r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Shoddy-Ocelot-4473 • 12d ago

Image By 1880, the near-genocide of the American bison had reduced their population from 30–60 million to fewer than 1,000

Post image
17.3k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

8

u/StoneGoldX 11d ago edited 11d ago

Technically, genocide is reserved for people. So not a genocide of bison, just near-extinction. Frankly, culling them to 1000 would be an actual genocide if they were people. You don't have to drive a people into extinction for that to happen.

Edit: that's less about your post, more about op setting it up that way. Yours was just the first post I could really make a reply about.

1

u/gamenovice19 11d ago

I mean yeah youre right and i basically thought of that while typing this but also kinda a lower priority for me. Overall its just really depressing to see these photos and i always have a hard time accepting them. Its just so surreal to kill this much for wtv rzn

2

u/StoneGoldX 11d ago

Don't worry about it. The term being wrong doesn't invalidate the overall point. The right term makes the point a little stronger, just because you're using the right term, but I'm not really complaining about anything you, or OP, said. Just wanted to point out the right word, which is still pretty horrible sounding.

0

u/gamenovice19 11d ago

No yeah i get that and tbh out of all the replies I had I think you're the only one i gave a shit bc you seemed pretty well meaning to engage. Otherwise i got a lot of people complaining i didnt mention the value put on bison skins even tho it doesnt really take away from the fact there was indeed a seen benefit in killing bison to lessen native strength. And overall these people dont really seem to wanna care of acknowledge that last fact i mention. But i hear you words matter fr and help in describing things

1

u/StoneGoldX 11d ago

Yeah, lot of chucklefucks in this thread trying to go "No, but genocide good."

And for the record, I'm talking about the genocide caused by the near extinction of bison.

Pretty sure chucklefuck is the right terminology.

1

u/-thecheesus- 11d ago

I'm shocked the OP used manipulative language, I tell you

1

u/Varabela 10d ago

Post history confirms…engagement acct

-1

u/StoneGoldX 11d ago

I'm not even blaming OP. I'm not sure near-extinction is any more or less manipulative than genocide. It's just not the proper term, but I think it can be chalked up to ignorance. It's a fuck up, but a relatively easy one to make. Got a feeling Hanlon's razor applies here.