Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 149 posts

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#121

Post by jimmyk »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #76
senior_james wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Islam is not a race. Also, an act of terror by someone that just happens to be Christian is completely different than an act by someone doing it in the name of a religion, like Islam. "plain old racism" It's not racist to recognize patterns. You can't even draw Muhammad without getting death threats or even killed. The same can't be said about Jesus. The majority of the major terror attacks in the last 10 years have…

If you read upthread it was explained the final fall of the Roman Empire could be attributed to treating their refugees like dirt and lying to them. Also, I'm currently in US and I don't feel my way of life is being destroyed by Muslim people. I think anti-Muslim sentiment is more of a negative influence on my life, as I work in academia and have had to deal with co workers and students being unable to continue resea…

"Also, I'm currently in US and I don't feel my way of life is being destroyed by Muslim people."

Given they constitute 1% of the population, would you expect to feel that way? Why would a visible 1% minority group openly try to attack the way of life of the host population?

"Most all major acts of terror in the USA have been by white people.... In USA we had a stint where white men were shooting up schools and killing children practically every month."

Those aren't considered terrorist attacks. Also, what are the per-capita numbers? Isn't that what's important?

"I've even had an anti-Islamic person tell me that there's a rule in the Quran that allows an Islamic person to lie about being Islamic if they feel they are in danger"

Is this what they were referring to?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiya

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#122

Post by the_af »

digi_owl wrote: post #73

I thought by now we knew that Romans used the label "barbarian" on any group not Romans.

In the context of the article, it's clear they mean the now common meaning of "barbarian: a person in a savage, primitive state; uncivilized person." TFA even mentions the Romans considered Huns "scarcely human".

Obviously they are not referring to the Roman meaning of "any non-Romans", because that would be a tautology.

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#123

Post by tunocina »

jacquesm wrote: post #100
tunocina wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No, we all together own the result and fractionally each of us. That's the price of living in a democracy, and one I gladly accept. In a dictatorship you could argue like you do (and even there there are options, but with a much higher personal price). Well, you said I could change things, I'm telling you I can't, because I don't get to choose. We all do, and the majority, by now, disagrees with me. >That is a vanis…

> I am aware of it, but it's not worth the risk to let any of them in. You'd rather see 10's or 100's of thousands dead than risk a few incidents? > That's supposing law enforcement can stop 100% of terror attacks before they have happened. There are so few of them that even with broken LE the dangers from terrorism are smaller than from smoking. > Isn't it better to just remove the root of the issue? Yes, but it is…

>You'd rather see 10's or 100's of thousands dead than risk a few incidents?

It's all a matter of perspective. They are not one of my own, so I don't care.

>Nah, only when viewed through the magnifying lens of the media. Traffic and obesity kill vastly more people than terrorists ever can.

So you compare obesity (self-inflicted) with terrorism?

>Where do you live then?

Southern Europe.

>Do you realize the majority of Kurds are Muslims? Are you suggesting they hate themselves?

Rest of Muslims do hate Kurds. The same way a big % of Roma are Europeans, but most Europeans hate Roma.

>You let it happen to you, yesterday. Statistically speaking I feel no less safe than I did on Thursday last week, and if I see something that hints at an attack in progress I'll act. Until then life goes on.

The fact that we let Muslims in, being very well aware of the danger they pose to our society, speaks a lot more than a few corpses scattered around London.

>It's already working. What do you suggest?

By what metric?

>Isolationism? Close all borders to refugees? Barbed wire borders and soldiers with orders to shoot if the refugees should approach the border?

Yep. Men in fighting age with the intention of invading our countries should be not be allowed in. Shooting should only be the last resort; ammunition is pretty expensive.

>Are you willing to go and stand there to pull the trigger?

Gladly.

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#124

Post by viggity »

srean wrote: post #99
viggity wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gee, it is almost like white people make up a huge part of the population. Apply a little Bayes Theorem and visit back when you've run the numbers. Also, fwiw, Islam is not a race, hence you can't be racist for criticizing it. It is an ideological system. In that way it is no different than Democracy, Communism, Buddhism, Capitalism, Mormonism, Anarchism, etc, etc. Race doesn't define any of those ideologies either.…

> Only one of these ideologies has a large constituency who condones the intentional targeting of innocent civilians You mean collaterals and the US ?

collateral damage is bound to happen. the difference is that the US doesn't intentionally target innocents like the jihadists do

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#125

Post by mythrwy »

dpark wrote: post #71
mythrwy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Washington Post has become a rather low bar in general the last few years. I've stopped reading it all together and am disappointed to see the number of articles from it cropping up on HN lately. Also (off topic) they have begin a policy of shadowbanning commenters in their comment sections who disagree with their "official" policy on things. It's really barely one step above Brietbart now days in my opinion.

> Also (off topic) they have begin a policy of shadowbanning commenters in their comment sections who disagree with their "official" policy on things. This policy is known to exist or you believe it does? Serious question.

You mean is it a published policy? Not that I know of.

Does it happen? At least once (personally observed) and I assume more.

They really ought to get rid of comments if they are going to shadowban. An echo chamber of Clinton support is kind of sad at this point and I doubt it fools anyone.

It is their paper and they have a right to publish whatever propaganda they want. And they certainly have been doing that. It's kind of sad to see the major paper of our nations capital sunk to this level but I guess it's the trajectory of big media right now.

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#126

Post by dpark »

Spooky23 wrote: post #103
dpark wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If any nation today had the ability to slaughter their enemies, they would. This is untrue. Most citizens don't have the stomach for total war or civilian massacre. It's not considered acceptable or moral by most people. There was no lack of ability constraining the US from carpet bombing everything habitable in Afghanistan after 9/11, but relatively few people were advocating for that.

They don't need to. Ancient people were no more or less moral than we are today. Only the people running the tribe matter, whether that be a bronze age war band or a modern army. The fact that only a few people advocated the bombing you described doesn't change the fact that bombs were dropped.

It matters when the leaders are elected.

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#127

Post by jimmyk »

jacquesm wrote: post #42
tunocina wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having done that does not mean our borders had to open for bitter, fighting age men.

It's a bit of a problem, but 'you break it, you own it' is a good rule. See also: Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt and a very large number of other places where proxy wars between western states and meddling in local affairs in order to gain the upper hand in veiled conflicts over resources have made the world a much worse place for a very large number of people.

It's a bit of a problem, but 'you break it, you own it' is a good rule.

A good rule for who, exactly?

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#128

Post by wavefunction »

empath75 wrote: post #63
tacomonstrous wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an unreasonable legend. Conventional wisdom is that all Indo-Europeans sprang from the steppes of Central Asia. Having it mentioned in a 14th century declaration is pretty fascinating!

Sort of. The languages did. But there were people in Scotland before any indo Europeans got there.

And people before those people, most likely!

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#129

Post by dang »

senior_james wrote: post #55
koverstreet wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most terrorist acts in the U.S. are committed by white people, and the people pushing to make their religion the basis of law are also Christians, not Muslims. Your statements have no basis in facts or data, which leads me to suspect plain old racism.

Islam is not a race. Also, an act of terror by someone that just happens to be Christian is completely different than an act by someone doing it in the name of a religion, like Islam. "plain old racism" It's not racist to recognize patterns. You can't even draw Muhammad without getting death threats or even killed. The same can't be said about Jesus. The majority of the major terror attacks in the last 10 years have…

Personal attacks and religious flamewars are probably the two most toxic things on HN. You managed to combine them in a comment that stands out for its vileness even in this wretched a flamewar.

We've banned this account. Please stop creating accounts to break HN's guidelines with.

All: users who upvote poison like this eventually lose their voting rights on HN.

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#130

Post by jacquesm »

jimmyk wrote: post #127
jacquesm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit of a problem, but 'you break it, you own it' is a good rule. See also: Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt and a very large number of other places where proxy wars between western states and meddling in local affairs in order to gain the upper hand in veiled conflicts over resources have made the world a much worse place for a very large number of people.

It's a bit of a problem, but 'you break it, you own it' is a good rule. A good rule for who, exactly?

The world. Just like 'polluter pays'.
Post reply on HN