Boston Marathon Explosion - Today's Topics: Public Schools

hodj_sl said:

Citation required, your continued assertion has already been refuted on its face, leaving you a blubbering sack of shit in the process.

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Citation for what? I asked you for specifics about the necessary conditions of ownership and you said "well just look at history!!onez" Am I not an authority on my own opinion? I have looked, quite extensively, at the human history of slavery and all various forms of crypto-slavery. From that extensive reading, I have come to the conclusion that I don't think the essential features that tie them together have anything to do with the shit you're talking about. I think that slavery, boiled down to its essential concepts, is about the interaction of systems of control and the institutions that maintain those systems. The stuff you're talking about I think mostly acts as parameters to that sort of model. Those parameters affect outcomes, and to that extent, affect the moral landscape of the political and economic system, but I don't think they matter so much for thenecessaryrequirements of what the essential idea of slavery really entails.

hodj_sl said:

What definition of slavery includes being paid to work, ownership of property, choice of workplace, choice of marriage partner, etc. again?

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So since we all love hypotheticals so much: let's imagine a slave society where slaves are still owned by their master, but with one exception: they would be allowed to choose any master that would have them.

1. Are those people still slaves? I think so. I don't think the assignment of that one right changes the situation sufficiently to disqualify them. Being owned doesn't necessarily imply no rights. You own your dog in our society, but you're not allowed to mistreat it (at least not without some kind of sanction...whether it's enough is a separate question). That's not a necessary feature, like we could design a society where owning your dog meant you were allowed to starve it to death consequence-free, but the fact that that's not the case and you still own your dog at least demonstrates the principle that ownership is not necessarily equivalent to no-rights.

2. Other than the particulars of what I've outlined above, how different would such a society look from what we see in China (or the United States for that matter). Marginally, anecdotally, there would obviously be differences. But for most people in day to day life I think you're looking at roughly the same outcomes and the same scope of aspirations you see now.

hodj_sl said:

No, its not, because there is no coercion. The premise you are stating is basically, Chinese people living in rural areas who would have, for the past 8000 years, lived lives of abject poverty doing nothing but tending rice fields for 2-4 decades before dying of a horrible disease are being coerced to work in factories by....being given the opportunity to escape 8000 year old lifestyle of poverty for modernity. Giving people the opportunity to escape poverty in traditional lifestyles for cities and modernity and a chance at a good education is not coercion. Its your redefinition of the words, again, to suit your purposes.

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Yeah they're really being done a favor by being given the great opportunity to work for next to nothing in a factory. That's better than picking rice so that's how we know they're not being coerced. wat

hodj_sl said:

No, that would be your dysphemistic attempt to skew the debate away from facts into your conjured up fantasies again.

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You're still not using that word right.

hodj_sl said:

It is most certainly not slavery [...]

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How about the founder of social theory?

And I'm not reinterpreting anything. The primal, basic condition for slavery is control. Many of those old social theorists, as well as many modern ones, you ignore speak a lot about control. I can cite the modern ones if you don't like what the old ones have to say. It's more than just owning someone on a piece of paper. It's about control of their life and the output they produce. Namely, that output doesn't go to them but to someone else.

How modern do you want? Is Fromm modern enough? But they're all in the spirit of Marx.

hodj_sl said:

You can call anyone who has a position of authority over another as a form of control.

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RUN DUMAR, HE'S ONTO US

hodj_sl said:

slavery means something specific

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Okay, then what do terms like wage slave signify? Surely you've heard this term, and it indeed does have meaning. What do you think it means?

Call us when you two are done so we can go back to ball shaving

Dumar_sl said:

Okay, then what do terms like wage slave signify? Surely you've heard this term, and it indeed does have meaning. What do you think it means?

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NOT A THING ONLY DUMBFUCKS THINK THATS A THING WAGE = NOT SLAVE POOOOOOOOOP

Mikhail Bakunin_sl said:

NOT A THING ONLY DUMBFUCKS THINK THATS A THING WAGE = NOT SLAVE POOOOOOOOOP

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IF YOU MAKE ENOUGH CASH TO SHAVE YOUR BALLS ROUTINELY, U HAVE FREEDOMZ OBV.

Afterall, even sweatshop workers can shave their balls. Therefore, based on hodj's definition, they're quite obviously free men.

hodj_sl said:

Doesn't describe the situation in China anymore than it does elsewhere in the world. In fact, if you do think that describes China, then what country doesn't it describe?

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I think it describes almost every country. I think it's more severe (remember what I was saying about parameters?) in China than in other places, precisely because of the proximity to poverty that you have outlined, and that that delta in development is why I don't consider them "developed" in the same sense as Japan. That gap is definitely shrinking. They're not a totally undeveloped country, either. They're currently in the process of developing and part of that will both require and produce a reduction in the manifestations of their (like our) slave society.

hodj_sl said:

Everyone has a choice of what career to pursue, and whom to work for. There is no coercion there.

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That doesn't actually follow.

hodj_sl said:

Yeah it is. It is better than picking rice, and if it weren't for those jobs and those companies, there wouldn't BE an option. It would just be picking rice.

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Do you think that represents the universe of alternatives?

hodj_sl said:

A dysphemism is an expression with connotations that are offensive either about the denotatum (the object referred to by the linguistic expression) or to the audience, or both, and it is substituted for a neutral or euphemistic expression for just that reason.[1] Like euphemism, dysphemism is sometimes motivated by feelings such as fear and distaste. However, it may also be motivated by hatred and contempt.

You are attempting to use language that is intentionally skewed towards the most negative possible, in order to twist the debate, and its not working, so yeah. Thanks for playing.

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It's intentionally skewed toward the truth of the matter, in spite of your preference for irrelevant (and largely unstated) necessary conditions on the word "slavery." The WORST you can accuse me of is hyperbole, but I don't think even that fits (because chattel slavery is only a proper subset of slavery).

hodj_sl said:

Yes I am on to you because guess what dipshit? Division of labor is a fucking cultural adaptation. It exists for a reason. You can rail against it all you want, but you can't just define every person working for someone else as a slave because it suits your own narrow minded, outdated world views.

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There's nothing about division of labor that obligates that there be a class of people who earn money by charging others rent, interest, or profit. One thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other.

Dumar_sl said:

IF YOU MAKE ENOUGH CASH TO SHAVE YOUR BALLS ROUTINELY, U HAVE FREEDOMZ OBV.

Afterall, even sweatshop workers can shave their balls. Therefore, based on hodj's definition, they're quite obviously free men.

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It's resolved: all men should be free to shave their balls. Especially if they tend to get sweaty while working in a shop.

hodj_sl said:

Yeah, we can tell. Its why you're wrong.

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Why would that make me wrong?

hodj_sl said:

Yes. It does actually. Your assertion fallacy has just been rebutted with mine. Deal with it.

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You asserted a bit of unsupported reasoning first. That's means we're 2-1 on the assertion scoreboard. DEALT, BITCH.

hodj_sl said:

Its the universe of realistic alternatives, based on traditional lifestyles and the populations we're discussing.

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Why are the realistic alternatives constrained in that way? Explain to me how that doesn't immediately imply a system of exploitation.

hodj_sl said:

No, its not. Its intentionally skewed towards YOUR one trick pony 18th century ad naseum regurgitation of outdated theories, and that's about it.

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lol

usomad

<3

We saw what happened in 1917 when society tried to bypass incremental change for fundamental/revolutionary change. Human nature & a lack of expertise about what to do next amongst those that that "won" are directly responsible for the end result, but if that's your idea of paradise then I bet you enjoy eating shit sandwiches.

On Foxconn, suicide nets and slavery:

Modern forms of slavery that try to obfuscate their true nature are things like the mines where the workers rent a plot, rent equipment, rent a place to sleep, buy food from the mine's store and are contractually forced to sell what they find to the owners of the mine. It's a system entirely controlled by the owners that is designed and balanced to create a debt spiral for most workers, preventing them from ever being able to leave their job and/or making any money (like in a Casino some get lucky, but, in the big picture, the house always win). Some factories in China operate in a manner that is not that far from this model, but it is not the norm and not what Foxconn does (for starters people can leave when they want).

The suicide controversy was started because some journalists - who are not afraid to have level headed presentation of facts get in the way of a good story - trumpeted the rate at which suicides happened over time (x every month!), without making clear that these factories are employing a ridiculous number of people and really are cities. Cities that have their own amusement centers, shopping centers, learning centers, cities filled dozens of thousands of young adults trying to get some money to start their life projects (farm, marriage, store, etc). It's not trivial to figure if the suicide/population in the whole of Chinafor the same demographicswould be lower or higher, but what is certain is that people, all over the world, kill themselves for a number of reasons. So, any group of a couple hundred thousand people will have suicides. A company like Foxconn also has shareholders and partners that tend to say 'You have to dosomething!' when the company is looking bad in international media. The problem is thatsomethingis not trivial when you don't have an abnormal suicide rate. You can boost psych evaluations, diminish the money the family of the deceased get to reduce financial incentive (which sends a mixed message) and/or make killing yourself harder by installing suicide nets (which also sends a mixed message).

This is not to say that Foxconn is a marvelous place to be (in fact, most people work overtime to reach their money target as fast as possible and leave), or that China as not some big systemic problems of rural poverty that pushes youngsters in cities far from their home to work jobs that require no qualification. MB's view lacks nuance.

General Antony_sl said:

We saw what happened in 1917 when society tried to bypass incremental change for fundamental/revolutionary change. Human nature & a lack of expertise about what to do next amongst those that that "won" are directly responsible for the end result, but if that's your idea of paradise then I bet you enjoy eating shit sandwiches.

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What happened in 1917 was one slave society being exchanged for another. There was no revolution in those terms.