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[Gottii]

The reasons brought up so far are:
1. Historically was never good.
2. Slavery is evil.
3. Slavery is abuse is evil.

So, while I object to point 1. to 3. even if they all were true, these are not sufficient reasons to justify the call of "U r doin it wrong!".

Actually, if 1 is true, then, yeah, I can kinda say that its going to be problematic to put it into the EVE setting. 

I go back to EVE being a dystopian world.  Its dark.  Grim.  We all agree with that. 

But if youre taking something found in both history and the modern world, and making it better, then youre creating a Utopian world, not a Dysctopian one, and youre likely going to clash with other peoples RP who play the game and view the PF under the lens of a dark world.

There is also the problem that literally no one can show me any PF evidence of slavery existing in the form you mention, the non-abusive kind with positive interactions between Master and slave are the norm, while Ive pointed to many examples of its opposite.

I can show examples of slaves being tortured and killed for science, for narrative evidence that gentry are unwillingly to go into slave quarters at night for fear of being attacked, that slaves are kept in line by either drugs or the threat of violence (rather than say some kind of communal incentive program). 

Again, I would really like to see some PF on these positions youre taking. 

[Gottii]

Re: Cultural Relativism. 

Syylara gives some very points here. 

But I would like to add one, in that I think it rather skews the argument in the slavers favor.  By saying, "you cant give any objective judgments on the Amarrians, its their culture" he rather misses the point that Minmatar werent part of Amarrian culture to begin with.  Its not their values, any more than the African slaves were part of British, French or Portugese culture when they were enslaved. 

Isnt the slaves opinions just as valid as those enslaving them?   Merdaneths position lends itself to the absurd position that those being enslaved really have no right to judge their enslavers. 

I had no idea that the position that you had no cultural right to enslave another people outside of your culture was so controversial.

Im of the opinion that there are some practices that "oh its my culture" is not a valid justification. An afghan tribesman throwing acid in the face of girls who are walking to school, or trying to poison a school drinking water comes to mind.   Nazi death camp guards is another. My ancestors using slave labor a cotton plantation is another.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

I go back to EVE being a dystopian world.  Its dark.  Grim.  We all agree with that. 

But if youre taking something found in both history and the modern world, and making it better, then youre creating a Utopian world, not a Dysctopian one, and youre likely going to clash with other peoples RP who play the game and view the PF under the lens of a dark world.

This is actually not a good argument, as in it's generality at least, EVE thus shouldn't be able to have e.g. better medical healthcare than we have and cloning as in the podder would be utopian as well.

[ArtOfLight]

Many dystopias found in fictional and artistic works present a utopian society with at least one fatal flaw,[11] whereas a utopian society is founded on the good life, a dystopian society’s dreams of improvement are overshadowed by stimulating fears of the "ugly consequences of present-day behavior."[12] People are alienated and individualism is restricted by the government.

A Utopian society with at least one fatal flaw. It sounds to me like trying to make the institution of slavery by the Amarr as positive as possible still fits into the definition of dystopia.

Even as a grimdark setting (rife with war, low life expectancy) you could still portray Amarrian slavery in the best possible light (limited, of course by the the concept of slavery itself) and be true to the setting.

Using "it's a dystopian world" or "it's a grimdark setting" doesn't actually justify having to make slavery as brutal, abusive and evil as possible. Given the cultural write-up of the Amarr, they have plenty of flaws and slavery is certainly one of their biggest points of contention but it doesn't necessarily have to be the darkest, worst implementation of it to be true to the setting or the style of setting that is EVE.

This argument has gone back and forth repeatedly at this point and the consensus doesn't appear to be forthcoming. The only description (compromise) that I see even remotely fitting is:

"Even if the Amarr practice slavery as civilly and humanely as possible, there still exists those who will abuse it and manipulate it for personal gain and pleasure."

[Natalcya Katla]

Fine, show me an example of non-abusive racial slavery. (or any slavery for that matter)

Not just throwing the words "cultural relativism" but showing me an actual clear cut example of a positive form of slavery from one of these various cultures.

The Mamluks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk

They were a very interesting phenomenon, really. While you might certainly argue that purchasing children, taking them away from their families and raising them to become soldiers might be unethical and abusive, growing up to become a member of a powerful military and political elite certainly offsets that quite a bit. Some of these slaves even became the rulers of their respective countries/societies and founded dynasties of their own, all while technically remaining slaves.

"In places such as Egypt from the Ayyubid dynasty to the time of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, mamluks were considered to be “true lords," with social status above freeborn Muslims."

I always imagined the Khanid as a concept (and certainly the Kameiras) to be at least in part inspired by the Mamluks.

[hellgremlin]

Mamluks also enjoyed cutting the dicks and balls off their soldiers, so they'd be more cooperative.

Fuck the Mamluks.

[Merdaneth]

Fine, show me an example of non-abusive racial slavery. (or any slavery for that matter)

Not just throwing the words "cultural relativism" but showing me an actual clear cut example of a positive form of slavery from one of these various cultures.

Well, all historical evidence that was not-abusive is proof of that. However, finding examples of not-X is in itself hard. You might as well ask for an example of a society that has non-crime. In such a case the best I can do is point out difference in crime rates and show that criminal behaviour is not the norm in a society (even though there are more reports about criminal behaviour than non-criminal behaviour, since reporting the norm is odd).

But, for perhaps an interesting alternate read besides our historical Mamluks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_slavery

Or perhaps

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_among_Native_Americans_in_the_United_States

or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Greece

Of course, its good to remember that for example the cultural tradition of getting a Dalai Lama involves taking away a child from their family and keeping it in bondage. Would you consider the Dalai-Lama non-abusive slavery

In most instances slavery in historical culture slavery is simply a convenient solution to issues with prisoners (or victims) of war, issues of unpayable debt and issues, conscription (like the Mamluks) and issues with repeat criminal offenders. It tends to be only the slave trade which gave rise to excesses of abuse (in the sense, lot more abusive relationships than relationship among non-slaves)

Also informative about Greek slavery:

"The tablets indicate that unions between slaves and non-slaves were not uncommon and that slaves could be independent artisans and retain plots of land. It appears that the major division in Mycenaean civilization was not between slave and free, but between those attached to the palace and those not."

The problem is really that to our modern western sensibilities the concepts of 'slavery' and 'abuse' are largely synonymous. Slavery is abusive by nature, and all depedent and enforced relationships which aren't (like conscription or raising a new Dalai-Lama in bondage) are not considered slavery. Which brings us to the confusion of: Amarr are slavers, and all slavery is abusive, abuse is evil/bad, so Amarr are evil/bad.

[Gwen Ikiryo]

Personally, I'd find it a great deal easier to approach Amarrian slavery as something very culturally foreign and morally ambigious if it, well, actually seemed to be pitched that way often.  To be honest, (ane please do pardon me if I am being unperceptive here!) the PF seems to portray it as very generic, modern slavery in terms of practice, in all manners except the motivation behind it. In fact, I'd be very surprised if CCP hadn't drawn considerable influence from civil war era stuff when they came up with the Amarr/Minmatar dynamic.

[Lyn Farel]

Like for example myself finding utterly unethical the notion of capital punishement or civilians carrying guns (i could say I consider these evil if i wanted), while other societies/cultures will look at me, calling me crazy for thinking so.

Heres the problem Lyn.  Youre not a slaver or a supporter of real life slavery, right?  I mean, Im not threatening your culture, am I?  Im talking about a culture in a make-believe universe filled with spaceships that swim.  Lets ease off the cultural umbrage here a bit.

I mean, its not like me saying "slavery is an evil institution" might actually reflect your real life values or culture, right?  Which is different than the positions you mentioned, which are held by some people out there.

I am pretty sure you can find on Earth people supporting slavery, and i'm not really thinking of the average drug baron. But maybe in the future we will have a new revolutionnary mindset emerging with slavery as its core principle.

And then, as other people like Merdaneth stated above, there are many types of slavery IRL, that's just that "slavery with a collar" is merely one of all these sides that we learned to loathe.

But no, my problem is not with you hating slavery, my problem is with you saying it is evil, because I think it is not, and because it happens that I believe that good and evil concepts are absurd.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Gwen,

at least to me as someone over here from Europe - and I think the Icelanders are feeling like they are Europeans, too - that which you describe as 'generic, modern slavery' feels less like 'generic and modern' but more like a 'specific and civil war era USAian'. Even in school we touched first on the subject of slavery when we were talking about the Greeks, then the Romans and only later in school about the US-American civil wars, about which we talked in relation relatively briefly.

So, I really have less of a connection to what happened in the US civil war era with slaves and stuff than to the ancient Greek practice of slavery. And while the former is really 'not my beef' and feels like a problem of the US-Americans to me, the Greek slavery feels very distant as well. So, I can understand if people feel close to what happened in the US to slaves not too far back in their history - and which practically didn't end in all aspects with the civil war either - have some visceral reactions to slavery, see depictions of slavery naturally in the light of what happened in the US and all in all think that if someone depicts slavery it would be surprising if he wouldn't draw on the civil war era US. To me, slavery is a problem, even an actual problem (e.g. nowadays there are probably more slaves on earth than anytime before) but nothing that elicits an overly visceral, emotional reaction.

Also, if I think about Amarrian slavery and compare it with the European conquest of the Americas, it seems to me much more comparable to the hispanic encomienda, complete with instruction in the catholic faith and the harsh discrepancies in reality between intent and practice.

So, while it might be surprising to you, if I would come up with a background that involves slavery I would last think of the US civil war era. That's not to say that CCP wouldn't think of it, but it is far from surprising to me if they did not.

[Publius Valerius]

[Battleship mode on]

I can just qoute myself...."Many people say they are like southern slaveholders, but I think is a very american view on slavery." [1] It an old text from me.... from 2009ish.


But on the other hand ....I dont understand why you people try to talk and to discuss with him (Gotti). I had sadly ones too; about the topic of transaction cost (Dougles Norths:  search-, negotiation-, enforcement-costs of decision and/or actions) and export of europe and the US. I could bring hunderts of expamles and stats form the netherlands, denmark, germany... he wouldnt most likley listen or care. So I ended the moronic topic with a poor joke about gallente..... 2]
 
I hope you all go out of this with: that you cant crusade your ideas or views on others in their bubble.

...

First things first.  Im not trying to create some "christian standard" for morality.  If Im doing anything, I suppose, its a Kantian exercise, trying to create a priori moral understanding of a subject so we can talk about its existence in game.  You have no idea what my religion is, or if I even have one, by design. 

Kantian exercise...now it gets funny.... I see, I can roast someone again ....

Please explain to me an Kantian exercise. Take your time and write, what you think it is down (And dont forget, I have all his books in german and speak german... they are all just 2 meters away from my keyboard ).... So lets roll. I ask this because... like I already said to Seriphen, that Im a postivist and a huge Popper fan [3] [4]. So "I give a f--k about feelings or which whore had shit you out or in which country its happends" (A saying of my old officer in the BW ). I just care about reality and that this 12 page discussion about hot air comes to an end.

As for an example where the slave wasn't harmed or denied the shared benefit of their own labor or expertise? You ever heard about the tironian notes? They've been even named after the slave who developed them, allegedly: Marcus Tullius Tiro?

I see someone had latin in school too.... I you had to start with Ciceros letters to his friend Atticus too? Good I hate it.... or I had latin so much (just Ceasar...he was always easy. Like he said "Dont use grammer which you arent sure how to use" )....
On another note.... when I think of slavery I think of Leibeigenschaft and than like Nicoletta Mithra of the slavery by the old greeks etc....


P.S. Sorry, if I just take Gotti out, I could take some other too.... Im to lazy right now. Maybe the next days... I will roast some other bubble/borderline comments too .

[/Battleship mode off]

[Khloe]

This is just....such a disturbing conversation. Comments are made that Amarrians slavers will not be seen as sympathetic characters, and we have people arguing that slavery at its core isn't so bad, and people are just biased by their own world morality. REALLY?!

 

[Seriphyn]

I think Nicoletta brings up a good point about our images of slavery being heavily influenced by the American approach. In fact, so much of the PF is shaped by an American approach, and I'm not sure if you can argue it's the largest market, considering the population of Europe and Russia.

That aside, there is a PF example in the Burning Life of an enslaved minor race. If they weren't enslaved, they wouldn't have survived. In fact, it is more than likely that the Amarrians have enslaved worlds that were prone to wiping each other out (Kameiras chron mentions anything from 'neolithic tribes' to 'industrial behemoths'). So it depends if a character/player's view if dying free is better than living imprisoned.

[evelyn_anna]

(post omitted)

[ArtOfLight]

You know, for a first post, that's a remarkable one.

I'd have to say I agree on every level, which I've articulated similar thoughts and ideas into this conversation already but not as coherently as you've done.