Everytime I start talking about how cool the Incan Empire was (for an empire, at least, empires suck as a rule), someone always brings up "but human sacrifice".

I'm kinda sick of it.

No, I'm really sick of it. It's based off a seriously hypocritical conception of history.

Human sacrifice, to be absolutely clear, was common as shit throughout history.

Rome did it. They professed to hate human sacrifice, yet there's really not much else to call the live burial of Vestal Virgins or the drowning of hermaphroditic children.

(And crucifixion and decimation, while not human sacrifice, are arguably just as fucking bad, if not worse.)

Medieval Christianity practiced human sacrifice. Given the fact they believed in COLLECTIVE mass salvation in the form of bodily resurrection, the Inquisition burning heretics, literally removing them from the collective body? Fucking silly to argue it isn't human sacrifice.

So on, and so forth, etc.

Look, I'm not saying we should look at human sacrifice as a good thing, that's stupid. Rather, I'm saying that the demonization of human sacrifice is an obnoxious colonial narrative used to justify the destruction of numerous non-Western civilizations.

As an activity for a civilization to participate in, it's certainly awful- but not orders of magnitude more than slavery, wars waged for the egos of kings, or any number of other historical atrocities. And, in (most) cases, it was far more limited in scale than other atrocities.

What I'm saying instead?

Take it in a proper historical context, and don't just use it as a damn excuse not to learn more about a bygone civilization.

Also, seriously, the Incan Empire was so goddamn interesting, they were arguably the only empire to develop environmentally sound, sustainable agriculture as a tool of conquest and governance. So cool.

End of rant/