A Darker View of the Renaissance • Hacker News Board

Re: A Darker View of the Renaissance

#61

Post by hodgesrm » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

wolco wrote: post #36

hodgesrm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote is nice but anachronistic. The Swiss were feared mercenaries during the Renaissance and worked for the papal forces. The Swiss Guards at the Vatican are a legacy of this history that is visible today. It seems they were first hired by Julius II, who was successor to Alexander VI aka the Borgia Pope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Guard

That's interesting I wonder if the neutral position it takes now is based on that mercenaries role. Don't take sides but profit.

During the Renaissance most soldiers in Italy were mercenaries. The use of citizens at large scale for soldiers dates to the French Revolution. Macchiavelli incidentally was a proponent of this idea but it did not go very far in his day, which was the early 1500s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev%C3%A9e_en_masse

Re: A Darker View of the Renaissance

#62

Post by bryanrasmussen » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 8:21 AM UTC

wolco wrote: post #38

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A line of great rhetorical effect but not necessarily great logical worth. First of all if he is correct that the Swiss had 500 years of democracy and peace then it follows that they produced a working democratic model which at the time was pretty remarkable. However being Harry Lime it is no surprise that he is not correct https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Switzerland Second of all I don't know what populatio…

If we take 1500 as the anchor date. Italy 2.2 million vs 745 hundred thousand Swiss. Venice is 1.5m, Florance is 750,000 although not part of Italy at this point. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populat...

So not quite as big a population difference as today, also at the time those cities were centers of trade, hence centers of money and all that entails. Great places to attract the clever and talented.

Re: A Darker View of the Renaissance

#63

Post by natmaka » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 3:56 AM UTC

InitialLastName wrote: post #41

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did, but wars and oppression aren't an invention of the Industrial Revolution. Premodern leaders were very capable of killing and oppressing people at scale when they put their minds to it.

To put that further, the wars and automated atrocities of the industrial age wouldn't break the noise floor of human suffering in pre-industrial history. By some estimates, Genghis Khan was responsible for the deaths of 40 million people, and all he had were horses. Europeans coming to North America led to the deaths of ~50 million people in the 16th century, mostly by accident .

"Human suffering" seems difficult to assess, and all Industrial Revolution effects will only be known during post-industrial history (maybe after some thermonuclear/bacteriologic war).

Many/most Genghis Khan "victims" are highly debatable: "most of them were victims of plague, floods and famine long after the war in northern China was over in 1234 and were not killed by Mongols" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan#In_China](Source)).

Even the most certain Genghis Khan victims, resulting from systematic slaughter in non-obedient zones, are postmarks in history because they were very unusual (and probably exaggerated). There are few other pre-industrial similar events, however there are many post-industrial similar ones (extermination camps, genocides, battles of Stalingrad/Verdun ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battles_by_casualties]..., ...).

IMHO "mostly by accident" invalidates your point.