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An Archive of Fugitive Slave Ads Sheds New Light on Lost Histories

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Re: An Archive of Fugitive Slave Ads Sheds New Light on Lost Histories

#31

Post by pitay »

beachy wrote: post #2

I find these pretty disturbing. I like to think I'd never have stood by while someone enslaved someone else. But the banality of these ads makes it all seem quite commonplace and acceptable. Wicked times.

One thing to note, the same types of people who were slave drivers are still here. They have as little respect for another humans life as they always have, judging other peoples well being as worth nothing. You can see it when they make statements similar to 'I earned what I have so I deserve it, poor people deserve nothing, especially not from my pocket.' They are willing to let people die, although they may try to paper it over with statements like 'the dignity of work' to enforce slave like conditions.

Re: An Archive of Fugitive Slave Ads Sheds New Light on Lost Histories

#32

Post by afarrell »

monort wrote: post #27
beachy wrote: post #2

I find these pretty disturbing. I like to think I'd never have stood by while someone enslaved someone else. But the banality of these ads makes it all seem quite commonplace and acceptable. Wicked times.

Taxes are involuntary and people are locked in prison for not paying them, that is resembling a slavery. Some rationalization for slavery was similar too, e.g. people thought that it's not possible to have prosperity without enslavement. Probably in the future present times will be seen as wicked too.

1) The IRS does not literally rape people as happened under American chattel slavery

2) Your analogy also has the problem that without taxes, it would not be possible to fund an organization that prevents other organizations from coming in and taxing you (aka "protection money"). Can point to a society of more than 500,000 members that has existed without taxes? I can point to several pre-1865 societies without slavery.

Re: An Archive of Fugitive Slave Ads Sheds New Light on Lost Histories

#33

Post by foreigner »

beachy wrote: post #2

I find these pretty disturbing. I like to think I'd never have stood by while someone enslaved someone else. But the banality of these ads makes it all seem quite commonplace and acceptable. Wicked times.

Consider - what are we doing now that future generations will look back on and express the same sentiment?

Re: An Archive of Fugitive Slave Ads Sheds New Light on Lost Histories

#34

Post by falsestprophet »

beachy wrote: post #2

I find these pretty disturbing. I like to think I'd never have stood by while someone enslaved someone else. But the banality of these ads makes it all seem quite commonplace and acceptable. Wicked times.

I like to think I'd never have stood by while someone enslaved someone else.

You do standby while millions are enslaved.

The United Nations estimates that roughly 27 to 30 million individuals are currently caught in the slave trade industry.

For context there were 3,950,528 slaves in the US in 1860.

Re: An Archive of Fugitive Slave Ads Sheds New Light on Lost Histories

#35

Post by monort »

pvg wrote: post #30
monort wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes are involuntary and people are locked in prison for not paying them, that is resembling a slavery. Some rationalization for slavery was similar too, e.g. people thought that it's not possible to have prosperity without enslavement. Probably in the future present times will be seen as wicked too.

Something being involuntary does not make it 'resemble' chattel slavery. It takes a fair bit more than simply not paying your taxes to end up in prison. Your children don't go to prison if you don't pay your taxes.

Yes, it's more similar to a forced labor slavery, than chattel slavery. The forced labor convention (which for some reason wasn't ratified by US) specifically makes exception for civic obligations and compulsory military service because they are fitting the definition.

Children in this analogy forced to go to prison too, when they reach 18 years and refuse their taxes.

Re: An Archive of Fugitive Slave Ads Sheds New Light on Lost Histories

#36

Post by monort »

afarrell wrote: post #32
monort wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes are involuntary and people are locked in prison for not paying them, that is resembling a slavery. Some rationalization for slavery was similar too, e.g. people thought that it's not possible to have prosperity without enslavement. Probably in the future present times will be seen as wicked too.

1) The IRS does not literally rape people as happened under American chattel slavery 2) Your analogy also has the problem that without taxes, it would not be possible to fund an organization that prevents other organizations from coming in and taxing you (aka "protection money"). Can point to a society of more than 500,000 members that has existed without taxes? I can point to several pre-1865 societies without slave…

I agree that arguments against slavery were stronger in 1865, than against taxes, but absence of something is a bad predictor about possibility. You couldn't point to a liberal democracy before 18th century too.

Re: An Archive of Fugitive Slave Ads Sheds New Light on Lost Histories

#37

Post by pvg »

monort wrote: post #35
pvg wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something being involuntary does not make it 'resemble' chattel slavery. It takes a fair bit more than simply not paying your taxes to end up in prison. Your children don't go to prison if you don't pay your taxes.

Yes, it's more similar to a forced labor slavery, than chattel slavery. The forced labor convention (which for some reason wasn't ratified by US) specifically makes exception for civic obligations and compulsory military service because they are fitting the definition. Children in this analogy forced to go to prison too, when they reach 18 years and refuse their taxes.

It's still not much of an analogy unless you believe that, say, driving on the wrong side of the road, uninsured and without a license is somehow comparable to any form of slavery.

Re: An Archive of Fugitive Slave Ads Sheds New Light on Lost Histories

#38

Post by jacalata »

mhurron wrote: post #23
Chinjut wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not exclusively some modern invention to be against slavery. There were people during the era of chattel slavery who thought of slavery as wrong too. Lots and lots of them. Almost 100% of the African-American population, for example...

> Almost 100% of the African-American population Well, no. Africans (before they were captured and sold to the Dutch slave traders) had slaves. A lot of Africans were sold into slavery by other Africans, the ones they lost tribal wars to. Slavery was very well known in Africa, just as it was everywhere else in the world basically from the moment civilization was created. Like most things, people were ok with it happe…

"African-Americans" as a group doesn't actually include those Africans who never ended up in the US, so your response seems kind of irrelevant.

Re: An Archive of Fugitive Slave Ads Sheds New Light on Lost Histories

#39

Post by beachy »

foreigner wrote: post #33
beachy wrote: post #2

I find these pretty disturbing. I like to think I'd never have stood by while someone enslaved someone else. But the banality of these ads makes it all seem quite commonplace and acceptable. Wicked times.

Consider - what are we doing now that future generations will look back on and express the same sentiment?

Destroying the planet. You could say that's worse than slavery.

Re: An Archive of Fugitive Slave Ads Sheds New Light on Lost Histories

#40

Post by Trundle »

hamana wrote: post #19
jklinger410 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How edgy to you have to be to try and argue about the morality behind slavery. When you prove that animals are self aware and conscious to the level of humans you can start to try and make half of this point but you're taking it way too far with this whole energy molecules thing. What's next, comparing the Holocaust to fish farms?

"How edgy to you have to be to try and argue about the morality behind slavery." How brainwashed do you have to be to mimic the beliefs of people around you? "When you prove that animals are self aware and conscious to the level of humans you can start to try and make half of this point" What do vague labels like 'conscious' and 'self-aware' have to do with slavery? "...but you're taking it way too far with this whol…

It's either disingenuous or just plain ignorant to set the bar at objectively wrong, or to imply that everyone thinks it's fine to have pets/eat animals, or that aliens would follow our ethical guidelines. Neither moral universalism nor realism have a dominance in the philosophy of ethics, and even then I highly doubt that those that do actually support those positions do so because of any argument involving being a cluster of elementary particles.

It's like you worked out that the intuitive emotional response that most people use for their moral compass isn't exactly well thought out, googled some phrase sceptical of ethics as a whole, found nihilism, potentially with a detour through scientism, and then burrowed down that rabbit hole without considering any other established school of thought.

You're not going to learn anything, nor teach anyone anything, by asking a bunch of silly comparison questions in a tech forum. Any response short enough for anybody to bother writing is going to need to take a whole bunch of premises as givens and rely on definitions for words you don't agree with. It'll just keep leading to chains of posts like this where you just keep asking stupid comparison questions like you're some form of internet Socrates, and being pleased when people don't reply adequately/at all because you're the one with the negative claim and consider anything other than a full argument from them as a default win for yourself.

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