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Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

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Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#181

Post by int_19h »

watwut wrote: post #169
austinheap wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can’t stay on topic these days. More interested in being Internet arm charm historians what-about-ing every topic possible. It’s just an article about Aztecs.

People up thread discuss how good guy Cortez must have been, merely affected by Aztek sacrifices and saving locals. That is somehow on topic? Why the difference? It is as if people were emotionally invested into this, despite this being hundred years old affair. So yes, this matters because thread up there want to make adventure book out of this. It is not about trying to figure history, it is about treating it all a…

People up thread merely noted that Cortez was likely correct, and we shouldn't have so hastily disbelieved his claims. They said nothing about him being a "good guy" etc.

Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#182

Post by learc83 »

thedailymail wrote: post #138
coding123 wrote: post #20

I know this comment won't be accepted too well here, but as people become vegetarians/vegans even, but more importantly start seeing animals as other beings with souls - it becomes clear how barbaric our society STILL is. Again, only visible to some people that have rejected some pretty common norms. It is interesting because in those times it was politically and socially acceptable to be OK with other humans being s…

I am not a vegan/vegetarian, but I do think that future generations will view meat-eating as immoral and see their ancestors as barbaric for eating animals. We already see this in the West with respect to limited categories of animals (whales, dolphins, dogs, cats). Probably the shift will involve a philosophical change in assigning moral status based on ability to experience pain (rather than the higher bar of self-…

>based on ability to experience pain (rather than the higher bar of self-awareness/higher consciousness)

But without talking about consciousness what does experience pain mean. Insects respond to and attempt to avoid certain stimuli, but that's not really the same thing.

Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#183

Post by njarboe »

barking wrote: post #173
avn2109 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your cultural relativism/multiculturalism/whatever-you-want-to-call-it leads you to equate/compare "institutionalized torture killing of children" with "pollution," that's a hint that you've made some drastic reasoning errors. It's such a silly, unreasonable ideology that it basically refutes itself when you get anywhere near a corner case like this. Some cultures/ideologies really are better than others. If you n…

Western Civilization considers it a human right to be able kill the most vulnerable humans under the pretext that they aren't ready yet to have human rights.

Only very recently in Western Civilization has this been enshrined in law in most countries and is still a very highly contested issue in many.

Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#185

Post by shoo »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #175
shoo wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for people who are dying of starvation versus people who are being explicitly human-sacrificed, from their perspective do you think it particularly matters if they are dying from the neglect and sheer indifference of others, or from direct intentional malice? i would argue that for those on the receiving end, the difference matters very little.

Oddly enough, the people who are actually dying of starvation always seem to be located in Marxist countries rather than the evil capitalist Western countries. Just bad luck, I guess.

i totally agree that there have been avoidable and horrific famines in marxist countries due to inept attempts at central management of agriculture. these days, there's also a bit of ugly conflict popping up along ethnic lines in some countries where populations are under stress for access to enough farmland for subsistence agriculture vs grazing (environmental pressure will be part of this).

i dont think there's much distinction between marxist countries and capitalist western countries when it comes towards climate change, we all love nice cheap coal and oil now.

Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#186

Post by shoo »

int_19h wrote: post #178
shoo wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for people who are dying of starvation versus people who are being explicitly human-sacrificed, from their perspective do you think it particularly matters if they are dying from the neglect and sheer indifference of others, or from direct intentional malice? i would argue that for those on the receiving end, the difference matters very little.

Depends. If it's the Aztecs we're talking about, I'm sure they'd prefer to die of starvation in at least some cases - Aztec deities were fairly inventive as far as their sacrifices went, and at least one of them required the victim to be flayed alive, for example.

point taken. if we keep at this long enough we can end up with some utilitarian equations to trade-off the relative costs of different forms of human misery.

Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#187

Post by lostlogin »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #175
shoo wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for people who are dying of starvation versus people who are being explicitly human-sacrificed, from their perspective do you think it particularly matters if they are dying from the neglect and sheer indifference of others, or from direct intentional malice? i would argue that for those on the receiving end, the difference matters very little.

Oddly enough, the people who are actually dying of starvation always seem to be located in Marxist countries rather than the evil capitalist Western countries. Just bad luck, I guess.

What? Care to give examples? And where is a place you would define as Marxist in 2018?

Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#188

Post by lostlogin »

int_19h wrote: post #180
beaconstudios wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. What god is capital punishment meant to appease? It's supposedly there for people who are too dangerous to keep alive right? Human sacrifice seems to me like it was meant to bring better harvests or otherwise give the illusion of controlling a chaotic/random natural process.

"Civic religion" is a concept that some people subscribe to. It doesn't have gods per se, but it has abstract concepts (like e.g. justice) that can be similarly worshiped.

Framed like that, there are a mass of specific issues that spring to mind. Not that they shall be spoken of however...

Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#189

Post by Turing_Machine »

lostlogin wrote: post #187
Turing_Machine wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough, the people who are actually dying of starvation always seem to be located in Marxist countries rather than the evil capitalist Western countries. Just bad luck, I guess.

What? Care to give examples? And where is a place you would define as Marxist in 2018?

>Care to give examples?

Sure. Soviet Famine of 1921 (5 million). Soviet Famine of 1932-33 (7-10 million minimum, perhaps many more). Soviet Famine of 1947 (1 million or so). Chinese Famine of 1959-1961 (15-43 million). Cambodian Famine of 1974-79 (2 million). Ethiopian Famine of 1984-85 (400,000). North Korean Famine of 1996 (3.5 million).

Number of famines in the capitalist west over the same time period: zero.

Note that I'm not counting food shortages caused by active or recent warfare in either case, thus neither the German "Hunger Winter" of 1946-47 (several hundred thousand) nor the Siege of Leningrad Famine of 1941-44 (about a million) are included.

> And where is a place you would define as Marxist in 2018?

Venezuela will do until something closer comes along. And sure enough, they're on the brink of famine.

Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#190

Post by lostlogin »

reitanqild wrote: post #108
badminton1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Spanish themselves conducted many religion-motivated rituals of human sacrifice in Europe and in the Americas. In Europe, there was the Inquisition, with ritualistic torture using medieval torture devices, burning people to death, etc. Motivated by religious beliefs, just like the ones in the Americas. The Spanish also conducted campaigns of extermination. Some recent ones: the Reconcentrado policy in Cuba, and t…

> In Europe, there was the Inquisition, with ritualistic torture using medieval torture devices, burning people to death, etc. Motivated by religious beliefs, just like the ones in the Americas. Later, during the reign of terror they killed and tortured people based on non-religious or even anti religious beliefs. Yes, old Catholics did much wrong but can we stop this very unnuanced "religious people did it" and conc…

Apply that to the modern Catholic Church and it’s behaviour. I don’t you can claim it’s just related power, the institution is rotten.
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