Serious Should we celebrate Columbus day?

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kilometerman

Banned deucer.
If the mods are still wondering why Cong is such a dead forum, the fact that Kilometerman and ButteredToast's posts are still up and accounts are still active two days into this racist vomit is your answer. You can have an active, thriving forum or a safe space for Nazis, not both.
Anyone I disagree with is a Nazi and they're also racist because (???)
 
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kilometerman

Banned deucer.
Mongolia celebrates Genghis Khan's Birthday
Americans also celebrate the founding fathers despite some of them owning slaves

edit if someone mentions smallpox blankets (which didn't appear in recorded history until two centuries later) or implies that Columbus understood what disease was and how it was spread, I'm gonna start spamming sources again and I know how much you guys hate sources
 
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HailFall

my cancer is sun and my leo is moon
Americans also celebrate the founding fathers despite some of them owning slaves

edit if someone mentions smallpox blankets (which didn't appear in recorded history until two centuries later) or implies that Columbus understood what disease was and how it was spread, I'm gonna start spamming sources again and I know how much you guys hate sources
LITERALLY NO ONE IS CLAIMING HE INTENTIONALLY SPREAD SMALLPOX LMFAO
 

kilometerman

Banned deucer.
Honestly the extent y'all will go to to defend dead white men is wild
Honestly the extent y'all will go to to frame every single European male historical figure as a racist fascist nazi white supremacist imperialist capitalist xenophobic homophobic racist fascist is wild
 

kilometerman

Banned deucer.
Do Europeans (victims at the time) find this acceptable though?

Chinese people don't like it. (also victims)
Not really. For the most part if you were in power 500 years ago, killing a shitton of people was kind of the norm. And the achievements and success of people like Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan tends to overshadow their crimes against humanity
 
Ok I haven't done more than skim this thread because I'm very indisposed at the moment, and potentially likely to not have internet access for some weeks after today.

-Cong isn't gonna become "ban all the right wingers". Not suggesting anyone thinks that I'm just throwing it out there.

-I'm not gonna start rigorously fact checking every post and start policing for content. If you want me to, you'll have to pay me. I'm a mathematician, not a politics or history buff. Yes, this means people can post things which aren't true any the only way to combat that is to post things that are with sources. Yes, that has its own problems with exposing people reading the thread to bad information. But in this particular climate there isn't much of a better solution.

-Stop calling for mod action publicly. Please report your concerns to the mod team privately and we will discuss things with you. Preferably not me until I can be sure I have a house to return to.

-On that note, hopefully someone else can unentagle this thread lol.

Soul Fly I realize I was being insensitive earlier, I own up to that. My point by talking about celebration was that this is a very low impact holiday, something that simutaneously shouldn't be a big deal to change (which would help the people frustrated by the holiday's name) but also shouldn't be seen as an active attack by exisiting as much as a point of the status quo most people aren't actively thinking about. The government in particular is really awful at fixing this kind of problem.
 

atomicllamas

but then what's left of me?
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
People itt: “it’s pretty fucked up that Columbus enslaved and tortured Native Americans”

Conservatives: “omg it’s not Columbus alone, he didn’t know what smallpox was!”
Pretty Republican Party of you to say that an unsubstantiated claim of sexual assault is made up because the claim comes from a inherently biased source with a recorded political agenda.

Additionally, unlike your ignorant and unsubstantiated claims about Columbus being objectively awful by the standards of he time, I didn't make anything up. I called the allegations questionable and brought up governmental records. I'm not detracting from King's legacy, I'm using the allegations against him as an example to show how even someone universally seen as respected, accomplished and heroic as King could be reduced to a scum bag within a certain context. I could have easily brought up the criticisms on Ghandi and Mother Teressa, but there isn't an American holiday celebrating them and that doesn't fit the topic being discussed.
I mean in the context of von’s post where the FBI said let’s make shit up to discredit desegregation movement vs. a women accusing an alcoholic who continually lied about his alcoholism (the perjury disqualifies him from the court imo not the sexual assault allegations, still lmao @ boofing) who happens to be a different political party. Are you also ignoring the part where the Spanish crown got rid of him for his treatment of the natives? Literally according to the authorities of his time he was a bad person by their time periods standard. That was also was clearly sourced in this thread. Responding to my post while ignoring the context of the thread doesn’t make your point stronger, it makes your post bad.
 
thats what your role is supposed to be, though. it's a volunteer posituon, if you dont want to do it then quit and let someone else actually moderate the discussions. this is your forum and you are responsible for the content in it. and cong is not very active, it would be relatively trivial to delete posts that are disseminating obviously false information or arguing in bad faith.
Moderating for conduct is not the same as moderating for content. I delete posts in egregious cases (obviously false information) and fact check what I can but when you get into controvertial subjects when people can throw information from different sources out it can take a full literature review and extensive knowledge of the field being described on top of that to properly inform one's opinion. In the rules posted when I joined we had generally agreed to leave these controversial cases untouched and maderate largely for conduct, but if people want a moderation team that sanitizes discussion and endorses specific areas of the literature at our discretion, that's good feedback to have and I'm personally open to change.
 

Asek

Banned deucer.
Moderating for conduct is not the same as moderating for content. I delete posts in egregious cases (obviously false information) and fact check what I can but when you get into controvertial subjects when people can throw information from different sources out it can take a full literature review and extensive knowledge of the field being described on top of that to properly inform one's opinion. In the rules posted when I joined we had generally agreed to leave these controversial cases untouched and maderate largely for conduct, but if people want a moderation team that sanitizes discussion and endorses specific areas of the literature at our discretion, that's good feedback to have and I'm personally open to change.
i dot wat this as it is what makes the forum funny. to me.
 

atomicllamas

but then what's left of me?
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Fun fact:

The first time anyone in this thread implied Columbus was bad because of spreading disease:

Saying Columbus is responsible for the 90% of natives dying is like saying that the sailors that came back to Italy with the Black Death were responsible for all the European deaths that came from it.

Knowing Better made a pretty good video on Columbus where he basically sums it up as "he wasn't a hero but he wasn't bad either, he was really just neutral and ambitious"
Which led to:
"Saying Columbus is responsible for the 90% of natives dying is like saying that the sailors that came back to Italy with the Black Death were responsible for all the European deaths that came from it."
And
For the third time, we cannot fault someone for unintentionally spreading disease, regardless of how much people died as a result. If you want to paint him as le evil white man imperialist than you should focus on the crimes he intentionally committed.

inb4 Columbus knew that Smallpox existed, that Indians were not genetically resistant to it, and that it was spread by being in close proximity with infected persons, despite the fact that germ theory was not created until 1546 and wasn't widely accepted until the late 19th century
In spite of 0 people implying Columbus was bad for spreading small pox.

2 pages later with 0 mention of small pox:
Americans also celebrate the founding fathers despite some of them owning slaves

edit if someone mentions smallpox blankets (which didn't appear in recorded history until two centuries later) or implies that Columbus understood what disease was and how it was spread, I'm gonna start spamming sources again and I know how much you guys hate sources
kilometerman do you want to talk about small pox blankets?
 

Bedschibaer

NAME = FUCK
is a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Just for clarification because the words genocide and genocide apologist are thrown around very loosely here: genocide is historically seen as a post-colonialistic phenomenon that incorporates both the intention of exterminating an ethnic group without direct benefit and a certain technical, efficiency-oriented method of reaching that goal. Despite certain historians claiming that genocide has been a concept before the 20th century there is a harsh distinction to be made between the idea of ethnic superiority in colonialism (we are superior therefor we rule and exploit) and the idea of ethnic inferiority of post-colonialism, which leads to the idea of complete extermination without necessary benefits through exploitation. While things like "let's give them smallpox blankets" can be interpreted as a mechanization of mass murder and therefor a genocidic tendency it is very vaguely sourced and not exactly a detail that is deemed highly credible and accepted.
Just keep in mind that colonial exploitation, mass murder, torture, slavery, etc, etc are not defining factors of genocide. In this case most historians and also the UN genocide convention see mass murder on american indians as a degenerated result of exploitation rather than a genocidic tendency. The first commonly accepted genocide started in 1904 by the way.

Why did I just write this shit on a pokemon forum. Carry on with your shitshow.
 

destinyunknown

Banned deucer.
Do Europeans (victims at the time) find this acceptable though?

Chinese people don't like it. (also victims)
Here he is studied as a legendary figure (in a similar way to Alexander the Great) and for the way his conquests changed Europe at the time, in terms of trade and technology. Pax Mongolica if you want to read more.

Why is he seen in a bad light in China? Is it just Genghis Khan or also his descendants (and the Yuan Dinasty)?
 
Yes, it is. Genocide apologia, rape apologia, racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia etc are always abusive, because those things are inherently abusive.
Yes, I agree they are. We do take action on egregious posts on these subjects, and have at many points in the past. If later in the afternoon I have more than 1 minute to myself at a time I will take a closer look at this thread. In the meantime you can make my job easier by privately reporting problematic posts.
 

Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
Here he is studied as a legendary figure (in a similar way to Alexander the Great) and for the way his conquests changed Europe at the time, in terms of trade and technology. Pax Mongolica if you want to read more.

Why is he seen in a bad light in China? Is it just Genghis Khan or also his descendants (and the Yuan Dinasty)?
The entire Mongolian empire (Yan Dynasty), to be honest.
Because technically, the Chinese empire was being wiped out by them.
China did reform after the Mongol empire fell apart though.

But there are some Chinese who thought the Mongols were "cool" for being so powerful.

But anyway, I suppose Mongolia gets away with celebrating Genghis Khan's birthday, since Mongolia isn't quite a strong country.
If Mongolia is as strong as EU countries/ USA, it would have been criticized heavily.

I really don't think it's a good idea for any country to celebrate people who killed a lot of people-- whatever their reason/ ideals might be.
 
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The entire Mongolian empire (Yan Dynasty), to be honest.
Because technically, the Chinese empire was being wiped out by them.
China did reform after the Mongol empire fell apart though.

But there are some Chinese who thought the Mongols were "cool" for being so powerful.

But anyway, I suppose Mongolia gets away with celebrating Genghis Khan's birthday, since Mongolia isn't quite a strong country.
If Mongolia is as strong as EU countries/ USA, it would have been criticized heavily.

I really don't think it's a good idea for any country to celebrate people who killed a lot of people-- whatever their reason/ ideals might be.
But the act of killing isn't (presumably) what is being celebrated, but the fact that those people made their countries awesome.
 

Soul Fly

IMMA TEACH YOU WHAT SPLASHIN' MEANS
is a Contributor Alumnus
Ok I haven't done more than skim this thread because I'm very indisposed at the moment, and potentially likely to not have internet access for some weeks after today.

-Cong isn't gonna become "ban all the right wingers". Not suggesting anyone thinks that I'm just throwing it out there.
No one is asking for that. But I think it is within common reason to demand that we draw a line at crimes against humanity. Or is that really so much to ask for? No one from the whiny triggered left or whatever you think this angry anti-right brigade is, are going to defend gulags or North Korea's human rights record either. Just because one side more aggressively endorses it doesn't make it okay. This is a question of common decency not politics.

-I'm not gonna start rigorously fact checking every post and start policing for content. If you want me to, you'll have to pay me. I'm a mathematician, not a politics or history buff. Yes, this means people can post things which aren't true any the only way to combat that is to post things that are with sources. Yes, that has its own problems with exposing people reading the thread to bad information. But in this particular climate there isn't much of a better solution.
You don't need to take a full-time job at snopes.com, to recognise a bait-filled shitpost about celebrating Columbus day touting some tinfoil hat shit about smallpox blankets. Neither do you need a PhD in History to discount genocide denialism and whitewashing slavery, especially when other posters are provided highly cited material testifying to the indisputability of certain things (not that they should have to). It's right there in my post and many other posts, explicitly refuting a ludicrous lie, so it's a little disingenuous to claim lack of sufficient expert knowledge. Leave alone factual knowledge, you are a mathematician so at the very least one could hope you are rational? As a rational person when you see certain people stubbornly refusing to engage with evidence (credible or otherwise) and restating their flawed premise, committing trolly logical fallacies, or just generally engaging in clearly toxic behaviour why do you let that slide? Do you need money to exercise basic sense and decency?

If you are not here to precisely identify and remove people who will post hurtful, exclusionary, shit, people who stubbornly turn every thread into a putrid mass of hate and chaos.... then what exactly is your job as a moderator may I ask? How are the cong leaders any different than glorified spam cleaners?

The tragedy is that you know that such kinds of posts, hurt people. You know denying things which have near unanimous expert consensus like climate change, genocide etc serve no positive purpose and only drag down the level of any debate. But no time and again you will let that slide because you want to be neutral, except you really aren't being neutral. Once you give a platform at bile like this maybe you don't endorse it, but you are still very much condoning it. Take responsibility for that. Please don't act like you are doing us any favours by letting people post toxic rubbish repeatedly, and certainly don't demand money for it. If you are saying someone would literally have to pay you to care about this stuff please then that insulting as fuck. If you feel like you cannot handle the responsibility that comes with your mod powers, consider stepping down.

-Stop calling for mod action publicly. Please report your concerns to the mod team privately and we will discuss things with you. Preferably not me until I can be sure I have a house to return to.
No. You guys refuse to be held accountable privately. You deflect, deny, and don't take complaints seriously. I know because I have tried to take matters up with Cong mods over various past run-ins I've had and never received anything other than casual indifference and lip service. I remember the one time Gato justifying a deletion in PM with an arrogant declarative explanations like "it was a bad post," without any sincere reasoning. I especially fondly remember the time von infracted me after I wrote a scathing call out to Deck Knight after he choked the life out of the climate thread by repeatedly posting well trodden hoaxes and myths denying climate change. Strangely enough, Deck Knight was given no infraction or warning whatsoever to the best of my knowledge. Perhaps because denying man made climate change is clearly not as harmful as calling Deck Knight a fucking idiot. Now if you guys are too much of a pussy to stand by a scientific fucking fact like man made climate change you all should take those STEM degrees you are so proud of and just set them to fire. (I also fondly remember getting literally fucking ragebanned after calling out his bullshit double-standard moderation stance as Deck Knight happily continued to post trash.... but let's leave it at that).

This isn't about order. It appears you guys just can't handle people publicly expressing their dissatisfaction at your worryingly inadequate moderation. And I'm not making some ridiculous accusation. Thread after thread in this subforum have flamed out right in front of our eyes, trolled to oblivion, turned into a playground for edgy alt-right whitebois. Please explain how the fuck does abhorrent behaviour like denialism and apologia not cross a line, but someone calling you out for letting that go about unhindered suddenly gets subjected to a far more stringent standard of censure?

-On that note, hopefully someone else can unentagle this thread lol.

Soul Fly I realize I was being insensitive earlier, I own up to that. My point by talking about celebration was that this is a very low impact holiday, something that simutaneously shouldn't be a big deal to change (which would help the people frustrated by the holiday's name) but also shouldn't be seen as an active attack by exisiting as much as a point of the status quo most people aren't actively thinking about. The government in particular is really awful at fixing this kind of problem.
I understand that and bear you no ill. The problem however is how you let your own personal indifference govern your perception of such a celebration as "the status quo most people aren't actively thinking about." That's because for most people (i.e the majority) it does not glorify someone who contributed to trauma and violence in their community. This in no way shape or form justify your not giving enough of a shit about it. There are growing collective voices of people: native, coloured, black, non-binary etc who are very clear about the fact that they are NOT OKAY with such figures being celebrated in any capacity or being used as bait by edgy jokers on the internet to pervert important conversations like #MeToo. I am only but a single example of such a voice, but vague, lazy declarative posts like this make us afraid that there is a deafness among the moderators. Unexamined indifference is often the site of privilege and cognitive biases.

-----

I will bet all the money in my pocket against all the money in yours that if the OP read "Should we celebrate Hitler" and asked us to reconsider Hitler's reputation you wouldn't have let a thread like that fester and rot up the subforum for as half as long as you have let this one. Neither would you have refused to take prompt action because you are "not a politics or history buff", or left callous messages like "hopefully someone else can unentagle this thread lol." You certainly wouldn't have asked money to delete posts which clearly deny the holoucast. There is nothing to "unentangle". This thread right from the OP is a giant fuck you to a lot of traumatised communities, many facing literal extinction while trolls gleefully continue to shitpost about smallpox blankets and pedantic technicalities at the expense of their dignity. Your refusal to take it seriously and shut down toxicity from the get-go is a huge fucking problem.

I don't know what the government can or cannot do. But it pretty clear that you can certainly stand to do more.... even if it is just the bare minimum. You owning up to anything means jack shit otherwise.


Please grow a backbone, an awareness of privilege, and a more empathetic form of decency; in that particular order.



Enjoy your holiday.
 
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