Tyrrell_McAllister comments on The Craigslist Revolution: a real-world application of torture vs. dust specks OR How I learned to stop worrying and create one billion dollars out of nothing

[Tyrrell_McAllister]

Looks like you are assuming that the west—England, France, Spain etc conquered other countries to improve those countries. In reality, the primary motivation was to get economic leverage against the competing powers at the time.

No one is assuming that. Everyone here assumes that the conquerors would be motivated by self-interest. The argument some are making is that the conquering would still have the side effect of making life better for the conquered.