Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

Re:Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments by clock_tower on Wednesday December 09, 2015 @08:09PM (#10708171)

Cortez and his 300-odd men could never have taken down the Aztecs, were it not for how all their neighbors hated them so passionately that they'd rather be ruled by smelly, strange-looking, gold-hungry space aliens.

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Re:Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments by nerfhammer on Wednesday December 09, 2015 @09:02PM (#10708371)

Far more important were the western diseases they had no idea they were carrying

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Re:Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments by clock_tower on Wednesday December 09, 2015 @09:36PM (#10708497)

The diseases certainly had an effect (after the Night of Sorrow and before the conquest of Tenochtitlan, smallpox struck the whole Valley of Mexico); but Tlaxcala had an effect too, and if the Aztecs' subject peoples had rallied to their arms in the same way the Tlaxcalans rallied to the Spanish (after some initial fighting against them), there's no way Cortez could have won.

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