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[–] 6 points 1 month ago (4 children)

the entire world throughout human history has gotten where they are by conquering the neighbors, including mass murdering them, enslaving them, and forcing them to obey them or die. thankfully, that has tapered off a lot in the last half century but thats not really long enough to be certain it wont keep going

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

    No, this is incorrect and it only serves to whitewash colonialism and the particularly cruel practices of the British Empire and its grotesque contemporary vestige.

    Ruthless conquering forces are the exception, not the rule. Ethnic groups coexisted, intermarried and assimilated. Languages and political systems merged. Migration was not, normally, conquest. And conquest did not normally amount to ethnic cleansing.

    The British empire starved millions of people across multiple continents. It is a part of their coping mechanism to posit that the only thing that separates the English from other peoples us the opportunity. But we have many other empires in history that didn't even treat theit most remote provinces how the British treated Ireland, to say nothing of its more distant colonies.

    The USA is worse in spirit than Britain ever was, but luckily with much more limited opportunity.

    That's why the message of Cyrus from 2600 years ago is inscribed in the UN.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Conquest was common enough there are prehistoric records of it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_warfare

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