I expect so. But there is still an interesting point: witch and heretic-burning likely tap into much the same psychology as ancient human sacrifice. Even the rationales overlap:

"Devine will demands these deaths; we will ensure the safety of our community by ritually killing these people."

Then again, it makes sense to put things into historical perspective. When we are about to talk about how one group was murderous and cruel, and how odd it makes us feel, it makes sense to point out what was going on elsewhere. Especially when the exact group reporting on those things is involved in cruelties of their own and uses these reports to excuse their own cruelties.

Cortez him self was quite cruel, fond of torture - either when looking for gold or enemies.

People can’t stay on topic these days. More interested in being Internet arm charm historians what-about-ing every topic possible.

It’s just an article about Aztecs.

People up thread discuss how good guy Cortez must have been, merely affected by Aztek sacrifices and saving locals. That is somehow on topic? Why the difference?

It is as if people were emotionally invested into this, despite this being hundred years old affair.

So yes, this matters because thread up there want to make adventure book out of this. It is not about trying to figure history, it is about treating it all as scary book.

People up thread merely noted that Cortez was likely correct, and we shouldn't have so hastily disbelieved his claims. They said nothing about him being a "good guy" etc.

His claims were not hastily disbelieved. That is not how history happened there, they were both taken as total truth and disbelieved. His claims were disbelieve for various reasons, notably that he extracted quite a few admissions under severe torture. Notably, disbelieved also by his contemporaries who watched it and wrote horrified reports. He tortured also because gold seeking, not just for human sacrifice cause. They became paranoid and over drunk with unlimited power. When people in group X kill each other and then you kill them all, you was unlikely to be merely horrified and trying to help victims. Your motivations are guaranteed to he more complicated, as much as believe in your good intentions make us feel good.

You can have human sacrifice without it being impossibly large and without it being treated like adventure movie plot and without jumping on every fantasy anyone ever wrote - which is what up thread is. You can belive scientific consensus which is based on multiple sources and findings without making feel good stuff about conquest.

And while you are expressing outrage over exceptional kills, it is fine to ask who the source is. Because it does put things into context as it turns out the report is not by independent third party, but by highly motivated player in political and violent struggle for control.

It seems that you're more concerned with giving value judgements to Aztecs and Spanish, and their comparison – but why is it relevant, or even interesting, at all? Just like in a case where article's author took to Twitter to announce that "human sacrifice wasn't horrific" (which it of course was), I just don't understand why people can't discuss history without fixating on moral value judgements. Do you have a horse in this race, or something?

It seems to me other way round. I did not judged either, but I wrote why certain reports could not be trusted. The "this particular thing is likely exaggerated" comments were downvoted at the time I read it - regard less of how factual they were and no they did not claimed Azteks not have human sacrifice at all.

That is discussing history without judgement. If you bring this as proof that Cortez was unfairly disbelieved, which people do, then it is absolutely relevant to bring why, the way he collected evidence and what his goals were. That is part of historical discussion too.

This whole discussion, meaning other (top) threads are primary about making civilization judgement. Except that, only Aztek (or communist for some odd reason) kills are allowed in that discussion. It is literally there, Europeans coming were clearly superior, because we don't talk about facts that break that nice vision - namely that potential victims of sacrifice ended up being tortured in order to extract evidence that they themselves killed people (or have gold).

So no, discussion turned into civilization moral judgement before me and at that point it is perfectly ok to discuss involved civilizations - or at least what they were doing at that time at that place.

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Offtopic: I think you can actually judge past people. You can judge Aztek priest, who is in it in part for own gain or cruel Samurai, Nazi leader or Colombus or whoever specifically. You should not however buy one of these guys woldview, just because he is our tribe remotely, and claim his self serving violence and treatment of commoners are fair due to somebody else's action.