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Slavery


This is exactly the kind of thing that insults the struggles of people who are actually oppressed. Most people over the age of 17 would not consider the things on that sign to be unreasonable requests, and in fact acting normal, watching TV and following fashion are completely optional.
 
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This is exactly the kind of thing that insults the struggles of people who are actually oppressed. Most people over the age of 17 would not consider the things on that sign to be unreasonable requests, and in fact acting normal, watching TV and following fashion are completely optional.

It's a catch-22, isn't it. I guess some people do find the ideas presented there oppressive. I suspect it is not for the activities themselves, but the contexts from which they emerge. However, that sign is deeply and woefully insensitive, inconsiderate, and disrespectful/ignorant of more traumatic realities of slavery (not to belittle anyone's experience of the kind as suggested by the poster). So, given this, when I see a poster like that it does sound like an ignorant and entitled "woe-is-me" story precisely for its inability to respond from a place of wisdom about the deeper nature of slavery. It's like an arrogant "I think I'm being so smart by using "satire"" sarcastic approach that actually reeks of some short-sightedness, imo. But, on the other hand, at least they are taking a stand and striving to make a positive. Arguing against being a spoke on the wheel of capitalism, or a machine part in this greater economic and political factory is also worthwhile, imo. I would just encourage them to re-consider their delivery.
 
This is exactly the kind of thing that insults the struggles of people who are actually oppressed. Most people over the age of 17 would not consider the things on that sign to be unreasonable requests, and in fact acting normal, watching TV and following fashion are completely optional.

and could you perhaps explain what exactly gives anyone a right to make any requests of me or anyone else whatsoever? Who and why decides how should one live? Why am I (and everyone else in that matter) being dictated how to live our lives and if we dont want to abide we'd be bombarded with fines or even go to jail? If your idea of actual oppression is only physical brutal oppression - then congratulations, you are free to imagine that you are free. Anyone over the age of 17 would also not take this poster's words quite that literally, you know. Those "optional" things are today's definition of "normal", try not watching tv, not following fashion etc - you will very soon not have anything to talk about with fellow humans, you'll find yourself socially isolated, an outcast... Solitary confinement is considered torture for a reason.

Edit: I am not aiming to insult anyone physically oppressed btw - both physical and psychological oppression are forms of slavery - different forms, but still slavery and its not fair to belittle or deny either one, thats all I wanted to say.
 
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I would answer, with no offence intended at all, that psychological "slavery" is much easier to escape, if you know how, and is largely self-imposed.

It is genuinely sad to me that anyone would think watching TV and following fashion and even being "normal" are prerequisites to having friends. They're not really, you know. I'm sure if you did not do those things many very nice people would like you and talk to you. I don't watch TV (don't get reception where I live and don't want to pay for it, and cable TV is not a government-provided service) nor do I follow fashion much, except in a vague sort of way.

As far as people making requests of you, well, that depends largely on what they are requesting, and what you are requesting in return, don't you think?
 
To follow the definitions of slavery the conversations are taking to this point, I would add we all live in the same place, I.e. house, country, planet, etc.

We need rules and are bound by those rules. You can argue you don't like the particular set of rules, but there will be rules and you will have to follow them.
So yeah I guess that's a definition of slavery. But that's slavery on a secular scale. It's pedestrian. We all have the share the food we have so we all can eat.

What I find I intriguing is that our creator , if there is such a thing, enslaved us to this existence and didn't give us the tools to imagine how else it could be.
 
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Slavery could be seen as a spectrum of limitations to freedom

Dictionary definitions of slavery might talk about things such as being the legal property of someone else and being bound to them. Seeing as the numbers on our birth certificates are traded on the stock exchange and we are all bound by laws created by a propertied elite we are all slaves under the dictionary definition

Aldous huxley who was privy to the thinking of the fabian society which is made up of powerful and influencial people wrote his novel 'A Brave New World' in which humans learned to love their slavery

So if slavery is a spectrum then at the more severe end could be seen people who are being traded like cattle at gun point and those at a more comfortable end of the spectrum could be people in the west who are copletely unaware of how they are truely perceived by the elites who control them but live under an illusion (or perhaps delusion would be more appropriate) that they actually have some say in the decision making process

Its been suggested in this thread already that people who aren't happy with the system can opt out! For example it has been suggested that they can buy land and start a community. However there are limitations with this approach.

I live in Scotland. We have a beautiful stretch of beach in the North East that is important to bird and plant life and to all the people who enjoy the peace and tranquility of the place. The US business tycoon Donald Trump wants to build a golf course for the super rich global elite in this area and applied huge financial/political leverage to get what he wants. Some locals did not want to sell up their land to the scheme but the government exercised a law called a 'compulsory purchase order' which means that the government bought out the people even though they didn't want to sell.

I put it to the people here who doubt that they are slaves that the British 'crown' actually owns all the land in the UK and that buying land doesn't really give you ownership of the land but rather a temnporary lease of it that can be taken off you at any time by the powers that be. Further to this citizens of the UK are not born free but must register their children after birth to the birth register following which they are issued with a birth certificate the number on which is used as collateral by the UK government.

When a worker dies through the negligence of their employer, the government fines the company through 'criminal' law before the relatives of the worker can sue through 'civil' law. I want to stress what this means. If a worker dies, his/her family may be left without a bread winner and maybe in need of financial remuneration to feed and house themselves, however before they may sue the negligent employer the government takes their cut first which may of course leave little or nothing left for the familly to get when they sue. The reason for this is becuse the worker is deemed by the government to be their property; this is why the government demands remuneration FIRST

To summarise:

  • Legally the crown owns all the land
  • Legally the crown owns the people

If US citizens think they are any freer than UK citizens they are failing to understand how the system works. Their birth certificate numbers are also traded on the stock exchange. The reason their situation is the same as those in the UK is because both countries are controlled by the same powers.

The powers i'm talking of have a symbol that embodies their position. This symbol is an eye on the top of a pyramid. The pyramid is the hierarchical system that they are at the top of and the all seeing eye is their declaration that they are the ultimate power in the land. They have the eyes to see.

This symbol is on the back of the US dollar bill which is printed by the 'federal' reserve bank which is privately owned by global investors (who also own the bank of england). The symbol is also seen at the top of the emblem of the British secret service (MI5) shown here:

View attachment 15840

Of course the crown is depicted as well because as all UK law students will know the crown is the source of all British law.

All the recent banking scandals that have been in the media for example the LIBOR rate rigging have all been going on in the district of the 'City of London'. This is an area within the wider city of London that is the cities banking district. it also hosues the 'temple' which is the law courts. these got their names from the knights templar who used to own these properties.

The city of london has special status. it is a seperate entity within the UK. Ity has its own government and its own police force. It is much like the vatican city and the District of Columbia in Washington which also have special status within their respective countries.

At 15:00 in the following clip there is an interview with an ex policeman who used to work in the UK police anti-fraud department. He tells the listener quite clearly that the city of london is protected by the government. No policeman can investigate any fraud in the city of london without the permission of the secretary of state (who will of course deny the permission!). link to interview below:

http://rt.com/programs/keiser-report/episode-354-max-keiser/

So what we're looking at here is a banking district that breaks the law and is at the centre of every scandal from Bernie Madhof to IHBC's drug money laundering but is sitting in its own enclave protected by the british government who are themselves under the watch of a secret service that has the same symbol on its emblem that the US dollar bill has!

Where else does that symbol appear? Its also on the supreme court building in Israel called the knesset which was paid for by the Rothschild banking family. here's an image of a pyramid incoporated into the design of the building:

View attachment 15841

The Rothschilds have a banking house in london and they have shares in the central bank. Their agents own shares in US banks and in the federal reserve

If anyone is wondering why no one has gone to prison for any banking fraud it is because they are protected by the system; this is because the system itself has been usurped by the global investors. These people very much see us as their property and they have a plan as outlined by Aldous Huxley to create a centrally controlled state economy which they will run. Much like the Nazis did away with any pretence of democracy and formed a totalitarian dictatorship, these people also want to do away with the current pretense of democracy and just control things direct without having to go through the whole facade of elections

Someone mentioned human trafficking earlier in the thread and thought that the system was againts it! The truth is that the system tolerates human traffikcing. in fact if you look into the history of the US and UK it becomes clear that they have always depended on slave labour. Nowadays they have sourced out some of that slave labour to poor countries where there are no trade unions to protect the workers, resulting in 'sweat shops'. Human trafficking is alive and well in the US and UK and much of which is part of the sex industry where people are kidnapped and raped into submission before being prostituted out

The third country i mentioned was Israel which itself has a slave class of people it uses for menial tasks: the palestineans which has lead to one of the brightest minds in the US, Noam Chomsky, equating the state of Israel to ancient Sparta which also had a slave class made up of a people called the Healots. Instead of doing the work themselves the Spartans did national service like modern day Israelis do so that they can physically control the slave class

Here is some slave management being carried out by the israelis...the modern day spartans

[video=youtube;5po__L6Oanc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5po__L6Oanc&feature=relmfu[/video]

here's another clip showing a israeli soldier beating children and barring them from going through what is clearly to most people a fence resembling ones around prisons:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bdbA2Ka3Bo
 
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And I find the opposite to be true for myself. I have myself escaped physical oppression years ago - all you have to do is run away and find a safer place. Psychological oppression, however, is everywhere, there is no escaping from it, you can only convince yourself (with or without outsider help) that you are not, in fact, so oppressed. Its the trick - to show people someone living worse than you and you automatically start thinking that your life is good, when in facts it sucks royally. I dont see anything self-imposed there, really, I did not ask to be born at all, I dont want to be here at all to begin with, so when someone comes and says you have to do this and that and the other, because you are a resident of this planet, I flip. The fact remains that our lives are heavily regulated, I really envy people who think otherwise - its an easier life for them. I, however, feel way worse under this kind of oppression that I did under the physical oppression.

I never said anything about friends - I meant society. How long would you function in a job where none of your colleagues talk to you at all? Just an example.

I have never and will not ever request anything of anyone. At all. Its just not my place, maybe I was mistakenly born on the wrong planet or something, i dunno :)

Anyway, I dont wish to discuss this further, Im trying to quit smoking here and this thread is not helping :) I genuinely envy the ability to see freedom in todays world.
 
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and could you perhaps explain what exactly gives anyone a right to make any requests of me or anyone else whatsoever?

If you don't want to do any of the things on that sign then don't do them. No one is going to stop you. But you can't expect anyone who believes in what they're doing to support you either. And if you're not going to do any work (I don't mean working for someone else or some sort of slavedriver boss here, I mean just work in general), then what are you going to do all day? Let your slaves do everything for you? Build robots?

Who and why decides how should one live?

You do, because you can. Just because something is bigger than you are, it doesn't mean that you're utterly powerless.

Why am I (and everyone else in that matter) being dictated how to live our lives and if we dont want to abide we'd be bombarded with fines or even go to jail?

What specific 'ways to live your life' are you talking about?

It's easy to criticize things without providing alternatives.
 
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It is genuinely sad to me that anyone would think watching TV and following fashion and even being "normal" are prerequisites to having friends. They're not really, you know. I'm sure if you did not do those things many very nice people would like you and talk to you. I don't watch TV (don't get reception where I live and don't want to pay for it, and cable TV is not a government-provided service) nor do I follow fashion much, except in a vague sort of way.

As far as people making requests of you, well, that depends largely on what they are requesting, and what you are requesting in return, don't you think?

I agree with this.

I do think that there are social pressures to conform, but that's definitely not evidence of a grand conspiracy or of some sort of hidden dictatorship. Conformity has always been an attribute of our species-- we're social creatures who learn our behaviors from each other. We're also not the only animals on the planet for whom this is true. Just because we have more leisure time to be aware of our behavior patterns instead of just blindly following them doesn't mean that things have radically shifted or that we're all being enslaved as we speak.

If you want to escape other people, then you can-- but obviously, you'll be on your own… it's not really fair to say that the only way that you could ever be free is if everyone behaves the way that you want them to behave, and not the way that they or someone else wants to behave. Some people like TV. They like their jobs. Are they slaves because they don't think the way that you do, and don't want to?
 
If you don't want to do any of the things on that sign then don't do them. No one is going to stop you. But you can't expect anyone who believes in what they're doing to support you either. And if you're not going to do any work (I don't mean working for someone else or some sort of slavedriver boss here, I mean just work in general), then what are you going to do all day? Let your slaves do everything for you? Build robots?



You do, because you can. Just because something is bigger than you are, it doesn't mean that you're utterly powerless.



What specific 'ways to live your life' are you talking about?

It's easy to criticize things without providing alternatives.

I already said not to take the sign so literally. I'm not looking for any kind of support either. Why does it bother you so much that I may or may not want to do any work? People are clinging too much on a concept of everyone having to justify their existence somehow, but why? I didn't sign up for this shit, I dint fill out any birth application forms... Why is anyone at all concerned how would I be spending my days? And as a matter of fact - yes, there is enough technology to do most of the work for humans, technological unemployment is proof enough of that.

I meant that whether you see it or not - there IS a "sacred" model of life drawn out as a template for people - you are born, you go to the nursery up to this age, you go to school up to this age, you go/not go to uni/college up to this age, and then you work, have kids, do the same for them and then work some more till you die. Yes, you might enjoy a little bit of retirement after all that, but with retirement ages rising rapidly, not many get there due to poor health, accidents and so on. Thats the model of life that you are expected to fit, no matter what. Only for me - the whole point of this kind of existence is missing. Should we really put all greater goals aside just to put up with the rent?

I have in mind a way of life that would make human being happier and less stressed. Theres really no need to impose all that daily stress onto humans at all. Myself, ideally, I would've liked not to be caged in nursery and school all my childhood, but maybe allowed to explore things by myself, I was a very curious child, but that was constantly beat down by everything else I had to force into my head, so that I would have better grades, it was forced into my head that if I dont memorize absolutely everything, I'd be useless blah blah blah and so on. I was scared to death of this model of life. Why cant we just live as we want to, not as we are told to live? And if you dont take your kids to school, at least in England, you get fined £50 daily, so how exactly am I free to do something different that I'd like to do? If you dont pay the fines, you go to jail - simples. If your education is not government approved - you are forced to stay behind in menial jobs which you dont really want to do, you are denied your true potential - how is that freedom? I wasn't allowed anywhere near psychology for example, because I was not exceptionally good at maths - but you really dont need maths for it, especially if you are INFJ. You can test the logic in other ways, I just wasnt good with numbers. So, small minded people have ruined my life, am I supposed to worship them now? Whats the rush with the education as well, why cant kids just be kids for a while, enjoy their childhood for more that 2 hours a day that they have spare from school + homework? What if you just not cut out for such pace? And there are deadlines everywhere, but when you think about it, what would happen if there weren't any deadlines? For anything? Nor for education, nor for work, nor for exploring? Nobody would die, for sure, so why squeeze humanity into this tight model? Why stress everybody out so much from early childhood?

One model doesnt fit all, unfortunately, as I said, I envy you if it fits you, but I'm suffering here...
 
I agree with this.

I do think that there are social pressures to conform, but that's definitely not evidence of a grand conspiracy or of some sort of hidden dictatorship. Conformity has always been an attribute of our species-- we're social creatures who learn our behaviors from each other. We're also not the only animals on the planet for whom this is true. Just because we have more leisure time to be aware of our behavior patterns instead of just blindly following them doesn't mean that things have radically shifted or that we're all being enslaved as we speak.

If you want to escape other people, then you can-- but obviously, you'll be on your own… it's not really fair to say that the only way that you could ever be free is if everyone behaves the way that you want them to behave, and not the way that they or someone else wants to behave. Some people like TV. They like their jobs. Are they slaves because they don't think the way that you do, and don't want to?

its easier to fool people, than to convince them that they have been fooled. Like George Carlin said, I dont have the exact quote, but oh well - how can someone genuinely enjoy being woken up by the alarm at 6.30 am, shit, piss, force-feed, and go to work to earn someone else heaps of money while getting just a fraction of it yourself?
 
Slavery could be seen as a spectrum of limitations to freedom

Dictionary definitions of slavery might talk about things such as being the legal property of someone else and being bound to them. Seeing as the numbers on our birth certificates are traded on the stock exchange and we are all bound by laws created by a propertied elite we are all slaves under the dictionary definition

Aldous huxley who was privy to the thinking of the fabian society which is made up of powerful and influencial people wrote his novel 'A Brave New World' in which humans learned to love their slavery

So if slavery is a spectrum then at the more severe end could be seen people who are being traded like cattle at gun point and those at a more comfortable end of the spectrum could be people in the west who are copletely unaware of how they are truely perceived by the elites who control them but live under an illusion (or perhaps delusion would be more appropriate) that they actually have some say in the decision making process

Its been suggested in this thread already that people who aren't happy with the system can opt out! For example it has been suggested that they can buy land and start a community. However there are limitations with this approach.

I live in Scotland. We have a beautiful stretch of beach in the North East that is important to bird and plant life and to all the people who enjoy the peace and tranquility of the place. The US business tycoon Donald Trump wants to build a golf course for the super rich global elite in this area and applied huge financial/political leverage to get what he wants. Some locals did not want to sell up their land to the scheme but the government exercised a law called a 'compulsory purchase order' which means that the government bought out the people even though they didn't want to sell.

I put it to the people here who doubt that they are slaves that the British 'crown' actually owns all the land in the UK and that buying land doesn't really give you ownership of the land but rather a temnporary lease of it that can be taken off you at any time by the powers that be. Further to this citizens of the UK are not born free but must register their children after birth to the birth register following which they are issued with a birth certificate the number on which is used as collateral by the UK government.

When a worker dies through the negligence of their employer, the government fines the company through 'criminal' law before the relatives of the worker can sue through 'civil' law. I want to stress what this means. If a worker dies, his/her family may be left without a bread winner and maybe in need of financial remuneration to feed and house themselves, however before they may sue the negligent employer the government takes their cut first which may of course leave little or nothing left for the familly to get when they sue. The reason for this is becuse the worker is deemed by the government to be their property; this is why the government demands remuneration FIRST

To summarise:

  • Legally the crown owns all the land
  • Legally the crown owns the people

If US citizens think they are any freer than UK citizens they are failing to understand how the system works. Their birth certificate numbers are also traded on the stock exchange. The reason their situation is the same as those in the UK is because both countries are controlled by the same powers.

The powers i'm talking of have a symbol that embodies their position. This symbol is an eye on the top of a pyramid. The pyramid is the hierarchical system that they are at the top of and the all seeing eye is their declaration that they are the ultimate power in the land. They have the eyes to see.

This symbol is on the back of the US dollar bill which is printed by the 'federal' reserve bank which is privately owned by global investors (who also own the bank of england). The symbol is also seen at the top of the emblem of the British secret service (MI5) shown here:

View attachment 15840

Of course the crown is depicted as well because as all UK law students will know the crown is the source of all British law.

All the recent banking scandals that have been in the media for example the LIBOR rate rigging have all been going on in the district of the 'City of London'. This is an area within the wider city of London that is the cities banking district. it also hosues the 'temple' which is the law courts. these got their names from the knights templar who used to own these properties.

The city of london has special status. it is a seperate entity within the UK. Ity has its own government and its own police force. It is much like the vatican city and the District of Columbia in Washington which also have special status within their respective countries.

At 15:00 in the following clip there is an interview with an ex policeman who used to work in the UK police anti-fraud department. He tells the listener quite clearly that the city of london is protected by the government. No policeman can investigate any fraud in the city of london without the permission of the secretary of state (who will of course deny the permission!). link to interview below:

http://rt.com/programs/keiser-report/episode-354-max-keiser/

So what we're looking at here is a banking district that breaks the law and is at the centre of every scandal from Bernie Madhof to IHBC's drug money laundering but is sitting in its own enclave protected by the british government who are themselves under the watch of a secret service that has the same symbol on its emblem that the US dollar bill has!

Where else does that symbol appear? Its also on the supreme court building in Israel called the knesset which was paid for by the Rothschild banking family. here's an image of a pyramid incoporated into the design of the building:

View attachment 15841

The Rothschilds have a banking house in london and they have shares in the central bank. Their agents own shares in US banks and in the federal reserve

If anyone is wondering why no one has gone to prison for any banking fraud it is because they are protected by the system; this is because the system itself has been usurped by the global investors. These people very much see us as their property and they have a plan as outlined by Aldous Huxley to create a centrally controlled state economy which they will run. Much like the Nazis did away with any pretence of democracy and formed a totalitarian dictatorship, these people also want to do away with the current pretense of democracy and just control things direct without having to go through the whole facade of elections

Someone mentioned human trafficking earlier in the thread and thought that the system was againts it! The truth is that the system tolerates human traffikcing. in fact if you look into the history of the US and UK it becomes clear that they have always depended on slave labour. Nowadays they have sourced out some of that slave labour to poor countries where there are no trade unions to protect the workers, resulting in 'sweat shops'. Human trafficking is alive and well in the US and UK and much of which is part of the sex industry where people are kidnapped and raped into submission before being prostituted out

The third country i mentioned was Israel which itself has a slave class of people it uses for menial tasks: the palestineans which has lead to one of the brightest minds in the US, Noam Chomsky, equating the state of Israel to ancient Sparta which also had a slave class made up of a people called the Healots. Instead of doing the work themselves the Spartans did national service like modern day Israelis do so that they can physically control the slave class

Here is some slave management being carried out by the israelis...the modern day spartans

[video=youtube;5po__L6Oanc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5po__L6Oanc&feature=relmfu[/video]

here's another clip showing a israeli soldier beating children and barring them from going through what is clearly to most people a fence resembling ones around prisons:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bdbA2Ka3Bo

TL:DR for most of it, but I think you are on to something with the spectrum concept. Example would be house slaves who were seen as more privileged and at least got to be out of the weather for much of the day; i.e. they are more comfortable than working in the sun pulling cotton. Im sure there are other perceived positive aspects of that form of slavery.
 
[MENTION=6117]moonlightam[/MENTION]

Are you saying that you want other people to work and provide you with everything you need while you do nothing?

And it was easy for George Carlin to complain about those things-- he was a movie star/comedian/salesman who made 2.5 million dollars every year. Apparently telling certain people exactly what they want to hear is extremely profitable. He's not so different from Howard Beale from the movie 'Network', before he started blaming people for their own problems, of course.

This doesn't mean he can't make valid points, just that he's oversimplifying the issue AND how a workplace operates. To be honest, I'm not even sure that he even really understands what happens in a workplace… but he definitely caters to everyone's need to hear how their horrible lives are not their own fault, even though they keep going back day after day and never do anything to change themselves.

I suppose that complacency and fear of change IS a form of self-imposed slavery. I think that the whole 'it's not your fault' line of thinking is much more harmful than 'the system'-- it paints 'the controllers' as these evil masterminds who are too brilliant and too powerful for any 'normal' person to ever approach their level, when it's more likely that they're just people like everyone else who for one reason or another ended up where they are and like you, don't think to do what they do differently than the last guy. They're slaves to their complacency/status/routine in the same way that you are… but there isn't necessarily an active form of oppression taking place.

And if it's really that important for you to become a psychologist, then perhaps you should consider studying abroad? Or retaking math?
 
TL:DR for most of it, but I think you are on to something with the spectrum concept. Example would be house slaves who were seen as more privileged and at least got to be out of the weather for much of the day; i.e. they are more comfortable than working in the sun pulling cotton. Im sure there are other perceived positive aspects of that form of slavery.

Yes, but don't you think it's possible for 'the spectrum' to expand beyond the point where the person is actually enslaved?
 
Yes, but don't you think it's possible for 'the spectrum' to expand beyond the point where the person is actually enslaved?

I think yes, but please clarify.
 
I think yes, but please clarify.

So I have a bunch of slaves, and I'm extremely cruel to them… but they're not performing well… so I ask them why and someone says 'because we're not allowed to rest'. So I say 'okay, let's let them have some rest time'. Now they become better workers, and then I realize that they're getting hungry a lot and it's hurting their work performance, so I start giving them thins like longer lunch breaks.

Now they're working twice as hard as before, and being a proper capitalist, I keep trying to get more out of them… I realize that the morale of a slave is really low owing to their lack of freedom, so I give them the option to quit if they so desire, etc… and now they're much stronger, and working harder than I could have ever imagined!

So I make a lot of money and decide to give them savings plans, educations, pensions, health plans, vacations and salaries, and let them go to their own homes at the end of the day-- and now they're the best slaves on the block-- they actually like coming into work and do it voluntarily. They love me and they show me loyalty, so I am happy and so are they.

Finally, I start giving them an active say in the future of my plantation, start valuing their ideas, give them stock in my company, allow them a share of power, and start promoting from within their ranks, and when I die, I will my company to the best slave I own.

But are they still slaves?
 
[MENTION=6117]moonlightam[/MENTION]

Are you saying that you want other people to work and provide you with everything you need while you do nothing?

And it was easy for George Carlin to complain about those things-- he was a movie star/comedian/salesman who made 2.5 million dollars every year. Apparently telling certain people exactly what they want to hear is extremely profitable. He's not so different from Howard Beale from the movie 'Network', before he started blaming people for their own problems, of course.

This doesn't mean he can't make valid points, just that he's oversimplifying the issue AND how a workplace operates. To be honest, I'm not even sure that he even really understands what happens in a workplace… but he definitely caters to everyone's need to hear how their horrible lives are not their own fault, even though they keep going back day after day and never do anything to change themselves.

I suppose that complacency and fear of change IS a form of self-imposed slavery. I think that the whole 'it's not your fault' line of thinking is much more harmful than 'the system'-- it paints 'the controllers' as these evil masterminds who are too brilliant and too powerful for any 'normal' person to ever approach their level, when it's more likely that they're just people like everyone else who for one reason or another ended up where they are and like you, don't think to do what they do differently than the last guy. They're slaves to their complacency/status/routine in the same way that you are… but there isn't necessarily an active form of oppression taking place.

And if it's really that important for you to become a psychologist, then perhaps you should consider studying abroad? Or retaking math?

no, we really talk different languages and I dont think you are capable of jumping in my shoes at all. I dont want anyone to work for anyone, I dont want to be provided with anything at anyone's expense. I want this planet's resources to be available to everyone at the point of need equally. Not provided, but available. You should not be prevented from picking fruit from some tree because that tree "belongs" to mr x - the tree belongs to us all. I'd easily make my living without working for someone if I could have access to resources, but I dont. Nobody really does, you only get to the resources via enslaving yourself to debt. I never said I wanted to do nothing. I dont want to do anything that someone tries to force me to do though. Make the resources available to me, and I might invent something better than anyone has ever invented when powered by motivation to better the lives of people rather than being motivated by some money. I'd work my arse off to find a way for humanity to be able to stop "working" everyday. Theres no need for that at all. But under current system nobody wants it by the looks of it. If people LIKE their mind-numbing shows on tv, if they LIKE doing pointless things for a job, so they can give all their earnings away to other people who "provide" them with things that should be a birthright, I guess they deserve that kind of life. But there should be an opt-out from this system too, at least a free euthanasia clinic - id be the first client.

And I am abroad. I just will never lay my hands on enough money to study anything. Even if the studies would be free, I'd need to eat something and live somewhere while studying. Even to retake maths or anything else for the matter, as I have not even finished school due to running away from home out of fear of getting killed. Its easy for people to lecture me about what was I supposed to have done, but the fact remains that I do not have any options that other people have. What should I do to finance my last few school years and uni? What should I eat? Where should I live? I dont have anyone to help me at all, I am alone. Should I become a prostitute or just starve to death now, because I dont have a government approved paper confirming I have been sitting at a school desk until the age of 18? I'm fobbed off from everything im trying to do with my life, Ive never even been given a chance. Fuck it. I'm too tired of this shit. Some people are fortunate enough to never know how it feels.
 
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So I have a bunch of slaves, and I'm extremely cruel to them… but they're not performing well… so I ask them why and someone says 'because we're not allowed to rest'. So I say 'okay, let's let them have some rest time'. Now they become better workers, and then I realize that they're getting hungry a lot and it's hurting their work performance, so I start giving them thins like longer lunch breaks.

Now they're working twice as hard as before, and being a proper capitalist, I keep trying to get more out of them… I realize that the morale of a slave is really low owing to their lack of freedom, so I give them the option to quit if they so desire, etc… and now they're much stronger, and working harder than I could have ever imagined!

So I make a lot of money and decide to give them savings plans, educations, pensions, health plans, vacations and salaries, and let them go to their own homes at the end of the day-- and now they're the best slaves on the block-- they actually like coming into work and do it voluntarily. They love me and they show me loyalty, so I am happy and so are they.

Finally, I start giving them an active say in the future of my plantation, start valuing their ideas, give them stock in my company, allow them a share of power, and start promoting from within their ranks, and when I die, I will my company to the best slave I own.

But are they still slaves?

My opinion is that they stop being slaves once they are given freedom, however in reality is is not as clear cut as your story makes it. As long as you continue to control the means of production they still as dependent on you as before you declared them free, only now you can rid yourself of the responsibility to take care of them. They are not truly free as long as they depend on others. However none of us are truly free in that sense anyways.

Perhaps they will no longer be slaves when instead of declaring them 'free', declare that they will now participate as equally as you in the profits of the business as well as the suffer the consequences of poor business performance.