Freedom ain't easy

[htpcl]

Hi, my dear apathetic drones fiery fighters for freedom! Thursday was a big holiday in my country, especially in my town. It commemorated the only time we had the guts to do something that was right - totally on our own, against all odds, and in defiance of everybody else's interests. And then to stand by it and stake everything to defend it. "

Comments

[underlankers]

I would say we have. The primary reason is that industrialization has made slavery irrelevant as a means of labor (not that slavery's disappeared, there are more slaves now than at the height of the slave trade). In Spartacus's time, there was no other alternative to some variety of slave labor in a sufficiently urbanized society of the time. Even the Aztecs and Inca Empires produced some variety of slaves, along with the Mayans, and nobody can say *they* got that from Jesus or Muhammad or the Upanishads. I might note that here in the USA, slaves did fight for their freedom in the Civil War. There were a total of 250,000 blacks in the Union armies, the great bulk of which were from the Southern slave states, but blacks from Missouri, Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky, as well as West Virginia, all fought for their freedom as well. And did better in terms of actually fighting than whites did as a general rule. So yes, slaves do fight for their freedom, but it does help when there's something that renders slavery (at least on paper)

[htpcl]

Oh, but was I talking of slavery in the literal way? Or wasn't I? ;-)

Who knows with those vague Balkanites...

[underlankers]

Well, I was addressing it as though you were, by pointing out one obvious aspect of Spartacus's generation that doesn't apply here: Spartacus and company lived in a harsher, poorer world where slavery was both inevitable and part of the bloodsoaked mud that sustained a society without the ability to replace manpower with usable machine power. People today *can* transcend those circumstances, but at the same time slavery very obviously is both still extant and still a serious issue despite that there is no "evil but necessary" argument for its modern form to explain its existence.

[htpcl]

> I was addressing it as though you were

Indeed you were.

[sandwichwarrior]

That is the road to serfdom is it not?

Certain people (regular posters on this forum) will tell me that I'm a delusional fool for valuing free will, or thinking that I have any control what-so-ever over my fate. They may even be right.

But if you abdicate responcbility for your own circumstances, where does that leave you?

[underlankers]

Still required to handle them as they actually exist. Not being responsible for them is great and all until you're still starving and facing the reality day in and day out. This type of argument is why both libertarianism and its bizarro counterpart Marxism can never co-exist with the real world.

[sandwichwarrior]

Pretty much.

[htpcl]

> Certain people (regular posters on this forum)

If you're going to say something like this, you better be able to substantiate it, or else you'd be called out on making shit up.

[rick_day]

One of the best tales I've read all month.

I'm like..."fuck, I am a slave." :(

I hate it when reality slaps you like that.

[root_fu]

I think its premature to presume to judge those of different eras without having had the experience of walking in their shoes.

To say that slaves were simpletons or that people didn't have to know a good deal about crops, agriculture, caring for livestock, weather & other topics in order to survive in that era is a mistake.

I suspect those alive today may well be less capable of making decisions than those of previous eras. What do people do? They go to work at some mundane and boring job. Most of which do not require them to make choices or think independently, much less use their imagination. If they make a mistake at worst they lose their job and have to find another one.

In past eras, if people made a mistake planting their crops at the wrong time or in the wrong place, they would starve to death. It was much more important that they make the correct decisions and be competent in their actions than it is today, as the world was a far less forgiving place.

[htpcl]

> its premature to presume to judge those of different eras without having had the experience of walking in their shoes

That's very true, btw.

> To say that slaves were simpletons

I do recall very clearly having said they weren't dumb.

> I suspect those alive today may well be less capable of making decisions than those of previous eras

Now you've approached somewhat closer to my point.

However, I'm not talking about the decisions when and where to plant crops. They knew pretty much anything they needed to known in order to supply themselves with food and shelter; indeed they probably knew much more than your average schmuck does today. That's not the point. The point is, when presented with a crucial choice like A) Return home to your previous way of life or B) Return to Rome and try to be like the Romans, they took the crazy bold option. Either because they had overestimated themselves, or they had underestimated their former masters, or simply they were just too hungry and preferred to risk everything but plunge into the

[root_fu]

They knew pretty much anything they needed to known in order to supply themselves with food and shelter; indeed they probably knew much more than your average schmuck does today.I think we take for granted how accessible, convenient and easy information is to attain

[htpcl]

Who can say anything for certain? By the same train of thought, we don't know anything and we shouldn't try to know it because it's impossible to ever know anything about anything that every happened.

[htpcl]

I fear that people have gotten so used to NOT having freedom, that even if they won it somehow, they wouldn't know what to do with it. And certainly that's the case whenever they're gifted it by somebody else without effort. Freedom, like many other things, is learned. Gradually and slowly, over generations. It doesn't happen overnight.

And then again, there isn't such a thing as complete freedom. That's an utopia, and is probably not even too recommendable.

[htpcl]

> What do you mean by "complete freedom" being undesirable?

No rules, free for all, anarchy, etc. Dissolution of society.