(August 12, 2020 at 11:38 am)Sal Wrote: "The ends justify the means" has only ever been tentatively true. I.e. someone lying to cover for themselves or someone else to avoid harm (the usual situational example of an abusive husband looking for their wife at a friends house and the friend lying to the husband about their whereabouts springs to mind, and the very real examples of people lying to the Gestapo covering for hidden Jews during Nazy Germany). I think this is similarly true tribalism/racism. It becomes skewed, easily, when considering the short pathway between tribalism and 'othering' people, dehumanizing them.

To your first. True.

Every situation of end justifying means is subjective.

To your last. True.

I do not mind othering and most do not mind being the othered, when the players share a --- diversity is good --- ideology.

That is a positive othering whereas I think you were thinking more of the ostracizing othering.

Almost all terms are dualistic and have good and evil sides.

Regards
DL

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(August 12, 2020 at 11:46 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Slaves weren't fed, they fed their masters and themselves.  That's not welfare...that's theft.

That was the master insuring that the hungry did not kill him for food or force him to pay for more body guards.

I think theft is better than starving.

Then again, I have a criminal mind and delinquent attitude.

Would you slave yourself, if destitute where there were no safety nets, or would you turn to crime?

Regards
DL

(August 9, 2020 at 6:18 pm)Greatest I am Wrote: Does the positive side of tribalism/racism outshine the negative side?

The moment we follow our selfish gene’s love bias of tribalism and racism for our own kind and color, we create a hate bias for all other kinds and colors.
 
Negative racism is born in us from our love of our own kind and color. It is natural and normal for the human species.

We are born the fittest of our line. It follows that nature would have it no other way for us as individual animals but to think of ourselves as the best. Nature always creates for the best possible end and for each of us and our genetic line, something like us is the best.

Tribalism/racism has a dual nature. Good parts and evil parts. Mostly good but it is hell when the uglier negative racist side is in play.

We are racist because we know that reality favors the survival of the fittest. That is what we are in our genetic lines; even the most unfit of us, when compared to the average or above average.

We mostly negatively express our tribalism/racism with violence, even to war and rebellion. The less profitable way to gain the upper hand as compared to trading. Check human history.

We are heading for violence in the U.S thanks to the oppression of too many groups. Blacks, natives, women, gays and all other groups that are oppressed unjustly are beginning to unite into a large group that will no longer be cowed. If nothing changes after peaceful means are tried, violence is bound to happen.

We must live in tribes as we are not in any way born free. That is the good part of tribalism, even as it holds the evil racism part within.

The evil part is using violence against those who are not in our own in groups. That is of course what we whites have been doing to non-whites for a long time now in North America.

It is good to be tribal and loyal to our colors and tribes.
 
It is foolish to not have the battle of the colors not shift to acceptance instead of hating others and bringing violence to all.
 
Black to white, all our own genetic lines, have shown that they too are the fittest for their color.

To kill or trade are the only ways to take advantage of each other in terms of control. Good competition without killing or oppressing each other is the ethical way forwards.

I see this as what being civilized is all about, and the best way for tribes, black to white, to co-exist in peace.

You?

Regards
DL

Well, this should be fun. 

(August 12, 2020 at 12:16 pm)Greatest I am Wrote:

(August 12, 2020 at 11:46 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Slaves weren't fed, they fed their masters and themselves.  That's not welfare...that's theft.

That was the master insuring that the hungry did not kill him for food or force him to pay for more body guards.

I think theft is better than starving.

Then again, I have a criminal mind and delinquent attitude.

Would you slave yourself, if destitute where there were no safety nets, or would you turn to crime?

Regards
DL

Why would they have to choose between slavery or starving?  They were the ones growing the food either way.  It was the slaver who had to choose between slaving and starving - opting for theft over death.

I happen to be a small producer myself. When I need money I turn to growing something. I suppose I could decide to turn to crime, and steal the things that other people make, or steal those people - but that's the slavers dilemma, again, not the slaves. Slavery was never welfare, or a social safety net - at least not for the slaves.

If the instrumental good that you'd like to weigh, here, was the instrumental good that slavers extracted from theft and acquiring human property, then it could only outweigh The Bad...for the slaver. I don't think the instrumental good to a tiny percentage of people, of stealing the shit you want, up to and including people, outweighs the bad of stealing what you want, up to and including people. Ultimately, it didn't do the slavers much good themselves. Thin on the ground nowadays, for a reason. Turns out that owning people is more dangerous than owning tigers.

I suppose, if you thought that you might turn to slaving, then that's that, maybe you would. You'd likely regret that decision when you ended up bleeding out in your fields, mobbed by slaves. You might regret the decision to endorse slavery when someone else's slaves lay you low, even. Or maybe, just maybe, you'd regret the decision the very moment you saw the misery of slavery - either in others, or in yourself. Maybe you'd regret that decision when you did, in fact, fail to find or replace slaves that you had lost...and learned that you could not even feed yourself on account of having leaned on them so long. The alleged instrumental good of slavery evaporates about as fast as some slaver argues for it.

Meanwhile, for as long as there's been money to buy slaves, there has been money to pay labor. Even slavers paid for some labor - they knew it was better to have a well motivated person doing important things. Not just morally, though we came to believe as much at some point...but as a matter of pure practicality, as an instrumental good.

(August 13, 2020 at 5:43 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote:

(August 12, 2020 at 12:16 pm)Greatest I am Wrote: That was the master insuring that the hungry did not kill him for food or force him to pay for more body guards.

I think theft is better than starving.

Then again, I have a criminal mind and delinquent attitude.

Would you slave yourself, if destitute where there were no safety nets, or would you turn to crime?

Regards
DL

Why would they have to choose between slavery or starving?  They were the ones growing the food either way.  It was the slaver who had to choose between slaving and starving - opting for theft over death.

You opened man doors. I will step in this one.

To your first. That is all that was available unless they wanted to go criminal.

To your second. They were not growing anything unless they were already slaved to the land owner.

Your third is unintelligible to me. Slavers do not become their own slave.

Regards
DL

(August 13, 2020 at 12:21 pm)Greatest I am Wrote:

(August 13, 2020 at 5:43 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Why would they have to choose between slavery or starving?  They were the ones growing the food either way.  It was the slaver who had to choose between slaving and starving - opting for theft over death.

You opened man doors. I will step in this one.

To your first. That is all that was available unless they wanted to go criminal.

Who can you possibly be referring to here, aside from the slavers, who did go criminal™?  If there was nothing else for the slaves then there would be nothing for the slavers.   That's where they got their shit - from slaves, not the other way round.  The only difference between some poor guy scraping in the dirt and the same poor guy scraping in the dirt as a slave, is that in the latter he is someones property, as is whatever he may be scraping up. 

Quote:To your second. They were not growing anything unless they were already slaved to the land owner.

OFC they were, that's how slavers came to have the opportunity to acquire them as slaves.  Hard to get ahold of a dead one who had nothing to eat and keep him alive until being enslaved.  It's not as if slaves were created ex nihilo on demand. Slaves were a product and there is an industry to it. That industry depends on the plentiful existence of a live animal that you hope to make do everything it would normally do to live - like growing food, but to do it for you, the slave owner.

Quote:Your third is unintelligible to me. Slavers do not become their own slave.

Regards
DL

It was the suggestion that this instrumental good you're referring to is the slavers instrumental good, not the slaves.  They're the ones who needed slaves to support their own lives and their own societies.  The slaver had a choice between slaving and death.  The slave was going to make the donuts either way.

This is an instrumental good, or at least it's the kind of thing that can be alleged to be an instrumental good, and we can weigh this against the moral evil of slavery, but you have the recipient roles reversed. If slavery was a social safety net, it was the slavers social safety net. If one or the other party is going to be contended to have nothing else, it was the slaver stuck in this dilemma. That's why they resorted to slavery.

-as to whether or not slavers become their own slaves - I could only reiterate that the moment that a person hinges their existence on slavery they are very much a slave to their slaving system. Apparently, not just them, but their descendants for some time to come, as well. It's do or die. Wages are a competing instrumental good, and they satisfy the needs of both parties better, and with less moral baggage, than slavery. I'm personally of the opinion that slavery is an existential threat to the slave owner for many of the same reasons that it's an existential threat to the slave - that it compounds the very problems that we might employ it to solve. I don't even recognize it as a credible instrumental good to be weighed against it;s entirely certain and constantly present moral evil.

The Grand Nudger

I see life, even as a slave as good, as compared to death.

Your whole view is based on not accepting the fact that slavery was the only social safety net available to the unemployed or starving.

Regards
DL

Well...you don't have a life if you're a slave - the guy who owns you has a life, he bought it.

Here again, you're alleging something thoroughly absurd. The only people that slavery even could have been a social safety net for, were the slavers. When a slaver was old, or sick, or infirm - his slaves would be used to keep him alive. When a slave became old...or sick..or infirm....... I'm sure that slaveowners could get attached to their human cattle just like they could get attached to actual cattle, but no livestock operation is known for it's overabundance of kindness and care for unprofitable animals*.

If you want to weigh the instrumental good of slavery against the moral evil of slavery, then we can do that...but if you want to argue the instrumental good of a social safety net against the moral evil of slavery, we can do that. False equivalencies won't help to accomplish either.

The answer to that q today appears to be no. We do have a social safety net, and we don't accept slavery as a means to maintain it. If it did take slavery to maintain our social safety net..I hope, we would decline to do so. That's what people are banking on when they argue that taxation is theft and we should get rid of medicare, for example. They're hoping to land with a similar false equivalence to your own, and going the other way with it.

*if you want to get really familiar with the spirit and reality of slavery, read a commercial livestock production manual and practice until you can talk about people like they were chickens or pigs or horses or cattle or oxen or tractors.... - because that's what it was, not a fucking safety net, lol. Depending on the society and the place in time, you could get a better price for any of those than you could a person, even.

The Grand Nudger

Thanks for this.

Regards
DL

No, thank you. Conversation ftw.

We could use a different kind of slavery for an alternate comparison. Still chattel slavery, but chattel slavery aimed at non agricultural purposes. A caste of warrior slaves. These guys can get treated different to other slaves when they appear in a society. Societies can revere them, instead of reviling them. Sometimes, they live better than other free men, which is to say that theyre well incentivized (and, arguably, a wage earner by another name). If we compare an agricultural slave to a battlefield slave we might have a case that the one instrumental good is preferable to the other and that at least some of the moral issues are resolved. That you should be a warrior slave instead of a farm slave, if you could choose - but I don't know that the overall moral summary changes, in the end. More a comment on the priorities of a society and the desires of an individual.

Poor and free, or well kept and enslaved - these are choices, for sure - but the effects of slavery on more than just one slaves life must factor in. What may be to his personal benefit (which is granting alot in the context of slavery, a hell of alot) may not be a good thing to allow in a society. That's a pretty common state of affairs.

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(August 13, 2020 at 1:24 pm)Greatest I am Wrote: I see life, even as a slave as good, as compared to death.

-also wanted to point out that this is a comparison between the instrumental bad of death, and the moral evil of slavery.  

That's not weighing the good against the bad, it's weighing the bad against the worst. Exclusively sub-optimal, like I'm always yammering about. In a field with no good choices, we try to grasp for the least bad one. In a field full of instrumental goods, we grasp for the one with the least moral evil attached. Or, at least, that's what our functioning moral agency would do...allegedly. Since we're compromised, we can be swayed by things like convenience or fear or attachment or habit or predisposition. We can get it wrong, factually....and we can knowingly select the (self described) morally wrong option.