Political and scientific are not, in fact, mutually exclusive

This is clearly both botanical and political. And if a mod is posting it, it would fit within the spirit of the rule intended.

Empire of the Sun (band) has not enslaved or genocided any cultures or groups I am aware of

there's a "[first half of the name of the restaurant] empire" down the way and they're only built on bloodshed if that counts

It is like asking is their a country that isn't fascist. The answer is there is none.

When people start recognizing that countries are the problem and not the solution we will be one step closer to being free.

Really hard to build an empire without it.

Because to have an empire, you have to rule over a lot of people. Many of those people would rather not be ruled by you. If you want to force them to accept it anyway, you're going to need some of that genocide, slavery, and especially bloodshed.

Though, I suppose, maybe 2/3 of those aren't really necessary.

• Genocide probably isn't absolutely necessary to empire-building. Definitely still have to kill lots of people, but there's no particular reason you need to do so on the basis of race or ethnicity. (Though if you count cultural genocide as well, that may very well be necessary to build an empire. Difficult to bring diverse peoples under one banner without suppressing their cultural differences.)

• Slavery is a big probably. It certainly does help -- after all, your growing empire will need lots of labor, and it's unlikely you can afford to pay the going market rate for it. Plus, if you don't use slavery, you'll probably be out-competed by other potential empires that are using slavery and/or slavery-adjacent labor practices. But I suppose it's not technically absolutely necessary. Theoretically, at least, you could build an empire without slavery.

It's not like any of us wanted this shit posted here either ffs

ELI5