Rather than debate who has contributed more to the world under Eurocentric standards, let us question those standards at their core because the entire paradigm under which white folks tend to assess greatness is flawed.
To suggest we should value a culture based on its technological achievements — the standard argument — elevates the importance of things above people. It requires us to affix the label, “superior,” to any culture with advanced technological prowess, even if that technology is used to exterminate others, or in such a way that could lead to the extinction of even the culture that created it.

So instead of viewing the creation of nuclear weaponry as evidence of a fundamentally pathological and destructive tendency among the whites who brought it forth, we are expected to praise the genius behind it, taking no note of the consequences now made possible by such “progress.”