so since Civilization was established. Leaders who establish themselves with either force of arms, in direct opposition to the will of the people they rule, or by circumventing/exploiting the law to acquire power is no legitimate leader. What I am saying here is that a leader in the Feudal ages is a far cry from dictators in the WW2/Post-WW2 eras.
Not really. The only difference is that the dictators broke the laws where the feudal laws rewrote them.
Liberterianism is much bigger in Europe and socialism is just as popular as it is in the US, that would certainly be a beautiful world to live in.
Actually to a large degree the settlers killed the Buffalo on purpose to starve/destroy the Indian cultures in the area - no free sources of food and the indians would either starve to death, or be easily forced on to reservations where they would be out of the way and get something to eat.
It depends. In a dire emergency the natives knew how to use all the parts of a buffalo. However in times of plenty, or if it were convenient the indians were just as wasteful. The main difference is that the europeans via railroads could supply the needs/wants of millions and millions of people for buffalo derived products. The natives lacked the size of population and the efficiency of transportation to make it worthwhile to kill that many buffalo that fast.
Indeed. The near extermination of the American bison was as much driven by genocidal policies towards the local human population as it was interest in commercially exploiting the animals themselves.
The survival of Poland-Lithuania probably would have helped things a lot, especially as it would have given a strong counterpoint to increasing eastern absolutism. But the rise of nationalism in the 19th century could have easily caused Poland-Lithuania to collapse the moment it was poked hard enough just like the similar hyphenated multi-cultural monarchy of Austria-Hungary.
A republican Russia based around the dominating power of the Republic of Novgorod might also have been an earlier solution to the later problems of eastern Europe.
A Napoleonic victory over Austria and Russia, with a restored Poland and possibly an independent Hungary and Austria in the Confederation of the Rhine would have caused a lot of imperialistic problems but might have kicked Europe a whole century ahead on equalisation and liberalisation.
Any Asian state going the Japan way rather than the colonisation way would have been better for that nation.
While there are official government memos that state that pretty clearly, the actual work was mostly done by hunter tourists with no genocidal ambitions. The government supported extermination of the Bison, but they didn't actively allocate funds to kick it off except by establishing national parks.
The government's intention wasn't literally genocidal in their minds. They actually intended that the natives would be forced to adopt a more sedentary agricultural lifestyle and assimilate rather than be exterminated. They were just hopelessly naive in their beliefs that their in hindsight genocidal policies wouldn't lead to genocide. They were also horribly inconsistent, since for some reason they were able to justify moving the agricultural Indians off their farms and giving them bad land in exchange as encouraging the Indians to be farmers.
A republican Russia based around the dominating power of the Republic of Novgorod might also have been an earlier solution to the later problems of eastern Europe.
A Napoleonic victory over Austria and Russia, with a restored Poland and possibly an independent Hungary and Austria in the Confederation of the Rhine would have caused a lot of imperialistic problems but might have kicked Europe a whole century ahead on equalisation and liberalisation.
Any Asian state going the Japan way rather than the colonisation way would have been better for that nation.
While there are official government memos that state that pretty clearly, the actual work was mostly done by hunter tourists with no genocidal ambitions. The government supported extermination of the Bison, but they didn't actively allocate funds to kick it off except by establishing national parks.
The government's intention wasn't literally genocidal in their minds. They actually intended that the natives would be forced to adopt a more sedentary agricultural lifestyle and assimilate rather than be exterminated. They were just hopelessly naive in their beliefs that their in hindsight genocidal policies wouldn't lead to genocide. They were also horribly inconsistent, since for some reason they were able to justify moving the agricultural Indians off their farms and giving them bad land in exchange as encouraging the Indians to be farmers.
You've already said what I was going to say. So I'll go for the Greeks inventing the steam engine back in the day.
Blood thought he knew the native mind;
He said you must be firm, but kind.
A mutiny resulted.
I shall never forget the way
That Blood stood upon this awful day
Preserved us all from death.
He stood upon a little mound
Cast his lethargic eyes around,
And said beneath his breath:
'Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim Gun, and they have not.'
I was just asking myself if you are beating your children, for their own good off course so it's not a crime ! What about free will ?
Just go ask the natives in these countries how much good it made them...And was cutting the limbs of thousands and millions deads in Belgian Congo for their own good ?
Lord Durham is not very popular in Québec either because he said that losing our (french) language and culture would be good for us because british were a superior people. Who else talked of superior people lately and with which horrible results ?
Not sure if you mean good old paternalism or blunt white (anglo-saxon) supremacy ? Communists also thought they were acting for the good of humanity at the cost of millions lives.
Please read the entire thread before posting.
I had already called an end to that discussion.