Apologies I responded to the wrong convo thinking it was the response to another comment. I think you are trying to make the point that modern day civilization is slavery due to the exploitation of capitalism but I’m not really sure of the point you are trying to make beyond that. Slavery is bad. Capitalism is slavery. Capitalism is bad.
I think we are agreeing unless you think I’m taking the position that slavery is good. Or are you trying to make the point that I am wrong because human beings have employed slavery in the past (and still do today)?
My point was simply that humans have been doing slavery for…pretty much as long as we have records. And that is in conflict with your view.
You said:
You know that humans lived in communal societies for a long fuckin time before all the bullshit we know today, right?
So what I’m saying is that for pretty much all of recorded human history we have documented proof that humans enslaved each other. Ie not communal. Slaveholding.
You then implied the ills of today’s society are tied to capitalism, an invention which came several tens of thousands of years after we invented slavery. Ie humans were shit to each other and abused each other in horrible ways long in advance of capitalism coming onto the scene.
There may not be capitalism in human nature, but enslaving people we view ourselves as being inferior to us is pretty much as human as apple pie.
When you look at why people did the enslaving you will inevitably find someone who is creating hierarchies by abusing some facet of the material conditions of the time. Slavery is not a part of human nature.
So you will always find a person who is doing the enslaving but enslaving isn’t human nature? I dont know how to follow that logic.
Let’s take another class of slaves: domesticated animals. We’ve been doing that for a looooong time. We like them, but we don’t consider them our equals and will in general readily murder them or sacrifice them to meet our needs. Most of what you eat has about the intelligence of a toddler. Cats and dogs we enslave as our emotional support are also intelligent creatures.
Since resources are always finite all creatures default to exploitation as a survival system. Humans are good at making up stories for why it’s ok actually, but that doesn’t mean it is.
Finding an exception to the rule and then claiming that exception is the rule is kinda wild. The vast vast vast vast majority of human beings do NOT engage in exploitation of each other. As such I do not believe exploitation is a part of human nature but is rather a manifestation of anti social behavior intersecting with the material conditions of the time. Humans are egalitarian and communal by nature, things that pull us from that are aberrations to our nature not pillars of it.
Where did I say debt and slavery are the same thing?
I saw a half dozen messages in this thread about how humans used to be good or some bullshit, with no backing. I’m responding to that.
Prove your point with historical data or don’t, but don’t argue about some unrelated topic.
Apologies I responded to the wrong convo thinking it was the response to another comment. I think you are trying to make the point that modern day civilization is slavery due to the exploitation of capitalism but I’m not really sure of the point you are trying to make beyond that. Slavery is bad. Capitalism is slavery. Capitalism is bad.
I think we are agreeing unless you think I’m taking the position that slavery is good. Or are you trying to make the point that I am wrong because human beings have employed slavery in the past (and still do today)?
My point was simply that humans have been doing slavery for…pretty much as long as we have records. And that is in conflict with your view.
You said:
So what I’m saying is that for pretty much all of recorded human history we have documented proof that humans enslaved each other. Ie not communal. Slaveholding.
You then implied the ills of today’s society are tied to capitalism, an invention which came several tens of thousands of years after we invented slavery. Ie humans were shit to each other and abused each other in horrible ways long in advance of capitalism coming onto the scene.
There may not be capitalism in human nature, but enslaving people we view ourselves as being inferior to us is pretty much as human as apple pie.
Hopefully this makes more sense.
When you look at why people did the enslaving you will inevitably find someone who is creating hierarchies by abusing some facet of the material conditions of the time. Slavery is not a part of human nature.
So you will always find a person who is doing the enslaving but enslaving isn’t human nature? I dont know how to follow that logic.
Let’s take another class of slaves: domesticated animals. We’ve been doing that for a looooong time. We like them, but we don’t consider them our equals and will in general readily murder them or sacrifice them to meet our needs. Most of what you eat has about the intelligence of a toddler. Cats and dogs we enslave as our emotional support are also intelligent creatures.
Since resources are always finite all creatures default to exploitation as a survival system. Humans are good at making up stories for why it’s ok actually, but that doesn’t mean it is.
Finding an exception to the rule and then claiming that exception is the rule is kinda wild. The vast vast vast vast majority of human beings do NOT engage in exploitation of each other. As such I do not believe exploitation is a part of human nature but is rather a manifestation of anti social behavior intersecting with the material conditions of the time. Humans are egalitarian and communal by nature, things that pull us from that are aberrations to our nature not pillars of it.