Re:Kosovo bans cryptocurrency mining to save electricity
by JAlexoid on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @11:46AM
(#29811334)
Do they really know how bad they are?
Because this common caricature of "smallpox blanket" is not based in verifiable historical fact. There's no clear evidence that Europeans were literally weaponizing smallpox to wipe out most of native American populations. The understanding of how infection spread happened a good 200 years later, than depopulation.
Re:Kosovo bans cryptocurrency mining to save electricity
by jcranmer on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @12:00PM
(#29811556)
There is one documented case of someone suggesting distributing smallpox blankets. Exactly one; it's not entirely clear if it was carried out--furthermore, given that there was already a smallpox epidemic going around in the nearby Native American villages at the time, it likely would have done diddly squat.
Incidentally, if you want a good example of horrors meted out, try the residential school system, which does seem to be far less well-known among the lay public. Maybe "we're trying to civilize them!" turning out to involve horrific amounts of abuse (and, yes, death) is too much to countenance?
In other words, bitcoin & co. aren't the first toxic, destructive get-rich-quick schemes, and we as a society have shown time and again we're unable to really resist most of them.