Dak
mentat
My point is that there is a myopia of focus on particular sins of particular persons, sins conceived as such generally long after the era of analysis (obviously there were contemporary criticisms of slavery and colonialism, but they were marginal rather than celebrated as today). Just as the Aztecs probably left their spectacles of human sacrifice to go home and love their families, so to did Spaniards brutally extract gold from the hills through slave labor and write letters back home lamenting the distance. But one is a curiosity in the history of the Oppressed and the other is Most Vile.
The reality is that, as with anything else, actions involve any number of tradeoffs. The sorts of processes which would drive exploration of the seas drove exploration in other areas as well, and exploration of new physical spaces is probably done by less cautious and conscientious persons. This leads to both the killing of "found" persons as well as providing them schools and medicine. It's a lose-lose situation too: had the Europeans simply "stayed home" all this time, one can easily imagine Leftists pushing a white-mans-burden afresh, like they currently do anyway with calls for global redistribution.
it's amazing these dudes have so much influence with opinions like these
