Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by andybak » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 1:45 PM UTC

Turing_Machine wrote: post #189

lostlogin wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Note that I'm not counting food shortages caused by active or recent warfare in either case,

Surely the Ethiopian famine and the Cambodian famine could be disregarded if you applied this rule consistently.

And the Bengal famine is arguably something caused by a Western democracy that wasn't directly a result of the wartime conditions.

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

#242

Post by XalvinX » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 1:49 PM UTC

Steko wrote: post #219

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…

> Some cultures/ideologies really are better than others. If you need me, I'll be right here in my Western Civilization, happily not vivisecting anyone. Good old western civilization, no blood on our hands.

Well, you know, they were either "not human" (or 3/5 in some cases) or "terrorists" or "reds" (those millions in Laos and Cambodia must have fell in that category, one would hope) or something like that. Not sure how they categorized those 200,000 or so peasants in Guatemala, but hey, out of sight, out mind, eh?

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

#243

Post by XalvinX » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 1:52 PM UTC

sonnyblarney wrote: post #218

jacobr wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Civilization or savagery, which is this: Then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright calmly asserting that U.S. policy objectives were worth the sacrifice of half a million Iraqi children: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8#

The term 'sacrifice' is used in different contexts. A 'sacrifice' to a god for whatever reason is a literal sacrifice, talking about the 'cost of war' in terms of 'sacrifice' is a metaphor.

Since the American invasion of Iraq doesn't remotely fit the definition of "a war" I think they were, in fact, sacrifices...

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

#244

Post by slx26 » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 1:53 PM UTC

jcims wrote: post #63

When I see a bunch of skulls in one place like this, or in the catacombs, it makes me think of the accumulated experience of people. Not because of the brains in the skulls or whatever, but just that each skull represents a single human life. Most of the time these are adult skulls, guessing 30+ years each. That's a lot of living. I just asked google to solve a couple of problems for me. What is the current populatio…

I made a comment like this not so long ago, also here on HN, mentioning how every 4.2 seconds we collectively live a bit more than 1000 years. It really gives a lot to think about, indeed.

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

#245

Post by Fnoord » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 1:53 PM UTC

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…

The existence of a "soul" (or "light" or "sol" or whatever variation) isn't scientifically established.

What is scientifically established is the existence of a CNS which means the species is able to experience pain. Mussels, clams, and mushrooms do not have a CNS, and one could argue they are therefore vegan.

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

#246

Post by XalvinX » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #182

thedailymail wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who is to say what is going on inside an insect's head? Did anyone ever talk with one?

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

#247

Post by XalvinX » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 2:02 PM UTC

75dvtwin wrote: post #140

It is difficult to celebrate historical achievements of our ancestors, when we read about them, passages similar to this. ".... Other Mesoamerican cultures also engaged in human sacrifice and built tzompantlis. But, "The Mexica certainly brought this to an extreme," says Vera Tiesler …." "... Gomóz Valdás found that about 75% of the skulls examined so far belonged to men, most between the ages of 20 and 35—prime warr…

How could they? It was just their job. One of my brother's college friends ended up as a USAF bomber pilot in Iraq and over some beers one night he described his job. It sounded much like a video game. On the screen where many small blips and his job was to try to hit the areas where they were most dense.

What did the blips represent? "Each blip was a person."

No indication beyond that. Could have been kids, women, old people. This is a lot different than soldiers shooting other soldiers on a battlefield. These weren't battlefields at all, and no one was (or could have) firing back at him up there at 10,000 feet or whatever....

How the fuck could he perform this?

People can be programmed or convinced to be monsters.

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

#248

Post by Malarkey73 » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

avn2109 wrote: post #148

duxup wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm imagining numerous editorials "I don't know how to tell you to stop sacrificing children...."

Speaking of editorializing, the article's author took to Twitter [0] to defend her article's reverent/respectful tone and (nowadays-common) unspoken premise that all cultures and ideologies are equally good and valid. You'd think it'd be easy to use ritual vivisection, human sacrifice at scale, organized child murder, and cannibalism [1] as an absolutely unambiguous black-and-white line by which to demarcate civiliza…

The article uses the same "tone" that we regularly use to write about the Romans - who crucified people, ritually strangled prisoners during their triumphs, kept slaves, and made people fight to death for their fun. That said I'm not sure the Gauls or Parthians or Carthaginians were saintly.

I don't think the author is implying that the Aztecs were better or the same or worse than Tlaxcala or Cortez conquistador. The neutral tone is adopted for European and Native American ancestors alike because of the separation of time not cultural sensitivity. And so we adopt this historical voice because we realise that the past was bloody and awful and the same society that had Cicero also had Crassus crucifying 6000 slaves along the Via Appia during the same lifetime. And the same people who built towers of skulls were enslaved and wiped out by Cortes.

But honestly it's not a competition. You adopt the neutral tone to avoid endless whataboutery.

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

#249

Post by tptacek » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 2:27 PM UTC

sonnyblarney wrote: post #222

tptacek wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, a generation later, their domination of the area firmly established and plainly evident, what then was their mindset? Was it their "fear" and "defensiveness" that led them to continue wholesale rape and slaughter across Central America?

The Europeans did not remotely come close to killing Central and South Americans at the rate they killed themselves, moreover, the term 'rape' is not a useful pejorative, as there were no real natural resources of value that were removed from that area that would have affected the ability of the aboriginals to live. Gold was removed in vast quantities, but has only a commercial value to those who have ascribed to it…

I meant "rape" as in "rape".

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

#250

Post by Cpoll » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 2:30 PM UTC

sonnyblarney wrote: post #218

jacobr wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Civilization or savagery, which is this: Then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright calmly asserting that U.S. policy objectives were worth the sacrifice of half a million Iraqi children: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8#

The term 'sacrifice' is used in different contexts. A 'sacrifice' to a god for whatever reason is a literal sacrifice, talking about the 'cost of war' in terms of 'sacrifice' is a metaphor.

Only because we now know that human sacrifices don't please the gods and improve our fortunes. Otherwise, it breaks down in exactly the same way: We kill some children, but we're okay with that, because it will benefit us.

If it's a metaphor, it can only be because there's no sacrifice at all, the death of non-citizens don't factor into the cost-benefit analysis.