Why are other dictators judged less harshly than Hitler?

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goldfish21
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31 Jan 2023, 1:09 pm

Marketing.

Meanwhile, if you look at how many deaths the British Royal Family is ultimately responsible for, or whichever dipshits of their time were in charge of the USA/Canada during the ~200 year near complete genocide of ~100 Million indigenous people, or whoever exported white supremacy and the slave trade from Spain way back, or various popes and other religious leaders who somehow convinced their cult members that murdering other humans was a spiritually enriching thing to do. And so on and so on.

But because hitler did his thing in a particular way at a particular time, he could be marketed as such a strong example of an awful person, while also distracting from all of the other horrible people from peoples' own cultures.


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AngelRho
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31 Jan 2023, 5:56 pm

The_Walrus wrote:
You might say that in the long run, funding the invention of fusion would enable those things anyway. And, fair. But it’s a risk - there is the risk that you don’t actually make a difference, either because it gets invented by someone who would have done it anyway, at roughly the same time, or else it is actually impossible and it never gets invented despite all the research. I’m sure you’ll agree that which technologies get priority is a case of “reasonable minds may differ”.

I wish I DID agree with you. I mean...YES, everyone has their own interest on what to fund, etc. My beef with the whole thing is that you have too many corporations in bed with the government. If we obsoleted oil as an energy resource, can you imagine how many jobs would be lost and how much money would follow them? But a lot of times government is the enemy of invention and innovation because government filters tax money into industries that, no more than they actually contribute, don't deserve to survive. In the case of Big Oil, which is what p!$$e$ me off more than anything else right now, if you complete shut off the tap for ENERGY production from oil, most of your oilmen would be laid off, most if not all of your auto workers would be out of a job since they are dependent on int.comb. engine manufacturing and would struggle to re-train for an alternative.

In short, it would be a DEE-zaster for many of your Republican voters. It would also threaten your labor unions as well, and that's where a lot of support comes from for the Democratic Party.

In summary: No matter how much people pay lip-service to getting rid of oil "because environment," nobody who knows a thing or two about it really wants it to happen.

If you break down an issue like oil into things that really make a difference, like chemicals, plastics, heat from natural gas...I mean, right now, someone freezing to death would be grateful for natural gas as a heat source. So it's not easy making an argument against something for which very little out there is more valuable. And natural gas is still abundant. I'm not sure what your good alternative COULD be, except maybe, idk, something outlandish like--we build efficient, cheap rockets that can mine virtually unlimited frozen methane and never have to worry about running out of fossil fuels. But I imagine if we have the capability for deep space exploration and mining, we could probably come up with an alternative for oxidizing heat sources.

It's not always a matter of whether there are any billionaires that care enough about it. If I cared enough, I'd make myself a billionaire and make it a top priority. But there is also the issue of government regulation and other ways government obstructs the development of emerging technology and science. NASA was perhaps the worst thing that ever could have happened to space travel, but we're stuck with it. Now, individuals are coming out to promote improved space travel and are doing a better job in a shorter period of time than NASA's best since the first moon landing.

I do understand what you're saying that individual billionaires will have individual interests and will do what they want and not do things they don't want to justify spending money on. I respect that. What I think is important isn't what everyone else thinks is important. I get that. I do think that's perfectly reasonable. I can't force anyone to agree with me. But my main point is that there are other factors that limit incentives for business leaders to achieve.



AngelRho
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31 Jan 2023, 6:32 pm

goldfish21 wrote:
Marketing.

Meanwhile, if you look at how many deaths the British Royal Family is ultimately responsible for, or whichever dipshits of their time were in charge of the USA/Canada during the ~200 year near complete genocide of ~100 Million indigenous people, or whoever exported white supremacy and the slave trade from Spain way back, or various popes and other religious leaders who somehow convinced their cult members that murdering other humans was a spiritually enriching thing to do. And so on and so on.

But because hitler did his thing in a particular way at a particular time, he could be marketed as such a strong example of an awful person, while also distracting from all of the other horrible people from peoples' own cultures.

For once, I can't exactly argue with you.

And I won't make excuses for how Americans treated natives, either. One of the issues of colonial America was that England was using Natives as a means of retaliation against colonists when King George was being unreasonable and colonists weren't unwilling but unable to fall in line. And it got to be too much. Once there was a pattern of inciting Native Americans against colonists, retaliation from colonists, I really, REALLY don't think what ultimately happened to Native Americans could have gone any other way than it did. In the end, Native Americans do have a wealth of opportunity in the USA BUT are afforded a basic, minimum standard of living regardless. I'm not normally one to suggest that a government or even individual owes anything to ANY people group. But in that case, given how things went down, I think the present system is the least we could do.

I don't think modern day America owes anything to, say, black people on the basis that they're black. But it's difficult to justify leaving a group that YOU ENSLAVED to their own devices when that means they WILL be denied civil rights, etc. As a society we've come a long way from that, though we have a long way to go before we can get past a lot of the racism that still happens. But if we are going to say that we are a country that promotes individual freedom, we cannot solve our problems by giving GROUPS of people special treatment. If we took blacks away from Africa to enslave them, see the error of our ways, fight a WAR to free them, what should have happened would be segregation in the short term by setting up protected internment camps and letting black people exercise their CHOICE to reintegrate into society. Instead, we act like (at the time) we don't owe them anything except their freedom. And then the ropes come out.

The idea of internment or concentration camps has terrible connotations, so I recognize a lot of people find the idea offensive. But explain your offense to protecting freed black people to the wife who lost her husband to a lynch mob, or the son who lost a father, etc. FORCING freedom on people never ends up for the best. I think the lingering racism in our society is a product of that, and the way our political parties have behaved has done little to improve things.