Do we still have slavery?

[no_name]

3 minutes ago, Blackhawk said:

 

Going to work is definitely against my, and the majority of peoples will.

There are different ways to force someone to work.

Pointing a gun is only one way to do the forcing.

If you are going the route that we aren't forced to work.. okay in that case not even the real slaves before were forced to work. Because they could simply have refused to work. The price for that would have been getting beaten or killed.

And the price today for refusing to work would be homelessness, immense suffering, illness, malnutrition, possibly death, etc.  That's also a very high price to pay for not being a slave.

You have much more choices nowadays than just dying of malnutrition, it’s hard to imagine a psychologically healthy person consciously deciding to become a bum.

Also, given how you yourself said that you don’t want to work and you don’t have any interests, what is the point of your living? What would you be doing with your time if you weren’t working? You’re just a vegetable at that point. How are you different from a bum on the street?  

Edited April 18, 2022 by no_name

[A_v_E]

@no_name I m not saying don't work, we all need to do something anyway, I m saying we need a FAIR share redistribution and no one would have to work so much ( which working so much for SURVIVAL in a society that took everything around for itself isn't what I call "fair" ), because yes there is people exploited by higher power, who never had a right to benefit from this higher power.

we need a decentralized, peer to peer society ( real democracy ) ( web3 )

and yes currently in most society you're forced by many things to do FOR SOCIETY an unfair amount of work ( exploiting your energy ), yes you could still live in a forest, but even that, most indian are being ass kicked by "ruling society", so even them are threatened.

if that's not "violence" I don't know what is, now , if you say it's fair violence, that's your bias, because you appreciate the current state / rule of law.
 

[Blackhawk]

2 minutes ago, no_name said:

You have much more choices nowadays than just dying of malnutrition, it’s hard to imagine a psychologically healthy person consciously deciding to become a bum.

Also, given how you yourself said that you don’t want to work and you don’t have any interests, what is the point of your living? What would you be doing with your time if you weren’t working? You’re just a vegetable at that point. How are you different from a bum on the street?  

There is no point of me being alive.

But not having to work would still be infinitely much better and more pleasant than be forced to work.

[no_name]

@A_v_E OP is saying don’t work. He says he doesn’t want to work and there is no work in the world that he would be willing to do.

Like I said, a more fair structure is needed and hopefully we will get there one day.

[mojsterr]

2 hours ago, Blackhawk said:

There is no point of me being alive.

But not having to work would still be infinitely much better and more pleasant than be forced to work.

But everyone has to work something to stay alive.

By your definition even some indigenous tribe are slaves, because they have to hunt for food and a roof over their head. They have to work to keep the wheels in motion.

So I guess to live is to be a slave to something.

 

 

 

What would you be doing with your time if you were completely free?

Edited April 18, 2022 by mojsterr

[Gesundheit2]

3 hours ago, no_name said:

That’s your laziness talking. 

And yes, on the most primitive level humans need to eat, you can’t expect the food to fall from the sky, so you need to work to get the food. Once humans find ways to bypass eating maybe then they won’t need to work. 

 

I'm afraid some people probably consider eating work.

[Gesundheit2]

Work is a great thing. It's the best thing there is to stay busy and productive, especially if it's something you like and with people you like too.

[Frylock]

Absolutely we do, North Korea labor camps are hell on earth.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2014/02/north-koren-prison-camp-drawings-un-report.html

[Blackhawk]

39 minutes ago, mojsterr said:

But everyone has to work something to stay alive.

By your definition even some indigenous tribe are slaves, because they have to hunt for food and a roof over their head. They have to work to keep the wheels in motion.

So I guess to live is to be a slave to something.

So.. we are fucked.

31 minutes ago, Gesundheit2 said:

Work is a great thing. It's the best thing there is to stay busy and productive, especially if it's something you like and with people you like too.

I disagree.

[mojsterr]

4 hours ago, Blackhawk said:

There is no job which I would like to have. Other than be a pornstar or sell sex, but I'm a guy so that's unfortunately out of the question.

The funny thing here is you know what you would love to be doing, but you don't pursue it. So there is at least ONE thing (and I'm betting there are more, but you just haven't discovered them yet) you could try do, but you don't want to, because it is hard.

It might not even work out in the end, who knows, but at least for that time that you were trying you were alive. You had a purpose. You were doing what you were supposed to be doing as a human being.

The thing is you don't want to because you've found an excuse why not to try. And guess what the chances of people making it without even trying are? About 0%.

 

I came across a nice quote somewhere: "There are no losers. There are only winners and people who have quit."

Edited April 18, 2022 by mojsterr

[trenton]

https://www.globalslaveryindex.org

Of course we have slavery and it never went away.

1. The 13th amendment bans slavery except as punishment for a crime.  Slavery is still legal in prisons.

2. Developed countries merely externalize slave labor by importing from other countries and sending jobs overseas.  The U.S.for example imports 91 billions dollars of electronic slave products.  By the way Apple sometimes refused its sweatshop workers a minimum wage resulting in riots.

3. Human trafficking counts in Slavery and most of the victims are sex slaves.  One tactic for solving this is to legalize prostitution, thus preventing people from turning to the black market where it becomes forced prostitution.

4. Some consider wage slavery a less overt form of slavery in that you are paid enough to survive.  If you think about slave masters had to pay for your food and shelter any way, but this time it comes as a wage.

5. Open your eyes

Sometimes the conditions of slavery are even worse because of overpopulation.  It makes it easier to replace slaves with new victims rather than giving slaves medical care.  When slaves had to be transferred from Africa, it was a long, difficult, and expensive process to get a slave.  Now the process is easier, hence slaves are worked to death and replaced.  For example, fishing boats may work you 23 hours a day because they don't care if you die.  It is absolutely brutal.

[D2sage]

Save up for a house in Spain with a nice garden and soil. Grow some healthy food there. No bills because you don't have electricity, you warm yourself with wood etc.

[Gesundheit2]

2 hours ago, Blackhawk said:

I disagree.

Maybe try to agree, just once. Maybe you'll find something valuable.

[zurew]

@Blackhawk So do you suggest universal basic income everywhere in order to destroy slavery? I think that world is far from now, maybe in a few countries we will see it happen in slight forms, but to really happen we will need an AI to take care for most jobs. That world seems far from now, but even if we would grant for you that universal basic income world, do you think you would be more happy?

Streching the slavery definition so far makes it lose its meaning. Basically, we can replace your slavery definition with survival.

We can complain all about how bad and tough the world is, but we can use our options to make the best out of them. The irony is that the world is nowhere near as tough and hard compared to the past. Even most normal people live a better life than kings lived in the past.

Now everyone wants more and complaining about everything, without making any effort to make the world or their life better.

[Shawn Philips]

In the medieval age farmers had to give a third part of their harvest to the feudal lord, in exchange for protection, living inside the walls, using the land...

Nowadays in some european countries like denmark, france, austria the fiscal pressure is around 45-48%. Do you call this progress?

Slavery never ended, and the fixed salaries and taxes keep the poors slaves because this way they are easily controlable.

[zurew]

 

55 minutes ago, Shawn Philips said:

Nowadays in some european countries like denmark, france, austria the fiscal pressure is around 45-48%. Do you call this progress?

We can cherrypick some bad cases of course.  Do you think that you have the same level of opportunity to get out of povertyhood as in the past? Do you think that the farmers who lived in medieval age had a better life compared to the people you are mentioning above?

55 minutes ago, Shawn Philips said:

Slavery never ended, and the fixed salaries and taxes keep the poors slaves because this way they are easily controlable.

Most poor people don't even know what to do with the money they have. Most of them have really bad money managing habits and even if they win some money they end up being poor.

Unless you are living in a very very bad place you have your basic needs met. The only problem here, that you can constantly elevate your basic needs so now you need the newest iphone laptop etc.

Of course there are some people who don't really have a chance because they were born in a very bad place. But most people are willingly staying slaves, because they don't want to put extra work into improving their lifes, they have no vision and no plan what they want to do, and they also have no skills.

The normal slavery definition is about you are forced to do things you don't want to and you have no choice to get out of it and you basically have no free time(where you can do what you want). Nowadays in most of the cases you aren't forced to do anything but you choose to remain a slave.

You have a lot more freetime nowadays compared to the past. Now, what you do with that free time is another question.

I don't know if you have noticed, but most people are suffering because they have so much things to choose from, people can't decide what they want to become because they have soo many choices to make and so many opportunities to choose from. The reason why you can think a lot more about your life abot what decisions you want to make is because you are less of a slave. Again being a slave - lack of choice and freedom.

Interestingly, most people have a lot of time complaining, but don't have time for improving their life and improving skills.

You are visiting this forum, you have healthcare,you have cops and laws protecting you ,you have internet, you have time to write messages back and to contemplate and to watch youtube ,you have a phone, a computer a shelter and a whole lot of other  items and gadgets that are on your name, and not on any other organisation's or person's name.

You have a lot, and we still call all that slavery because you need to pay some taxes? Again not denying that there are some people who don't have almost any choice, but to say that nowadays people are more slaves and have worse lives compared to the past is a huge stretch imo.

Edited April 18, 2022 by zurew

[thibault]

I think there's a lot of toxic ideas being promoted in this thread rooted in fear and insecurity. I'm not criticizing that but I just want to make people aware that that is what it is. Regarding slavery, the most fundamental way you could look at it is "When I have no choice in my life but to do things that I don't want to do then I am a slave.".

 

What is really important to notice is that being a slave is a mentality, it is not an external condition. It is possible that a slave picking cotton in colonial America could have felt freer and less of a slave than a CEO today who has debts and decides to end his life out of embarrassment. Can you see how freedom is paradoxical and not as physical as we would imagine ?

 

Freedom is not a material situation, it is a state of mind. It's accepting your material conditions, realizing they are not required for your mental wellbeing and happiness that sets you free. The true slaves of the world are those who have deluded themselves into thinking that they will find their freedom in the pursuit of always more material pleasure and possessions.

 

Going back to that original definition I gave, since slavery is when you are forced to do what you don't want then it is your desires that enslave you. If you let go of your desires then you can never be a slave because there is nothing you would want that someone could prevent you from having. Take the Spirituals that African slaves would sing in plantations. This is a genre of a music that has influenced so many subsequent waves of music in America like blues, soul, gospel, jazz, and hip-hop. Just contemplate that cultural influence for a minute and imagine going back in time and telling a racist slave owner and explaining to him that one day his slave's songs would be recognized as some of the deepest expressions of human suffering and experience. He would laugh at you. Sometimes it is the master who is slave to shortsighted ideas and the slave who is able to catch a glimpse of the eternal.