NancyLebovitz comments on Science: Do It Yourself - Less Wrong

53 Post author: alyssavance 13 February 2011 04:47AM

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Comment author: orthonormal 13 February 2011 10:49:26PM 3 points [-]

He hits the nail on the head: "At the point when everyone who fought in [the World Wars], and everyone who remembers anyone who fought in them, has died, surely they'll become as comic as the Vikings."

After all, the purpose of moral disapproval of atrocities is simply to avoid offending anyone who could be personally connected to them†. Even when people acknowledge that there's nothing besides length of time separating ancient genocides from modern ones, there's just no way to spark the same feeling of outrage.

† Of course, longstanding cultural divides can keep offense alive even when the secondhand witnesses are gone; the Armenian genocide shows no sign of becoming funny, because the acknowledgment of it is a continuing rift between Armenians and Turks.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 14 February 2011 02:14:40AM 5 points [-]

After all, the purpose of moral disapproval of atrocities is simply to avoid offending anyone who could be personally connected to them.

Personal connection is in the mind, as you say later. I've been looking at the "It would have been me" aspect of the past, and I think it's mostly trained in.

A major reason that the Holocaust is taken very seriously is that there are people who believe that doing so will make a repetition less likely. I don't know how long it would take for that to fade out.

I also don't know how close we are to longevity tech, but when such exists, the past is presumably going to fade more slowly.

On the relativity of what is considered serious-- I think there's been a bit of a shift lately, but when you think about Hitler's atrocities, you probably mostly think about the Holocaust. He was also responsible for tens of millions of deaths as the result of WWII, but that doesn't get the same publicity, probably because building an empire is viewed as sort of normal behavior. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Shaka Zulu, and Napoleon aren't usually counted as mass murderers.

Comment author: wedrifid 14 February 2011 03:17:58AM *  6 points [-]

On the relativity of what is considered serious-- I think there's been a bit of a shift lately, but when you think about Hitler's atrocities, you probably mostly think about the Holocaust. He was also responsible for tens of millions of deaths as the result of WWII, but that doesn't get the same publicity, probably because building an empire is viewed as sort of normal behavior. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Shaka Zulu, and Napoleon aren't usually counted as mass murderers.

Alexander the Great, Shaka Zulu and Napoleon were 'just' empire builders. Genghis Khan, on the other hand, make Hitler look like a fluffy puppy in every way except temporal and social proximity.

Comment author: [deleted] 14 February 2011 10:34:04PM *  4 points [-]

Our strength is our quickness and our brutality. Genghis Khan had millions of women and children hunted down and killed, deliberately and with a gay heart. History sees in him only the great founder of States. What the weak Western European civilization alleges about me, does not matter. I have given the order—and will have everyone shot who utters but one word of criticism—that the aim of this war does not consist in reaching certain designated [geographical] lines, but in the enemies' physical elimination. Thus, for the time being only in the east, I put ready my Death's Head units, with the order to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of the Polish race or language. Only thus will we gain the living space that we need. Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?

-Part of a speech allegedly made by Adolp Hitler on August 22, 1939 at Obersalzberg

Its interesting since this quote seems to show:

  • a) Hitler having values very different from the postChristian West, rather than disagreeing on how to live up to those values.

  • b) The genocides of WW2 helped to rekindle interest and even an air of seriousness around what was 70 years ago not considered an important event (Armenian genocide).

Also Hitler has a point. Might does (eventually) make right to as much as our value systems can be influenced by upbringing (and after genetic engineering that won't be a limiting factor either). What does anyone truly care about what the weak or a weak tired civilization thinks of you beyond signalling concerns?

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 14 February 2011 04:35:12PM 0 points [-]

A major reason that the Holocaust is taken very seriously is that there are people who believe that doing so will make a repetition less likely. I don't know how long it would take for that to fade out.

That the Jews were slaves in Egypt [1] has been commemorated every year for at least 2500 years-- possibly 3000 years or so.

I wouldn't expect it to fade quickly.

[1] This is disputed-- there doesn't seem to be any solid evidence of it.

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