Comment by rolandog

Which is what I've come to realize: at least for the US, national prosperity comes at the expense of foreigners' misery [0]. I wonder if this holds for other countries, too? I wonder if --- for example --- former European colonist state's citizens stare at themselves in the mirror and question who built their large buildings; what the provenance of the gold decorations on their buildings? Would they be so well off?

Having moved to Europe from Mexico, I sometimes get asked if Spain is regarded as "having brought civilization" to Mexico; the first time I heard the question, it took me a while to collect my jaw from the floor: I could not believe someone was that accidentally uninformed... seems like it had been a deliberate choice to not teach about the race systems that their ancestors had imposed (i.e. inventors of apartheid, in a way), the raping, the slavery, nor systematic complicity of the church, as well [1]:

> In 1512, the Laws of Burgos forced the conquistadores to respect the rights and freedom of Indigenous peoples. This was followed formally by the papal bull, Sublimus Dei of 1537 which declared Native Americans were no longer to be considered “dumb brutes created for our service” but were “truly men” capable of thinking, acting, and deciding their own destiny, control their own properties, and enjoy liberty. It proceeded to formally prohibit the enslavement of Indigenous peoples. Unfortunately, one year later, this was nullified (Pope Paul III, 1537).

And that's not even covering the destruction of written history and books [2].

So, I think you may be right... this entire world may be filled with selfish monsters that do not want to know --- really know --- how much they are benefiting from other people's suffering.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a9xlQrcbx0

[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/spanish...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_de_Landa#Suppression_of_...