Oh but I can.
Yes, you can. You can be an enormous hypocrite.
Not voting when I can is a better use of my time than voting that makes no difference.
If you're here, 15 minutes of your time is not that valuable.
In a democracy the people get the government they asked for.
Not really. In a democracy people get a chance to tug their government one way or another. The corporations with buckets of cash, political parties, individual politicians, corporations special interests (which aren't always a bad thing) , and po boxes in Delaware all tug on it too.
And given that 5,000 years of recorded human history tells me we cannot change...
Horsefeathers.
Our monkey spheres used to extend only as far as our immediate family. The poor used to die in the street by the thousands. The rich used to be able to summarily execute the poor with no repercussions. Entire towns died by the millions from unknown plagues with no hope for a cure. You used to be able to grab people out of their land, pack them 500 into a ship let them stew in their own filth for three months and then BUY the survivors. People died by the thousands from tainted meat. There was NO WHERE on the planet to let people know that there was any hope of anything better.
We've made it better by making life suck less. We've done a lot of that by working together. We could make it a lot better if people like you learned to recognize when you're falling for some pre packaged malarkey put into your head by people who are just trying to stay obscenely rich.
Every single "independent" voter I've seen has gone off spouting about some right wing nutjob talking point like your rant about AmeriCorps.
*Or, if change does happen one way, it will slosh back the other in a few more years. It always has and there is nothing about human nature that makes me think it can ever be otherwise.
So how many more years till I can buy people again?
So how many more years till I can buy people again?
My bad. I thought you meant I should be an informed voter. Otherwise, yeah, 15 minutes is nothing - I'm in! :DIf you're here, 15 minutes of your time is not that valuable.
At least you're not claiming to already be informed.
As I said, 5,000 years of recorded human history tells me we cannot change.
This ones entirely on you, not all of humanity.
My bad. I thought you meant I should be an informed voter. Otherwise, yeah, 15 minutes is nothing - I'm in! :D
Fine. Half an hour then. Get a copy of the ballot off the internet, look for people you agree with on the issues.
K. O_o
So?
So you're being binary everything is all or nothing. Yes, you won't control the government by voting. That doesn't mean you can't influence it at all.
When I look at the news I see:
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Somalia, : The entire planet used to be like that
Saudi Arabia: their treatment of women would be considered progressive in some eras.
Ebola: In what other era would well paid doctors living in the lap of luxury fly halfway around the world to help sick and suffering people and cure some of them?
Favalas: Used to just be called :every city on the planet.
Putin : A benevolent dictator by historical standards.
Abu Ghraib/Guantanamo: A daycare center compared to the inquisition.
The present aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans - I mean really?, the wealthiest country in the world had one of it's iconic cities mashed by a hurricane and now, roughly a decade later, large portions of the town are still a ####hole
But massive numbers of people were able to flee it, and more importantly, find help from hundreds and thousands of miles away. What do you think would have happened in the middle ages if that had happened to a city in Europe?
politicians/police are still just as corrupt... really no positive change can be seen that has relied on the Democratic Process.
I'm not going to say that things are great but the idea that they haven't gotten better is mind numbingly at odds with reality. Yes, you can bribe a politician to go to war for oil or to get yourself a tax break. You can't bribe them to invade a country to stop people you own from fleeing there.
So how many more years till I can buy people again?
The Koch Brothers tell me you can do that now; using slightly different but no less effective leverage. And in some of our larger cites <cough>Chicago</cough> that particular tradition has never stopped.
Dude, buying a politician and buying a slave are NOT the same thing.
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And given that 5,000 years of recorded human history tells me we cannot change...
I'm not sure it's history that has told you that. I think it's been pretty well established that you aren't very familiar with the history of most of those years, from Rome right on up to Bush.
I think it might be an uninformed opinion that's told you that :p
But massive numbers of people were able to flee it, and more importantly, find help from hundreds and thousands of miles away. What do you think would have happened in the middle ages if that had happened to a city in Europe?
No need to guess, history is there.
[edited for more informative link]
Guys, Quark is seventeen.
Obviously they know everything.
Try again in five or ten years.
I don't think age has anything to do with this. Its not like most of fox news' viewers do any better despite being senior citizens.
An old man is a repository of failed ideas.
They would've been mostly ok since virtually no one would have been living below sea level to begin with and cleanup/rebuilding would've been a snap since the buildings weren't so fancily built then.The present aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans - I mean really?, the wealthiest country in the world had one of it's iconic cities mashed by a hurricane and now, roughly a decade later, large portions of the town are still a ####holeBut massive numbers of people were able to flee it, and more importantly, find help from hundreds and thousands of miles away. What do you think would have happened in the middle ages if that had happened to a city in Europe?
...You're just hopeless at the whole 'facts of history' thing, aren't you?
I can see that Krensky has the right idea, but I will leave you with this link to go with the medieval Katrina comparison I already provided.
My weakness may be overconfidence in my own opinions but yours is a completely unsubstantiated faith in humanity.
Its not faith. Its an observation that things have gotten better and that once they have gotten better they tend to stay that way for a long time. It falls and dips but the trend remains the same. Follow the man, not the dog
Your entire argument is based on either ignoring that progress or using your premise to conclude a dystopian future, which would be circular reasoning.
So you and your wife move to the Saudi peninsula and party on.
First off, I'm too ugly to date, much less marry.
Secondly this is a snide retort not an actual answer. I did not say "its great there, lets move" I said "its better than it used to be in some places"
Only because they're educated enough to know that, if they don't, Ebola's next stop will be their own back stoop.
1) Enlightened self interest would still be a great leap forward
2) You are MUCH better off getting ebola in your own country with other actual doctors than a field hospital in Africa. I've been to a hospital in Africa. Trust me.
But not by the hundreds of millions, all over the planet, unemployed, and living in plywood-cardboard hovels.
Yes, world population has increased. That means we have more of everthing.
Do you know what people that poor would have been called 500 years ago?
Dead. From disease or starvation.
A benevolent dictator by historical standards.
So you and your wife move your party to Russia after you get bored with the Saudi way of life. Make sure and speak favorably out about democracy and unfavorably about government hubris.
Same sloppy reasoning as the Saudi Arabia example.
Abu Ghraib/Guantanamo:
A daycare center compared to the inquisition.
Then why is everyone so upset?
Because it is still horribly inhuman. Because we are trying to climb out of the depths of depravity and want to go higher, not merely look down into the depths and say "meh, far enough"
Or they could've all died and thus put in for the Darwin Award for Improving Humanity.
Living below sea level doesn't have much of a genetic component.
*And don't give me any asinine arguments involving adult consent. Just imagine your own mother/wife/daughter/sister "choosing" that sort of career path. Not a pretty life. Clearly those people are mentally ill and/or drug addicts.
No, but still better by far than being a medieval peasant.
I'm pretty sure the buildings in New Orleans circa the Middle Ages were pretty primitive, assuming they existed there at all. Tents pitched on the high ground is what I had in mind when I made my post.
So you're claiming to have answered the question "what if a similar disaster had happened to a medieval city in Europe" with a reference to the (nonexistent) medieval city of New Orleans in America?
...Par for the course, I suppose.
Ha! Watch THIS and get back to me.
Compare that to Roots.
Ha! Watch THIS and get back to me.Compare that to Roots.
Hmmm, being forced into physical labor, demeaned, de-humanized, beaten, and raped
OR
Replace physical labor for *more rape* until I turn 30 and then put physical labor back in the mix.
Yeah, I totally see your point... ... Or actually, no I don't?
Human trafficking (slavery) is real today and just as terrible as slavery has ever been. And don't kid yourself, if happens right here in the US of A on an alarming scale.
It gets a bit rosier when you consider the one in five thousand odds of a person in America being a slave today compared to, say, the one in six or so odds of any particular imperial subject being a slave, or the one in eight odds of an American in 1860.
Is it ideal that sixty thousand people (est) are held in illicit slavery in America today? Sure isn't. Is it the same animal as four million in open chattel slavery? No.
The statement was made that you couldn't buy a human anymore. That was false.
The statement was made that sexual slavery is somehow less bad than *other* slavery. That was false.
Now somehow scale is being used to mitigate the severity of sexual slavery in a 21st century world. How far should we move this goal post before what you see in the mirror is Nauseating?
The statement was made that you couldn't buy a human anymore. That was false.
The statement was made that sexual slavery is somehow less bad than *other* slavery. That was false.
Now somehow scale is being used to mitigate the severity of sexual slavery in a 21st century world. How far should we move this goal post before what you see in the mirror is Nauseating?
I'm not exactly sure which goal posts I'm being accused of moving. Can you help me out maybe with quotes?
I'm saying progress has been made in combating the social evil that is slavery, particularly insofar as the incidence of slavery has been much reduced here. I don't recall saying anything else here on that topic.*
Since you're calling that view nauseating, I take it you disagree quite strongly, but, I'm not sure why or on what grounds.
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The statement was made that you couldn't buy a human anymore. That was false.
The statement was made that sexual slavery is somehow less bad than *other* slavery. That was false.
Now somehow scale is being used to mitigate the severity of sexual slavery in a 21st century world. How far should we move this goal post before what you see in the mirror is Nauseating?I'm not exactly sure which goal posts I'm being accused of moving. Can you help me out maybe with quotes?
I'm saying progress has been made in combating the social evil that is slavery, particularly insofar as the incidence of slavery has been much reduced here. I don't recall saying anything else here on that topic.*
Since you're calling that view nauseating, I take it you disagree quite strongly, but, I'm not sure why or on what grounds.
** spoiler omitted **
Not you specifically, but the argument put forward over the last few hours has moved from, "slavery isn't a thing anymore," to "sexual slavery isn't all that bad," to "yeah, but at least there isn't very much of it."
If that isn't (1) moving a goalpost, and (2) nauseating; then I don't know how to define either term.
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I guess Aldous Huxley is a bit obscure for this venue.Well, other than that Ford was jerk and that I don't think it's necessarily a good idea for an individual business - just one that's necessary for survival of a democracy.Yes, your Fordship.It shouldn't be a horrible mind numbing life it should be a horrible mind numbing few years you get to complain to your grandkids about.Educating kids beyond their INT is like giving me course work on quantum theory - it's a demonstrable waste of time and money. However well intentioned.Right, but for all but a few people that have severe handicaps there's something thats not beyond their int that will give them a better life than burger flipping. They might not design their Flipsomatic robot replacement but they can learn how to fix it.Somebody's got to flip the burgers. Or do all the other menial tasks.
We need to make that not a horrible life. I mean, it's a horrible mind-numbing job no matter what. We don't have to compound that by also making people doing it live in poverty.
Unless we bring in a lot more automation, there's an awful lot more menial labor to be done in this country than we have teenagers to do it for a couple of years each.
And even with that automation, there isn't enough high-end mentally stimulating work to keep everyone working.
Education is a good thing, but not everyone can have a job that actually uses four years of college. That's not how the job market is divided. That's why even the lower end jobs have to be enough to live on.
When what you write basically becomes true, everyone is too medicated to care. ;-)
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Ah, well, looking back on the statements of others and trying be fair to BigNorseWolf, he probably can't own slaves. The slave trade in the US has been suppressed to the point where it is too small and too illicit for people like him to take part - and can't is probably shorthand for illegal, anyway.
I also think you're condensing the statements that have been made in a way that doesn't accurately represent them. I don't think you're being fair when you condense "being an (implied semi-voluntary) prostitute seems better than a medieval peasant" to "sexual slavery isn't that bad."
I will grant that the slave trade has not vanished from the world, though, sure, and that saying that it has would be overstating the progress that has been made.
But the general point remains that contrary to an assertion that everything has stayed the same, it all sucks, there's no point to trying to make progress on these sorts of political and social issues - things have changed, a lot.
The statement was made that you couldn't buy a human anymore. That was false.
The statement was made that sexual slavery is somehow less bad than *other* slavery. That was false.
Now somehow scale is being used to mitigate the severity of sexual slavery in a 21st century world. How far should we move this goal post before what you see in the mirror is Nauseating?I'm not exactly sure which goal posts I'm being accused of moving. Can you help me out maybe with quotes?
I'm saying progress has been made in combating the social evil that is slavery, particularly insofar as the incidence of slavery has been much reduced here. I don't recall saying anything else here on that topic.*
Since you're calling that view nauseating, I take it you disagree quite strongly, but, I'm not sure why or on what grounds.
** spoiler omitted **
Not you specifically, but the argument put forward over the last few hours has moved from, "slavery isn't a thing anymore," to "sexual slavery isn't all that bad," to "yeah, but at least there isn't very much of it."
If that isn't (1) moving a goalpost, and (2) nauseating; then I don't know how to define either term.
I believe the argument was nothing has improved in the last 5000 years. That argument still seems false.
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Ah, well, trying to look back and to be fair to BigNorseWolf, he probably can't own slaves. The slave trade in the US has been suppressed to the point where it is too small and too illicit for people like him to take part.
I also think you're condensing the statements that have been made in a way that doesn't accurately represent them. I don't think you're being fair when you condense "being an (implied semi-voluntary) prostitute seems better than a medieval peasant" to "sexual slavery isn't that bad."
I will grant that the slave trade has not vanished from the world, though, sure, and that saying that it has would be overstating the progress that has been made.
But the general point remains that contrary to an assertion that everything has stayed the same, it all sucks, there's no point to trying to make progress on these sorts of political and social issues - things have changed, a lot.
Yeah, things have come a long way, now you get a slave time-share.
Quark, not sure what merit the sudden non sequitur accusation against LazarX and his charitableness is supposed to have to your general assertions about lack of change in society and government. In case it would be awkward for him, as the one named, to call out that as an inappropriate way to try to throw mud into the waters of the debate, I'm quite happy to on his behalf.
Yes, there have always been poor.
But not by the hundreds of millions
There were hundreds of millions of poor people in the world in the days of Rome too.
Specifically about two hundred and thirty million poor people during Augustus's reign.
No, I'm pretty sure most of them were employed flogg'n the dirt.
Not poking through garbage dumps looking for stuff to recycle.
Not sure what 'flogging the dirt' means, it could be farming, I suppose. The one thing I am certain of is that whenever you say "I'm pretty sure...", it's synonymous with "I'm wrong about..."
But just to give you the benefit of the doubt, are you saying that a poor farmer in antiquity was much better off than a poor person in America today? Or in Africa? Or are you saying something else entirely?
When the Internet first came to be as something you accessed through a TTY, I had great confidence that it would expand awareness. What I failed to realize was it's power to amplify ignorance.
People like Quark think it fashionable to wear a jacket of cynicism mistaking it for critical thinking.
And people like LX have enough free time on his adult hands that he can bandy words with a witless teen instead of doing something that matters.
Overhead question:
How much of your excess income do you give to charity?
I mean, we're all here on this forum because we have so much free time that, after all the time we spend playing TTRPGs, we still have time for chat in the Paizo forum.
So, given all the apparent self-indulgence utilizing fantasy escapism to brighten our leisurely lives, clearly we are also making more than an occasional token effort to actually put our hard earned cash to work solving these many obtuse problems.
I mean, there's nothing whatsoever that we can do for American slaves circa 1850 but there is a darn sight more we can do for present-day sex slaves than put down nascent opinions of youthful others while flagrantly demonstrating our own self-described "mastery" of world history.
Am I right?
Pfft! ...and people wonder why I'm cynical.
The age-old: If you aren't solving all the problems right now, you can't talk about any problems ever.
I'm not exactly sure which goal posts I'm being accused of moving. Can you help me out maybe with quotes?
No, he can't. That would undermine his sop of accusing people of saying horrible and idiotic things by clearly demonstrating that they said no such thing.
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I'm still wondering how we are all better off than Roman emperors when nothing has improved in 5000 years.
I don't know. they no longer have open fist fights or outright duels in the Halls of Congress.
We haven't had anybody beaten with a cane on the floor of Congress in a woefully long time.
Vive le Charles Sumner!
Vive le Charles Sumner!
Cyclops?
So how many more years till I can buy people again?
-73. The human trafficking market really picked up during the early 1900s and has been seeing some phenomenal growth in the 2000s. The U.S. is one of the top destinations for people being sold.
So how many more years till I can buy people again?-73. The human trafficking market really picked up during the early 1900s and has been seeing some phenomenal growth in the 2000s. The U.S. is one of the top destinations for people being sold.
Binary thinking is incredibly sloppy thinking. It is incredibly bad thinking. Its not smart, its not funny, its not insightful, its not original, it doesn't contribute to the conversation and to top if off you're not even correct.
If you absolutely must be annoyingly pedantic, choose to read a different meaning of can than was clearly intended, ignore what was said and nitpick a statement to play gotcha anyway then the illegality of the act has driven the cost of buying and securing people well beyond my price range.
So how many more years till I can buy people again?-73. The human trafficking market really picked up during the early 1900s and has been seeing some phenomenal growth in the 2000s. The U.S. is one of the top destinations for people being sold.Binary thinking is incredibly sloppy thinking. It is incredibly bad thinking. Its not smart, its not funny, its not insightful, its not original, it doesn't contribute to the conversation and to top if off you're not even correct.
If you absolutely must be annoyingly pedantic, choose to read a different meaning of can than was clearly intended, ignore what was said and nitpick a statement to play gotcha anyway then the illegality of the act has driven the cost of buying and securing people well beyond my price range.
binary thinking may be sloppy, but he has a point. What have been discovered to essentially be slavery rings are broken up in my area constantly, a which is a great embarrassment.
No, the point has been lost, I think, in speaking past one another.
Side A has said "Human slavery is illegal and thus drastically less widespread than it was in pre-Civil War America."
Side B has said "Human slavery still goes on today, and Side A is painting a rosy picture of its modern face."
Except no one from Side A has been claiming that modern forms of slavery are nice, pretty, kind, or non-existent.
Sort of like a family member dying is a tragedy, and a family member snapping and killing dozens of others in a mass murder is a tragedy, and yet one of those things is worse than the other. No one is trying to be unsympathetic to the first scenario.
No, the point has been lost, I think, in speaking past one another.
Side A has said "Human slavery is illegal and thus drastically less widespread than it was in pre-Civil War America."
Side B has said "Human slavery still goes on today, and Side A is painting a rosy picture of its modern face."
Except no one from Side A has been claiming that modern forms of slavery are nice, pretty, kind, or non-existent.
Sort of like a family member dying is a tragedy, and a family member snapping and killing dozens of others in a mass murder is a tragedy, and yet one of those things is worse than the other. No one is trying to be unsympathetic to the first scenario.
More like Side Q said "Nothing ever gets better"
Side B has said "Human slavery is illegal and thus drastically less widespread than it was in pre-Civil War America."
Side C has said "Human slavery still goes on today, and Side B is painting a rosy picture of its modern face."
Side Q said "See, slavery still exists. Nothing ever gets better. I'm right."
Side D said "Internet arguments never get better. That much is true."
Fixed that up for us. I think Stonebreaker delivered the knockout punch awhile ago though.