annatar1914 wrote:But my main point is that for the greater part of human history, expulsion, conquest, and slavery have been near universal scourges,
What on earth makes you assume that they were scourges? Extreme violent competition, between hominoids, including conquest of resources, expulsions and rape, surely helped fast track our evolution. And slavery although it may have appeared too late to significantly effect our genetic evolution, surely may have helped our scientific / technological / social evolution. This development just may not have been possible without slavery or something close to it.
It seems that civilisational / economic development through certain stages just may not have been possible without the domestication of animals. It may also have required slavery of our fellow human beings. It may have only be though slavery or something pretty close to it, that a section of the population could develop the level of prosperity to allow for the necessary specialisation of labour and study.
Anyway what is certain is that great age of White supremacy from 1488 (the blessed number) to 1973 utterly transformed the world for the betterment of virtually all human beings. Yes even the Amerindians if you analyse it, I think you will find that gene for gene, allele for allele, chromosome for chromosome, there are more Amerindians (equivalent) living longer lives at a higher standard of living than in 1492. We dragged humanity out of the darkness.
The funny thing is that when analysed properly the same is also true for the Neanderthals. There are more (genetic equivalents of ) Neanderthals alive today than at any time on Earth. I can only but see the European conquest of the Americas and Australasia as an expression of God's love for the Neanderthals.