- cross-posted to:
- creepywikipedia@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- creepywikipedia@lemmy.world
At least 347 and up to 504 civilians, almost all women, children and elderly men, were murdered by U.S. Army soldiers. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated, and some soldiers mutilated and raped children as young as 12.
only Lieutenant William Calley Jr., the leader of 1st Platoon in C Company, was convicted. He was found guilty of murdering 22 villagers and originally given a life sentence, but served three-and-a-half years under house arrest after his sentence was commuted.
Research has highlighted that the My Lai Massacre was not an isolated war crime. Nick Turse places it within a larger pattern of American atrocities enabled by deliberate policies from commanders, such as “free-fire zones” and “body counts”, as well as widespread racism amongst American military personnel. Many other atrocities were also covered up by commanders.
You are very confident about things that are easy to prove wrong.
Hierarchical societies have been around a long time. A very large variety of animals today have hierarchical concepts in their socialization. So you can use your inflamatory statements to try and hide how little basis the things you say have in facts. But it doesn’t make them any less false.
The more "I’m sorry"s, “ridiculous”, “bullshit quack…”, and association of the opposing view with racists and such you do. The more obvious you have no real logical arguments. Just like the people who talk louder to get noticed because they have nothing to say that people are interested in.
I have literally studied ancient human civilizations. Please, I am begging you, go educate yourself about early human societies, how they were structured, what the average daily life of someone living in those societies was like, what their relationship to authority, power and hierarchy were, and the history of nation states. I can’t provide an education to you over the Internet, but you can at least learn for yourself instead of repeating whatever brainwashing has been instilled in you.
I’d recommend the book “A History of World Societies”, it’s kind of written as a textbook for students, but it’s pretty engaging and I’m sure you’d learn a lot from it.
I can lead you to water, whether you drink or not is up to you.
Look back at your own comment history, then look at the comment with all the drama. It stands out a lot. Normally you are level and making logical points, but in the one with ridiculous and such, you aren’t.
Can’t seem to find that book available on libby, so will have to do some extra digging. My info comes from mainly articles, not books. So I will take a look, as sometimes articles can misrepresent the people they are quoting or the work those experts have done. But usually that is done to sensationalize things. Not much of that happening in the area of ancient societies.
Sorry for the slow reply, I’ve been meaning to get back to you for nearly two weeks now, but I wanted to wait to collect my thoughts and to be in the right kind of head space to address your comment.
At the end of the day, I’m a flawed human, I have all sorts of feelings and emotions. Sometimes, I get upset, or angry. I try to avoid engaging with people when I’m feeling that way, but again, I’m not always successful at the things I attempt. I can only try my best, and apologize when I’m not doing my best, so I’m sorry about that.
Now, to be fair, I’m sure you would agree that there are some things which are just absurdly wrong - for example, if someone was arguing that the earth is flat, for example, I might just dismiss that argument as ridiculous - not necessarily because I can’t disprove it, but because it’s not in my interests to engage with that argument in good faith - maybe because I’d see it as a waste of time, or because I know that it’s a topic that I find personally distressing and want to avoid so that I don’t get too worked up.
I agree that dismissing claims as absurd is very unconvincing, but sometimes people just believe different things from us, and that we can’t always convince people to change their minds. That’s just something that we all need to accept to remain sane in this world, especially if we’re inclined towards arguing with others on the Internet.
The truth is, I was raised by someone who held extremely racist, white supremacist beliefs, and that person would regularly use evolutionary psychology and similar arguments to justify their beliefs. It was also a very abusive environment, as you can probably imagine. So this is a really tender area for me, which is why you saw the reaction you got.
I am not accusing you of believing in any of those things, I’m sure you don’t, I’m sure you’re a very kind person who cares about rationality and doing the right thing, so please don’t misunderstand me - what I’m trying to explain is that the topic is kind of triggering for me, and that there are lots of people who use similar arguments for, what I’d consider to be, evil ends.
Actually, it happens all the time, that’s one of the reasons I got a bit upset with you - I see it all the time and not only do I find it extremely frustrating as someone with a lot of knowledge of ancient human civilization but it’s very often some far-right crank nonsense. The paleo diet is probably the best known example of this, but a lot of scientific racists use ancient human civilizations to justify their racism, western chauvinism, white supremacy, and so on. Heck, there’s a reason fascists always seem so obsessed with the Roman Empire. Carl Benjamin calls himself Sargon of Akkad for a reason.
Anyways, with all of that said, I’d like to share a link to a section on an anarchist FAQ - Does revolutionary Spain show that libertarian socialism can work in practice? - I think it’s pretty interesting and demonstrates a historical example of a functional anarchist society. For a functioning anarchist society today, you could look into the Zapatista movement in Mexico, too.
So a few ideas. Saying agree to disagree is an easy way out if a subject is triggering. They say a broken clock (analog lol) is right twice a day. Even a flat earther could say something that is true in their argument, or even have an interesting idea that might lead somewhere. So while dismissing themmis the easy way out, and it is okay to take the easy way sometimes, it still isn’t the best way. And yes, we are all flawed, I have no shortage of flaws myself.
On the topic of justifying. I’m not trying to justify actions. I am trying to say we should expect them and not be surprised by them. We shouldn’t assume the person is just completely evil, but that they are too weak to do better, to do what is right, and they have succumb to ancient instincts that are no longer needed, but still exist nonetheless. Humans are mostly driven by chemicals they can’t control.
Ass for spain. I agree that if a group manages to hit critical mass, it can for a time operate as under anarchist ideals. But one of the ways it was accomplished in spain was that those who didn’t share those ideals could leave. And many of such people were also the ones dieing in the civil war. So it is almost like selecting a group by eliminating those of a certain opinion, and allowing any left to leave if they want. In the end, those of that differing opinion are simply outnumbered. And humans are known to go with the flow. That is why too many put up with dictators they don’t believe in. It can work in a small cut out of society. But to do it for the whole of society would require getting rid of a significant amount of the capitalist. Which is why I say, not enough of us have evolved past that drive for power and influence yet, for it to work. And I wish I knew how to speed it up. But progress will slow down when it happens. And thats okay. The overhead of communication and such is just much highed when organized by committee versus a single leader. Ifeally we find a way to elevate leaders who aren’t in it for the power and influence. But that is very hard.