Item — HN Reader

> The real problem driving genocide is a feeling of superiority of one group over another.

Real? Where's the overall evidence for that? The capitalist system is inarguably superior to a command economy in terms of supplying what customers want. Does this therefore drive some urge towards genocide on the part of one or the other side?

'It was very much an American invention (the first supermarket in the world was opened in New York’s Queens borough in 1930 – The King Kullen supermarket, invention of former grocery clerk Michael Cullen). By the late 50s, what the women (and surely, even if unacknowledged by the New York Times, men) of Zagreb saw was a clear signal of capitalist superiority in something that mattered much more to them than the conquering of space or new ways to facilitate human extinction: Cheap and plentiful food.'.

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/cold-war-supermarket-yugosl...

> The capitalist system is inarguably superior to a command economy in terms of supplying what customers want. Does this therefore drive some urge towards genocide on the part of one or the other side?

When it sees them as resources to be exploited or wasted, as competitors holding resources you want, or as unproductive. Colonialism is probably the biggest driver of genocide in history. Look at the millions dead in Congo to urge them to produce more rubber. Look at the Native American genocide in the US to take their land.

And look at the genocide that apparently must not be mentioned on HN, which is on topic for this article because Einstein among other Jews wrote an open letter in 1948 that is relevant: https://archive.org/details/AlbertEinsteinLetterToTheNewYork...

AFAIK, the majority of genocides are in the form of ethnic cleansing and not from colonization or conquest.