Human sacrifices never ended
When we talk about collateral damage or someone dies at work and we quip “it’s sad, but they knew the risk”, these are modern human sacrifices, don’t believe me? Let’s talk.
The act
Someone dies, either willingly, or forcefully, in a public and unnatural way - let’s spare the gore - the how, although carries a lot of symbolical meaning, and it’s a rabbit hole I will go down one day, I was saying the how doesn’t really matter all that much, the why instead, has plenty of meaning.
The reason
At its core, a sacrifice is us bargaining with chaos for a better future, we do it daily with small sacrifices - workout more, eat less, save some money, stay longer at work - we are giving up our now (sacrifice time and resouces) in the hope (but not promise!) of a better future - stronger, healthier, richer, more accomplished - and mostly it works, we believe in this system instinctively, we believe it so much, that we blame a lack of sacrifice as the cornerstone of failure - didn’t workout more, didn’t eat less, didn’t save some money, didn’t stay longer at work - this is on a personal level, what about as a group?
The same mental model scales up to families, businesses, towns and states: give up something now, get something better, or at least something you prefer, later - maybe.
Closing the circle
Why is collateral damage, polite way of saying killing innocents, a human sacrifice, drawing a line back to the begging of time?
Because we willing take that deal in the promise of a better future - help the oppressed, increase security, re-joining our lost families and lands, bring democracy… - does the future materialise? It doesn’t matter, we will sacrifice more if needed, forever.