It's really sad how little we are taught about the opium wars. It is easily the most important war in the last 500 years. The wealth that was taken from china as a result of the opium wars provided capital to britain and the US to fund our industrial revolution. It altered the course of history.
One of the largest banks in the world ( HSBC ) was created in hong kong to launder opium money from china. FDR's grandfather was Warren Delano, one of the largest opium dealers in china. The opium money is what funded our institution building in the 1800s. The universities, museums, hospitals, etc were built with money from our opium dealers in china.
It is odd how much time we spend on ww1 and ww2 when neither war altered the balance of power. The opium wars ended the "faux parity" that existed between china and the west and it catapulted the anglosphere to the top.
We live in an anglo world ( formerly british led but now US led ) because of the opium wars.
It's amazing how these greedy people destroyed millions of lives and they get to live the life of luxury. Sell weed and you are a felon. Peddle addictive opiates to the masses and destroy countless families, you get to be a billionaire.
Drugs have been weaponised in the West. Both 'legal' and 'illegal' forms.
Drugs are one of the principle means of social control used by the power elite to keep society malleable and repressed - truly. Both illegal - and legal - drugs have their covert uses in this regard.
> The most significant to me is that all the death destruction and suffering was all to further enrich some 5ish rich dudes.
The opium wars were about more than enriching 5ish rich dudes. It was about transferring a significant amount of wealth from china to the west ( primarily britain and the US ).
The british and particularly the US industrial revolution was funded by capital extracted from china. The opium wars and the aftermath is easily the greatest theft in human history. It completely changed the west and gave the west a significant leg up vis a vis china and the east. And it set china back 150 years. Nearly 200 years on, china still hasn't recovered from it.
> Just look how our historians are happy to attribute such acts to countries(!???)
All wars are fought for wealth. But the wealthy don't hire historians to out them. Historians are hired to spin a fable. It's why every nations histories of the same event are so different. Historians of each country have to spin a tale that is suitable and furthers the interests of their elites.
It's why we are told that the american revolution was about "freedom and liberty" when it was about our desire to steal more native land. It's why everything from the civil war to ww2 to vietnam are spun into some fairy tale about slavery, nazism or the domino theory when those wars were solely about one thing - wealth.
If you want to study real history, you have to understand who stands to gain and who stands to lose.
There isn't "good intentions". It's almost pointless to talk in that terms when it comes to multinational companies. Corporations don't work that way. They aren't charities. Google is acting in its own best interests - what's good for the shareholders. There is no other consideration.
> The eternal human obsession with death explains our intense interest in the experiences that come as close to it as possible.
You could argue that "existential crisis" is the fundamental bedrock on which we all stand. From eating to sex/procreating to jobs to addictions to sports to escapisms to you know name it, existential crisis lingers over it all.
And it's been posited that this all derives from a fluke of the brain/consciousness. The consciousness's mistaken assumption that the "I" exists ( aka Illusion of the self ).
And what caused the mass hysteria? The greedy news media out for clickbait ad money.
Just off the top my head, I can list a few hysterias caused by the news media just in the last couple of years... "Trump will end the world" hysteria, north korea hysteria ( a few times ), "russians hiding in your computers and voting booths", flu hysteria ( a few time ), ebola hysteria, college rape hysteria, neo-nazi/alt-right hysteria, asteroid hysteria, AI hysteria, etc.
The long answer. Nope. The short answer. No. Wish they would work to find the evidence first rather than asking History Channel style of clickbait questions.
What's the point of this article? Is it news? Is it interesting? Is it HN material?
It's not hard to quit amazon prime. I only sign up for amazon prime once a year during christmas and then cancel the membership at the end of the month. Takes me a few seconds.
Wish HN was more technology centric like it used to be rather than peddling silly washingtonpost and nytimes articles.
> The media in the US has historically been 100% controlled by rich people, and all major media still is.
Things have gotten worse as capital consolidated all the industries. Now we have an illusion of choice. When you go to the supermarket, there seems to be tons of variety of products by many companies. After all, there are so many brands. But all these brands are owned by a handful of companies. The same thing with banking. The last financial crisis was used by the FED ( a banking cartel ) to get large multinational banks to buy up smaller regional banks. Regional newspapers are being bought up by major media companies like news corp.
> The evil rich people figured out that if you start a gender and race war among the 99%, you can distract them from the fact that they're all being economically exploited and subjected to wage slavery.
It's not just identity politics. It's also the bread and circuses. Nothing more poignant than the upcoming superbowl where the mindless stuff their faces while watching advertisements for 4 hours.
> The internet will almost certainly spawn a social movement to destroy the class system in the US.
That's naive. The internet will almost certainly be used to reinforce it. More distractions, more propaganda and more divisions. Look how quickly the wealthy has come down on the internet and social media already. Look at the amount of censorship. Look what happened to youtube trending page and google news. Youtube trending is now all SNL, major news channels and late night shows. Google news is now all washingtonpost, nytimes, etc.
I hope you are right, but experience tells me money wins and the masses are not intelligent enough or united enough to challenge the wealthy. Our political system doesn't allow for it, nor does our education system or the media or anything else.
One of the largest banks in the world ( HSBC ) was created in hong kong to launder opium money from china. FDR's grandfather was Warren Delano, one of the largest opium dealers in china. The opium money is what funded our institution building in the 1800s. The universities, museums, hospitals, etc were built with money from our opium dealers in china.
http://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2017/07/31/opium-boston-his...
It is odd how much time we spend on ww1 and ww2 when neither war altered the balance of power. The opium wars ended the "faux parity" that existed between china and the west and it catapulted the anglosphere to the top.
We live in an anglo world ( formerly british led but now US led ) because of the opium wars.