Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Esna Pitoojee]

I think it's a thing of majority desire vs. minority acts.

Some people like to see the Empire's practice of slavery as the majority desiring being the faithful conversion of the Minmatar, with some minority indeed doing very bad things to their charges.

Some people like to see the Empire's practice of slavery as a means to abuse and provide a free and easily exploited underclass, with some minority actually intending to care for and uplift their charges.

How you view it decides how you regard things like Breeder slaves and how widespread abuse is.


I, personally, take the former view.

But why does this mean abuse wasn't totally widespread?

For me, I see it as a simple logical progression.

If you make someone's life a living hell, they are more inclined to commit acts of disobedience to spite you. They will do this despite the fact that they intellectually realize it will result in punishment - up to and including death - on themselves and possibly any associates as a matter of group punishments. I can present many examples of prisons in which increased harsh treatment lead to increased rates of "acting out", and vice versa - as well as more extreme examples, which I'll leave out for the sake of not turning this into a RL politics argument. The point is, if you don't want to have to be watching over all of your charges every single second of their existence, you don't abuse the hell out of them.

On Vitoc

One thing that always nags me when Vitoc is brought up is the fact that extended use of Vitoc literally makes you stupid. No joke.

Studies of Vitoc-Vitoxin interaction in animal brain structures (particularly rats) have also shown a marked diminishing of cognitive function - memory loss and an apparent reduction in basic problem solving skills. These have been tentatively linked to a reduced blood supply in the brain as cranial blood vessels become choked with excess serotonogenic nerve growth.

Okay, so "makes you stupid" is maybe an overstatement, but the point is clear: Vitoc is not a means of control to be used for anyone expecting a slave to be released or "graduate" to a new position. It places inherent limits on a slave's future capabilities even should the immediate need for the Vitoc antidote be removed. Therefore, to me, it doesn't seem like something you'd be dishing out to any and all of your slave population, but merely something you would be giving to the limited numbers who are for various reasons not expected to possibly stand out enough to advance.


EDIT:

Another thought.

I think we really need to get a solid definition of "abuse" here.

To borrow the terms Mata defined, the "Mercedes" crowd often argue that a slave is not abused; they do this with the understanding that "abuse" refers to explicit torture, personal damage, rape, etc. They argue that this cannot be the experience of all slaves, because for various reasons that just doesn't make sense - you don't whip your slave for no reason, as it destroys the meaning of the "stick" end of "carrot and stick".

The "Clammy" crowd then argue that even under the least violent Holders, Slaves still have terrible personal living conditions and work under the threat of ill treatment. Thus, they say, the slaves are still abused.


Until we can get a recognition of these two conflicting viewpoints, I don't think a resolution can be found.

[Ulphus]

re Vitoc: I always thought the people who said they were using it on space-ship crews didn't make much sense. I mean, working in a demanding, technical, and potentially lethal environment like space while slightly stoned doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Back in the days when the British navy would pressgang people, they tended to treat them with pretty fierce discipline, and rely on the fact that, once you're miles out to sea, or in a fight, if you didn't do exactly what you were told, the chances of making it home again went down.

I don't see why that wouldn't work on slave crews as well, unless their base state of treatment was so bad that they're prepared to suicide to get out of it.

[Ciarente]

re Vitoc: I always thought the people who said they were using it on space-ship crews didn't make much sense. I mean, working in a demanding, technical, and potentially lethal environment like space while slightly stoned doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Back in the days when the British navy would pressgang people, they tended to treat them with pretty fierce discipline, and rely on the fact that, once you're miles out to sea, or in a fight, if you didn't do exactly what you were told, the chances of making it home again went down.

I don't see why that wouldn't work on slave crews as well, unless their base state of treatment was so bad that they're prepared to suicide to get out of it.

Interestingly, the British Navy also relied on keeping their crews slightly drunk all the time ...

[Ulphus]

re Vitoc: I always thought the people who said they were using it on space-ship crews didn't make much sense. I mean, working in a demanding, technical, and potentially lethal environment like space while slightly stoned doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Back in the days when the British navy would pressgang people, they tended to treat them with pretty fierce discipline, and rely on the fact that, once you're miles out to sea, or in a fight, if you didn't do exactly what you were told, the chances of making it home again went down.

I don't see why that wouldn't work on slave crews as well, unless their base state of treatment was so bad that they're prepared to suicide to get out of it.

Interestingly, the British Navy also relied on keeping their crews slightly drunk all the time ...

Point.

[Louella Dougans]

My belief is that people react so negatively to the Amarr because they have a chance to strike out against religion.   

The Internet is often called "the church of atheism" and you dont have to go far to find people dogging various faiths online, especially Christianity and such.  The Amarr happen to be an easy punching bag for that, with slavery the cudgel of choice, and you get a lot of thinly veiled OOC loathing that often finds its way into a lot of anti-Amarrian RP.

+1

I think that in the unlikely event of there being a rpg set in crusade-era Palestine, there'd be people being atheists in it. 

[Makkal]

I think sexual abuse/exploitation probably occurs in all of the EvE cultures, the victims and perpetrators are different depending on the nature of their respective societies.  In Ammarian culture, the paradigm is fairly easy to spot and thus gets portrayed and/or presumed to fall into the cliche'.

Correct.

I assume that sexual abuse happens in the Empire and the Kingdom. I assume that this abuse typically happens because one person has power over the other. Holders and slave-keepers have power over slaves, so Holders and slave-keepers likely sexually assault slaves.

I doubt, however, that the Empire and the Kingdom have the highest rate of sexual assault. The Minmatar have endemic poverty and high levels of social disorder, both of which tend to lead to a large increase in the amount of sexual assault. The Caldari’s de-emphasis of the rights of the individual and ‘don’t rock the boat’ attitude could easily lead to situations where there was long-term sexual abuse in the military or a factory and no one is willing to speak up because they don’t want to be the trouble-maker.

The Federation probably has the lowest amount of sexual assault and abuse, but I can see particularly rich or famous people getting away with things that are illegal.

But if you looked at RP, you’d think that rape was something that almost only happened in Amarr and only between Holders and slaves.

[Makkal]

 

Yes, that's exactly the problem, other factions don't have their badness played up enough.

Agreed.

Also, sorry if I was doing it wrong with that children drawing a penis on a wall and starting a discussion that I found interesting about honor-killings.

It's not the penis-on-the-wall specifically. It's just logging in and hearing another '...and this is a horrible thing a Holder did...' I'm sorry if you feel I'm picking on you.

As for the honor-killings, there's no reason why people from the Empire or Kingdom would be prone to honor-killings. In the real-world, that springs from cultures that believe women must be sexually pure, that sexuality in women stains the honor of the family, and that it's the duty of men to police and punish female sexuality or independence.

There is no such dynamic in Amarr culture. There may be general sexual repression, but men do not murder their daughters/sisters/cousins for dressing inappropriately.

[Ciarente]

The Federation probably has the lowest amount of sexual assault and abuse, but I can see particularly rich or famous people getting away with things that are illegal.

Interestingly, according to my country's Bureau of Statistics, the highest risk socio-economic groups for sexual assault are the lowest and the highest band.

If I recall my PF correctly, the Federation has the largest gap between rich and poor, and many Federation citizens live in conditions of poverty that other cultures find apalling.

But I agree with the thrust of your post.  Every human society to date has contained a small number of individuals who commit sexual assaults against others. I find it implausible that such behaviour would occur in one, and only one, future culture.

[Matariki Rain]

I find it implausible that such behaviour would occur in one, and only one, future culture.

Agreed. Has anyone suggested it does?

We have a significant reporting bias, for reasons which are supported by lore.

[Ciarente]

I would suggest the reporting bias may stem more from some player's perceptions on the one hand and some player's decisions on the other.

[Matariki Rain]

I would suggest the reporting bias may stem more from some player's perceptions on the one hand and some player's decisions on the other.

Could you elaborate on that?

I'm trying to think of other interactions which people might raise publicly in podder forums. Maybe rape as part of the occupations in the Gallente-Caldari wars? Just... it's not something that would have affected nearly as many people over nearly as much time.

[lallara zhuul]

I still don't understand.

Why does slavery equate all kinds of abuse?

To me slavery pretty much means that in a society there is people that have no social status and therefore they can be owned and they have no free will, the owner decides all aspects of the slaves life.
If the slave disobeys the owner can do whatever they want to enforce their will upon the slave within the rules of the society concerning the treatment of slaves.

Very much like with livestock or pets.

Livestock can be mistreated in pretty much any society as long as the end that the livestock has been bred for is attained.
Be it cows, sheep, chickens, pigs or horses.
They are all mistreated, from the industrially bred flesh providing pigs to prized equine performers.
Only rules of that the society puts on the mistreatment of such animals is if the quality of meat suffers or the performance of the prized animal in the public.

The same applies pretty much for pets as well.

They are constantly being mistreated by their owners, most of the owners use them as tools for emotional projection and when they do not comply in the right way they get punished.
Only when the pets become so emotionally scarred that they become a danger to the public the society interferes.

I can understand the mistreatment that goes on with livestock and pets taken into the context of slavery.
I can also understand the moral outrage that such mistreatment causes in some people that choose to go on a crusade against something like that and choose for moral reasons to be vegetarian and wear nothing but plant fibers and whatnot.

What I cannot understand that how sexual abuse comes into the picture when slavery is the issue in New Eden.

To the Amarrians the slaves are livestock, at best they are favoured pets.

Boinking an animal just does not compute.

[Ciarente]

The prevalence of the 'my holder touches/touched me' meme was raised in the discussion on Summit moderation. A bit like the spacelesbian phenomenon, the cumulative effect of a whole lot of independent RP decisions about what a character experienced in slavery is an avalanche of similar stories.

As far as some player's OOC perceptions are concerned, I think the long-standing popular narrative of 'white slavery' and modern media emphasis on sex-trafficing has educated many of us to the idea that slavery is for sexual purposes (which then ties into decisions people make about their character backstories of course) while the under-reporting of, or dismissing of, sexual assaults by acquaintances, in the workplace or in military organisations mean such possibilities are less likely to occur to players creating stories or backstories.

And Lall, people do actually boink animals rather more than most of us would like to think. As a country doctor sometime about transmission vectors on STDs ...

[lallara zhuul]

The problem for me is the abuse.

I think at the moment it is quite well established that abused become abusers.

If Amarrians are abusers, then it means that their whole society is tainted with sexual abuse (priests fucking little boys meme rears its ugly head.)
If the slaves are abused, they abuse their children as well, which would suggest that sexual abuse is rampant among the freed slaves in the Republic.

It may be just me, but I would like to think that RP in EVE would not just be themed by sexual abuse and that CCP would have created the PF to avoid that.

[Makkal]

The average victim of sexual assault or abuse does not go on to assault or abuse another person. In the real world, only about one in ten male victims appear to do so, and I assume the number is even lower among women.