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Meat consumption - Vegetarianism. "Slave" Labour - there are still 26 million slaves in the world. Some prison systems, notably the U.S.

by jbrun 16y ago

yummyfajitas 16y ago
"Slave" Labour - there are still 26 million slaves in the world. Not just those 26 million, but there are far more if you count people who engage in temporary forced labor [1]. Many countries temporarily enslave their citizens, including Cuba, Denmark, Finland, Iran, North Korea and Israel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription#Countries_with_and_without_mandatory_military_service http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription#Countries_with_and... Some prominent US politicians have proposed the US should bring back the practice (we used to do this): http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2010/07/rangel-still-running-still-pus.html http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2010/07/rangel-still-run... http://www.prisonplanet.com/obama-website-scrubs-mandatory-community-service-call.html http://www.prisonplanet.com/obama-website-scrubs-mandatory-c... [1] This differs from slavery, in the sense that these people cannot be bought/sold and the duration is limited.
- Avshalom 16y ago
  It differs from slavery, in the sense that these people are still legally people. That's not some trivial fucking difference.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    Suppose the US passed a law in 1850 saying that slaves are legally people, but no other changes were made (i.e., the legal person slaves were still forced to perform labor for their masters). Would that also be a non-trivial difference? Being defined as a legal person is nice, but it doesn't change the fact that you are forced (under threat of violence) to work for someone else against your will.
- philwelch 16y ago
  Being compelled to do something isn't slavery if you're being compelled to perform your social duty. That's the point of government--you have a negative duty to not do certain things (kill other members of your society or steal things from them), but historically most cultures have also recognized a positive duty to do certain things (pay taxes, defend your society against its enemies). It's an unpopular argument now, and I don't necessarily buy it, but it's still around--implicitly, at least, in every country's naturalization system, where new citizens explicitly accept the responsibilities of citizenship. (In practice, of course, conscription has regularly been used to raise armies for offensive wars against imaginary threats. That's a betrayal of the government's duty to its people. In practice, this makes conscription a very dangerous tool to leave available. However, a degenerate case does not prove the general case--in terms of moral principles, just because it is immoral to use conscription to attack an innocent neighbor does not mean it is immoral to use conscription to defend against an aggressive enemy.)
pchristensen 16y ago
http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_bales_how_to_combat_modern_slavery.html http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_bales_how_to_combat_modern_sl... I dare you to watch that talk and not cry.

Meat consumption - Vegetarianism. "Slave" Labour - there are still 26 million slaves in the world. Some prison systems, notably the U.S.

by jbrun 16y ago

Meat consumption - Vegetarianism. "Slave" Labour - there are still 26 million slaves in the world. Some prison systems, notably the U.S.

yummyfajitas 16y ago

"Slave" Labour - there are still 26 million slaves in the world. Not just those 26 million, but there are far more if you count people who engage in temporary forced labor [1]. Many countries temporarily enslave their citizens, including Cuba, Denmark, Finland, Iran, North Korea and Israel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription#Countries_with_and_without_mandatory_military_service http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription#Countries_with_and... Some prominent US politicians have proposed the US should bring back the practice (we used to do this): http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2010/07/rangel-still-running-still-pus.html http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2010/07/rangel-still-run... http://www.prisonplanet.com/obama-website-scrubs-mandatory-community-service-call.html http://www.prisonplanet.com/obama-website-scrubs-mandatory-c... [1] This differs from slavery, in the sense that these people cannot be bought/sold and the duration is limited.

Avshalom 16y ago
It differs from slavery, in the sense that these people are still legally people. That's not some trivial fucking difference.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  Suppose the US passed a law in 1850 saying that slaves are legally people, but no other changes were made (i.e., the legal person slaves were still forced to perform labor for their masters). Would that also be a non-trivial difference? Being defined as a legal person is nice, but it doesn't change the fact that you are forced (under threat of violence) to work for someone else against your will.
philwelch 16y ago
Being compelled to do something isn't slavery if you're being compelled to perform your social duty. That's the point of government--you have a negative duty to not do certain things (kill other members of your society or steal things from them), but historically most cultures have also recognized a positive duty to do certain things (pay taxes, defend your society against its enemies). It's an unpopular argument now, and I don't necessarily buy it, but it's still around--implicitly, at least, in every country's naturalization system, where new citizens explicitly accept the responsibilities of citizenship. (In practice, of course, conscription has regularly been used to raise armies for offensive wars against imaginary threats. That's a betrayal of the government's duty to its people. In practice, this makes conscription a very dangerous tool to leave available. However, a degenerate case does not prove the general case--in terms of moral principles, just because it is immoral to use conscription to attack an innocent neighbor does not mean it is immoral to use conscription to defend against an aggressive enemy.)

pchristensen 16y ago

http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_bales_how_to_combat_modern_slavery.html http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_bales_how_to_combat_modern_sl... I dare you to watch that talk and not cry.