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Avatar: The Holocaust We Will Not See

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Re: Avatar: The Holocaust We Will Not See

#131

Post by mattmaroon »

arcadeparade wrote: post #101
bokonist wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your answer to my question?

It's not a sensible question so I can't answer it. I just dont think that what happened to the Native Americans was right, it was genocide, and anything positive that came out of it doesnt excuse it.

I was not attempting to excuse it. I was simply pointing out that it was part of something that United States of America, ended up being humanity's greatest achievement to date.

Say what you want about America, but it pioneered most of the rights that the entire first world enjoys, and which are spreading throughout the rest to this date. Capitalism, civil liberties, social mobility. None of them were invented here perhaps, but the whole (which is far greater than the sum of its parts) was.

There's a reason you've probably never seen a public hanging or a head on a pike. There's a reason wars victimize fewer and fewer civilians every decade. America's history is certainly not without blemishes, including this one, slavery, a few ill-advised wars, etc. But on the whole it's been an incredible windfall for humanity.

So no, I wouldn't undo the whole thing. Nothing is perfect, and to take the view that we could have made the omelet we enjoy today without cracking a few eggs along the way is naive at best.

It's hard to make any argument that the holocaust was part of a bigger package that benefited humanity, so the two are dissimilar and entirely unrelated.

Re: Avatar: The Holocaust We Will Not See

#132

Post by cglee »

maxwell wrote: post #92
cglee wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some cultures are demonstrably better than others, like it or not. I'm having a really hard time swallowing this one. If people value different things, how can you even make such an argument?

It's just a meaningless expression. If you want to compare 2 classes, you have to define the comparison method.

If so, you need to qualify it with the conditions in which your personally defined comparison method fails. In real life, the comparison method fails for everyone outside your value system. So it's not obvious that one culture is better than another, and it's not obvious that a certain course should be taken, etc...

Re: Avatar: The Holocaust We Will Not See

#133

Post by SapphireSun »

turkishrevenge wrote: post #57
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #24

I made it about halfway this through before bailing. Yet another "western civilization is so bad" articles. Ho hum. The problem here is, as mattmaroon put it, if you buy into this logic we'd all still be chasing down antelopes on the savannah. At some point some civilizations, for whatever reason, start developing things like private property, the wheel, common law, reading, the printing press, etc. It's become fashi…

> "And I guess I'm okay with that. If the Cebulons show up, I'm going to be first in line learning to speak Cebulonese, watching all the Cebulonese TV shows, and taking my kids to Cebulonese high schools." Not everyone wants to be a traitor to his own people, or as it will most likely turn out for humanity in your scenario, a brutalized, ghettoized, subservient class.

I don't understand the downvotes for this guy. If the cebulons actually arrived, you would most definitely see reactions like this and the HN community would be hugely divided. Better to argue it out now than when they actually arrive ;-)

Re: Avatar: The Holocaust We Will Not See

#134

Post by blahedo »

Fascinatingly, but unsurprisingly, this is yet another piece that uses Avatar as a springboard into an essay about real-world human events starting from the claim that Avatar is clearly allegory for one specific such event. Being from the second wave of such articles, it even takes note of the other interpretations and alleges them to be incorrect.

What makes Avatar such a great movie is that A) so many people are so sure it's "about" a particular historical or current situation that they care about and B) they're all different. I've seen Vietnam, I've seen Iraq, I've seen Afghanistan, I've seen South America or the Americas as a whole, I've seen Africa, I've seen climate change, man, I've seen a lot of different interpretations.

James Cameron FTW!

Re: Avatar: The Holocaust We Will Not See

#135

Post by SapphireSun »

bokonist wrote: post #3

Question to HN readers who are sympathetic with this article: If you could wave a magic wand and "undo" all that was done, would you do so? So imagine all those who perished in the 1500's would be revived from the dead and restored to their ancestral lands, all those living in the Americas now would be sent back to England, Ireland, China, etc, with a one way ticket and $10K in cash to start a new life. Would you wav…

I'm conflicted. Part of me says turn the clock all the way back. Genocide is inexcusable. People can actually be happy without technology. Eventually the important stuff would be invented again.

However, I am more inclined to not do anything at all because we survived so far, and there have been existential threats in the past. I'm even more biased by the fact that if we turn back the clock and fix some of these genocides, I wouldn't exist. It's hard to balance the conflicting philosophies :(

Re: Avatar: The Holocaust We Will Not See

#136

Post by dejb »

IsaacSchlueter wrote: post #38

This article, and many of the comments here, hint at a deeper and more interesting phenomenon: the need to have things be either all good or all bad. That is, either (A) western civilization is good, and the things it has done were good, and the things it values are good values, etc., or (B) it's bad, and the things it has done were bad, and the things it values are bad values, etc. Once this dichotomy is accepted, a…

How great would it be to see movies that reflected this dichotomy you mentioned. Where you could come out of the film not being sure who the 'good guys' were.

Re: Avatar: The Holocaust We Will Not See

#137

Post by mcantelon »

IsaacSchlueter wrote: post #38

This article, and many of the comments here, hint at a deeper and more interesting phenomenon: the need to have things be either all good or all bad. That is, either (A) western civilization is good, and the things it has done were good, and the things it values are good values, etc., or (B) it's bad, and the things it has done were bad, and the things it values are bad values, etc. Once this dichotomy is accepted, a…

Where in the article is the claim that western civilization is all bad?

The author seems to merely be pointing out that western society largely denies the magnitude of the human and environmental cost of its prosperity.

Re: Avatar: The Holocaust We Will Not See

#138

Post by dejb »

bokonist wrote: post #3

Question to HN readers who are sympathetic with this article: If you could wave a magic wand and "undo" all that was done, would you do so? So imagine all those who perished in the 1500's would be revived from the dead and restored to their ancestral lands, all those living in the Americas now would be sent back to England, Ireland, China, etc, with a one way ticket and $10K in cash to start a new life. Would you wav…

A question for you. If you were magically transported into the the 1500s as one of the conquistadores would repeat their actions? If you had the capacity to stop their slaughter would you? Or would you perform the same terribly acts simply because it lead to a future that you are comfortable with?

Everybody knows that the past is the past and can't be undone. But that doesn't mean that we should lie to ourselves about it. What really matters is what we do here and now in the world. If you condone such actions in the past then it is natural that you will condone them in the present and future as well.

Re: Avatar: The Holocaust We Will Not See

#139

Post by Tichy »

armandososa wrote: post #128
Tichy wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So essentially you are calling for anarchy?

Anarchy is the only logical and natural state of being, every other attempt to bring order to chaos is unnatural. Imho.

Some societal constructs seem to have benefits, though. I am happy that I don't have to carry a gun at all times and don't have to fight for my territory and my life every day.

Re: Avatar: The Holocaust We Will Not See

#140

Post by Tichy »

potatolicious wrote: post #84
Retric wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least one South American civilization was committing human sacrifices, calling them "good people" before the Spaniards showed up is simplistic. At the same time suggesting the Spaniards were a "good people" simply because they replaced one set of barbaric behaviors with another is also simplistic.

I think this is the big point people are missing from reading this article: the author is shameless in his bias... the aboriginals were saints! They lived the perfect, tranquil life before the barbaric Europeans came and killed them all! This sort of moral absolutism is hogwash, and has no place in intelligent debate. This is an interesting topic worthy of discussion, but I really do not think this article serves as…

So apart from that one culture doing human sacrifices, what did the others do in your opinion to deserve extermination?

I really can't follow the logic here. Why do you even feel the need to justify the murdering of the natives? And how can you think it can be justified? Even if the old ones were murderers (which is probably not true in general, even if you make it so), what about the babies?

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