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Comment by eighthnate | Hacker News Reader

> I see no "excuse" of American sins, only a response to a tirade which makes very targeted and laughable statements like "unlimited slave labour and IP from Europe".

Okay. I can see you are passionate about this but you need to calm down. The guy offered his opinion. It wasn't a tirade.

> Who established the Atlantic slave trade if not Europeans?

Sure. And britain was the largest slave trading nation and they were the largest world economy, until the US took over. I don't think anyone is denying that it was the europeans who created the atlantic slave trade.

> Only pointing out the sins of others because some dick decided to turn a fun historical thread into smug hate the US thread.

There is really no need for this. You are better than this.

I can see this is getting a bit too heated so I'll just end it here. You are entitled to your opinion and the op is entitled to his. No need to attack people or use vulgur ad hominems.

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Sorry, I just have a real problem with ignorant hatred and prejudice, which this thread is dripping with.

Just because they don't use words like dick doesn't mean they aren't using vulgar ad hominems. The mistake is believing that people can distort history but as long as they're being nice about it, it's cool. The US is no more the beneficiary than any other country, so acting like the US is what it is only because of 400 years of loot and plunder (OP's phrasing) is ignoring that the Germans, French, and Russians would have looted and plundered each other and others (and did) for centuries. Therefore, the loot and plunder can't be the sole or even main reason behind American success, which is what the article was talking about.

If an African-American was to wander into a thread with similar sentiments about African-Americans, it'd be recognized for the prejudice it is, and ironically most of the posters here would recognize it there, too.

You're forgetting the unique differences in geography and demographics of the USA area compared to what the germans, french and russians had to "work" with.

What do they matter? How was Russia's treatment of Siberia and the natives there different than NA?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_conquest_of_Siberia

To start with:

annual average temperature about 23 °F vs Average temperature: 55.7°F

Also, completely different time frame and technology standard.

Sibera might have given russia some value, but not remotely on the same scale as north america gave to the USA.

So your argument is that because the Russians stole lots of cold land, full of natural resources, that explains their shortcomings relative to the US?

Could there be other things at play, like absolute autocracy dominating the Russian state even today? The Germans had plenty of space and resources had they not lost it trying to dominate their neighbors.

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