@prologic@twtxt.net I don’t think the Civil War in the US ever really ended. There were some obvious events that made the hot part of the war end, but many slaveholders and people sympathetic to that way of being never really gave up their aims or their values, which persist today. I can only really speak about the US since I grew up here and have read a bit of history, but it seems to me that this same kind of dynamic plays out in other countries too. I suspect the Russian invasion of Ukraine has a similar character, in the sense that Russians, at least the public ones making statements, don’t credit Ukraine as a “real” nation or “real” people, so they feel fully justified in taking their land and stuff and killing or enslaving them. And in that regard no, it doesn’t look like we’ve learned much as a species–we still have appeasers, and propaganda/misinformation still works, and some people are still inclined to commit heinous acts. I think we can do better but it’s pretty bleak right now.