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> Basically every civilization was built upon some form of slavery Do you count Sweden here? Denmark? Norway? Are we not civilized or do you claim we had signi
by boxed 8mo ago
> Basically every civilization was built upon some form of slavery
Do you count Sweden here? Denmark? Norway? Are we not civilized or do you claim we had significant slavery in post-viking times?
- iamnothere 8mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_slave_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_slave_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_slave_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_slave_trade https://www.newsinenglish.no/2014/09/28/slave-trading-past-still-haunts-norway/ https://www.newsinenglish.no/2014/09/28/slave-trading-past-s... https://cphpost.dk/2016-09-28/business-education/denmarks-own-heart-of-darkness/ https://cphpost.dk/2016-09-28/business-education/denmarks-ow... https://fondaskreyol.org/article/how-the-danish-sold-tamils-into-slavery-in-scandinavia-and-the-story-of-one-mans-escape-to https://fondaskreyol.org/article/how-the-danish-sold-tamils-... https://aaregistry.org/story/the-swedish-african-slave-trade-a-story/ https://aaregistry.org/story/the-swedish-african-slave-trade... Some of these are after Viking times. And even so, why should it only count if it’s after Viking times? You get a pass just because? Besides, you almost certainly use products that use minerals produced under conditions similar to slavery. It is not possible to escape some link to this in the modern globalized world.
- slibhb 8mo agoThe ubiquity of slavery doesn't imply that slavery was necessary for the development of modern countries/economies. It just implies that, through much of history, people didn't see anything wrong with slavery.
- iamnothere 8mo agoI never said it was necessary, only that it was universal. I suspect that the recent aversion to slavery is more of a function of our relative level of development (and the education that comes with it) than anything else. Morality can only thrive when there is a reasonable standard of living, otherwise people will find ways to justify evil. Today it seems that we are at a level of development where we can only justify slavery if it is out of sight. I hope we can advance further, but we may be at our limit, as other moral taboos are already breaking down.
- slibhb 8mo ago> I never said it was necessary, only that it was universal. Fair enough! I'm much more optimistic than you. I think we'll keep muddling along, slowly improving morally for the forseable future.
- iamnothere 8mo agoI hope you are right.
- boxed 8mo agoSweden in the 1700s was extremely poor so obviously we started from scratch anyway.