Yeah, no. That's not the purpose of slavery at all. The purpose of slavery is to get human labour that can't disobey you or demand better from you, because if it does, it will be brutally punished, or even killed. Dehumanisation is just a means to an end - a way to numb oneself to the callousness of one's actions.
Since I disagree with the foundation of your entire analogy, I don't really see any point in arguing further. Suffice to say that you and I have very different ideas of what slavery is.
edited 2nd Oct '15 11:29:03 AM by Tungsten74
I agree with Tungsten here. You are partly right – slavery is human labor made as cheap as possible ; humans as disposable tools, basically. Loss of identity is just a side effect, if it is even a thing at all : owners may not have regarded their slaves as individuals, but the slaves themselves probably did, thank you very much.
Since your comparison with social media is entirely based on that supposed loss of identity – and even in the case of social media, it's only something that exists when you put yourself outside the group and call the others "sheeple" – I'm forced to disagree with your entire analysis.
edited 2nd Oct '15 2:04:00 PM by Aetol
Worldbuilding is fun, writing is a chore
The two posters above have covered my opinion regarding the purpose of slavery, but I'd like to respond to two further points, if I may:
First, while there might be fun in discovery, I don't think that a person's worth to one is necessarily limited to what elements they have not yet revealed. Consider a hypothetical situation in which you learn every piece of personal information about a friend—do you then cut off the friendship? Does that person have no more value to you?
Second, I don't think that one's individuality or uniqueness is dependant on not revealing one's personal information: If two people differ in their opinions on a subject (which thus presumably makes them different to some degree), and they reveal those opinions, they don't cease to differ in opinion. Their uniqueness isn't lost, it's simply expressed.
(That said, I do hold privacy to be important; I just don't agree that the loss of it necessarily results in a loss of personal uniqueness.)
I have a smartphone, but make very little use of social media: I watch (and "like") You Tube videos, and I have a barely-used Linked In account (which isn't connected to my smartphone, and predates my acquisition of it), I believe. As an aspiring game developer, it's probable that I'll eventually set up a You Tube channel. Similarly, I'll likely start a blog once I'm ready to start talking about my current game, and it's possible that I'll eventually get a Twitter account; in both cases, however, I imagine that I will focus far more on games and game development rather on my personal life.
My smartphone is more or less used as a mini-computer: I daresay that my primary activities on it are watching You Tube and general internet access, followed by (single-player) gaming, general app usage (few of which are related to social media), and occasional telephone calls.
edited 3rd Oct '15 8:32:14 AM by ArsThaumaturgis
My Games & Writing
Impossible Gender Forge
So acts of honesty lead to dehumanization.
Let us all embrace obscuration and deception instead, lest others void our personal selves through the dread act of communication.
And if you don't recognize the difference between chattel slavery and indentured servitude, then I don't believe you properly understand enough to make a statement about how we're inslaved to iPhones.
edited 3rd Oct '15 2:43:16 PM by Matues
Ah, good. Was hoping for more varied responses and out-of-box replies instead of moralizing, but I'll take what I can get. (And please keep in mind that I'm really not this callous - this is an idea I'm tossing around for Na No Wri Mo, and I've been playing this game long enough to know that "write what you know" involves researching to increase the breadth of what you know.)
@Tungsten - "human labour that can't disobey you or demand better from you" = labor (punishment is a given, physically or socially or economically). "Dehumanisation is just a means to an end - a way to numb oneself to the callousness of one's actions" - identity. ? = as cheaply as possible (not sure why you didn't touch on this). We seem to agree on the points you wanted to discuss. That being the case, I have no further need for your input; I don't need a yes-man for this.
@Aetol - well yeah, you have to have a personal identity, if only to deal with crushing hopelessness. I never said it was a total loss, either, or even something one unless required to (you are punished somehow for failure to cooperate, physically in the case of slavery and socially/economically with social media).
@Ars - (Ah. Some useful data.) No, I wouldn't cut off the friendship, but A) people tend towards multiple friends and B) what would one friendship matter when there are (realistically) thousands to be had, out of possibly billions? I believe that, for every single "perfect match", there are at least a thousand "good enough" matches; democracy wouldn't work if this wasn't the case.
I also believe that everyone has at least one deep secret they can't bring to reveal to anyone else, no matter what. This isn't just your email password or something like that - you can't function as a social being if you aren't able to keep one thing secret because an exterior force prevents you from doing so. I make a difference between persona and identity, which I now realize I should have specified earlier. (This and the "perfect match" bit are things I actually believe, and not just things I am proposing as story elements. Though it seems I need to work on the explanation a bit.)
...how do you expect to develop (in the all-inclusive sense including communicating) media for consumption on the devices I'm talking about, without having to use the devices I'm talking about? It's actually really interesting to consider. I mean, I understand what you actually mean (you don't want to get trapped by the all-too-irritating aspects of modern social interaction that might interfere with your job and interests), but I've heard of there being paper-only coding classes in areas where it's simply not possible to require students to have a tech device - less so as those devices have become cheaper. Huh. Might actually be a story in that. Or a novelty "off the grid life" book. I'll need to keep it in mind.
And the scary thing about doing all that through a single device? No redundancy. (More than likely you're making use of cloud storage so you wouldn't actually lose anything if your device becomes unusable, which won't stop it from being a hassle to restore.)
@Matues - No, that reduces everything I said down to everything you want me to have said, so you can attack me as a bayonet dummy. Don't do that; it's silly and betrays what you are like far more than you intended. (The "obfuscation and deception" bit rings hollow when none of us are using our IRL names here, as well).
Also, I actually do recognize the difference between chattel slavery and those other things, but having one umbrella word to describe all dehumanizing losses of personal agency and freedom through economic ends is more useful to me than having to describe each one in turn. (You think I'm long and wordy now?) Plus - and this isn't the first time I've asked this - why would you need to specify "chattel" slavery? Is there some other kind of slavery that's perfectly okay, and that's why you have to specify the "bad" one?
...and I think that's it. I prefer to wait a few days for initial responses to come in, when I start a discussion, and that seems to have been the all of it. Okay! Thanks for all your responses. I'm going to need to fish around a little more, but I have something to work with now.
Impossible Gender Forge
It's like this:
I am unable to imagine, in any way or form, how using any sort of social media can possibly be as dehumanizing as being property.
It also has luddite overtones that I find unpleasant; I find the basic premise of "Discovery is the only thing important with relationships" to be incorrect.
What the fuck? No, punishment is not a fucking given of all forms of labour. What fucking planet are you living on? If my boss tells me to do something I don't want to do, I can quit my fucking job. Sure, there will be consequences, but the choice is still there for me to make. A slave could not make that choice.
Hell, I wouldn't even have to go that far - if my boss told me to do a dangerous task that I was not trained or equipped to perform, I could just tell him no, I can't do that, and cite health and safety regulations. Or if my boss told me to do something outside my agreed contract, ie. shining his shoes, I would be well within my rights to refuse. Or if he told me to do a set of tasks in a certain order, I could disagree and suggest a different order, on the grounds that my proposed order would be quicker or more efficient or something. I would not be punished for doing any of this. Not so for a slave.
And I could ask better of my boss too - better working hours, better pay, better working conditions, etc. I would not (or at least by law, should not) be punished for any of that. Not so for a slave.
Read my post again. I was pointing out that dehumanisation is not inherent to the purpose of slavery - it's merely a means of sustaining it. I say again: the point of slavery is not to dehumanise people - the point of slavery is to create labourers that have to do as they're told or else. Dehumanisation is just a means to that end.
Fucking hell, I don't know how to explain this better without just repeating myself. Do I have to explain the difference between "means" and "ends" to you as well?
I didn't touch on it, because if the point of slavery was to get cheap labour (in terms of value-for-money) then it would've been discarded as soon as someone found something better, since slavery is far from the most productive means of organising labour. Except that's not what happened at all - the Southern US states clung to chattel slavery even while their economies were rapidly outpaced by the industrialised Northern states. And they did that because the point of slavery wasn't cheap labour - it was about power, and absolute control over one's workforce, and (at least in the US) keeping the blacks under white control.
That's funny, because you didn't fucking get one. Your entire analogy is nonsense, I've said this from the start, and I've already spent hundreds of words telling you why.
I'm not going to defend someone else's argument (I'm sure they can do it better themselves), but this? This right here? This is why I'm so fucking angry right now. For someone who claims they're trying to "research to increase the breadth of what [they] know", you seem awfully reluctant to acknowledge your own ignorance on the very topic you claim to be researching. Fucking Hell, that's not how research works! You don't start by saying "I'm right, now let's find someone to back me up!" You start by saying "I'm wrong, let's find out precisely how wrong I am!" Choosing to only engage with people who take your stupid ideas seriously is the opposite of rational inquiry.
EDIT: I always specify "chattel" slavery because A. it's a very specific and well-documented form of slavery, which makes discussing it a lot easier than talking about slavery in general, and B. it's what most people think of when the topic of slavery comes up.
edited 7th Oct '15 3:30:33 AM by Tungsten74
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
If you're certain that your social media and access to it isn't dehumanizing - give it up. Walk away from it. Turn off all your devices - no exceptions, not even to dial 0118999881999119725-3 or to do classwork - and see how far you can get in the world. If it isn't a shackle, you can take it off and suffer no cost, yeah? (Also, I agree with the discovery bit! Why, it's almost as though I never said "Discovery is the only thing...", and you keep putting bayonet-dummying words into my mouth.)
"...I don't really see any point in arguing further.
"
Sigh.
- You can quit your job; doesn't mean I or anyone else on this board can afford to. Until you find another job, you have no income and - if you weren't able to save - no money. And you'd be terribly lucky to not have any social repercussions (social cost) whilst unemployed. The question isn't "can I make this choice", it's "is there a cost if I make this choice" (there is), and that is why I kept using the word "cost". You could, in fact, say all those hypothetical things to your boss - and you might even remain employed afterwards. The problem is this: if they're asking you to do illegal things at all, what makes them keep you on board when you refuse? Your hypothetical boss is that strange creature who both flouts work safety regulations and follows employment laws, and gets away with it.
- I quoted you directly. Why is it up to me to find some deeper meaning in your words than what's already there?
- Slavery and human labor always have been discarded as soon as they found something better, always have been, but for legal reasons in the case of slavery. (It's no secret that Amazon wants to swap out all their human labor for robots as soon as the costs make sense to do so, for a modern example.) In the case of cotton, the US South continued to use former slaves for human labor well after the Civil War, as there was no good replacement for human dexterity for picking cotton until around WW 2. Even now, since harvesters aren't cheap, it's still hand-picked where economics make that difficult.
- You... really don't see that we're agreeing on the main points, once you filter out (your) emotion and (your) morality? And - pay attention - while a conclusion might be nonsense, an analogy itself that leads to it is a logic structure. (The reason I keep going on with this is because no one has fully broken it. I figure, if Aetol and Ars can't do so easily, there's probably enough to it to get a story out of it.)
- I actually have researched the topic. That is why I never limited anything I said to just slavery (or labor) in the US. Plus, the data I was actually looking for was, again, not "this is bad and you should feel bad", but whether or not I was missing anything. Ars pointed out a subtlety that I'd missed, which I needed to know and thus found useful. (I would also think that the mere fact that I asked for help - and this is only the third time I've had to start a topic in these forums - was acknowledgement enough of my ignorance on the topic.)
Choosing to work with an idea (regardless of if your attempt, or the idea itself, is or isn't serious) is the only way to begin any rational inquiry. It's also the very soul of writing fiction. What you said, Tungsten, might be true for non-fiction, but not having any trust in your ideas is a quick way to kill a fictional story. (EDIT: And I did say this was for Na No Wri Mo, yeah? I've beaten it with conventional ideas and means for a few years running now, so this is more of a challenge. The plot will look something like... "The Targeted Town" from Ultra Seven, I think.)
I think that's all, from everyone?
edited 7th Oct '15 2:08:45 PM by DeusDenuo
I think Matues's point is that when you are property, you are literally an object controlled by another human being. Try to walk away from a plantation on Saint-Domingue and under the Black Code you could legally be killed or mutilated, for example. As property you are required to perform the function you were bought for, or you can be disposed of.
In other words, being property is dehumanising in a way that social media is not.
I think you are strawmanning Matues's argument by implying that his concern is with something other than correlating social media use with buying and selling human beings. His argument was never that social media cannot be considered any kind of shackle at all. Consequently:
This is a strawman, because it is not addressing anything in Matues's actual posts.
Why is it important to have 'slavery' instead of 'lack of freedom' as the theme, anyway? The slavery comparison is hyperbolic at best.
Impossible Gender Forge
If you'd been putting forth the idea that people/modern society is incredibly dependent on technology, hand held devices and social media, then I wouldn't have disagreed with you.
You didn't. You specified that such technology is, by nature, dehumanizing: I feel your arguments for that are addressing an entirely separate issue.
I don't find the use of technology to be ahuman. We are a tool using species; we treat tools as last of ourselves quite readily.
Precisely because it is hyperbolic, actually. "Lack of freedom" can be relative depending on the audience (for example, the EU, USA, and China have somewhat different views of what that entails, not to mention the people living in those areas); "slavery" is not. I also doubt this thread would have elicited as useful/practical a response as it did if I'd gone halfsies on the phrasing.
Granted, there is the possibility that I'm simply asking the wrong people. Don't get me wrong - I greatly appreciate everyone's responses here, and how you all have taken the time to write themnote - but you all seem to be in a position where you can afford to connect to the rest of the world. The opinions of someone who is simply unable to do so (like a decade-long prisoner, and I have this in mind specifically) would likely be different enough to be highly informative to what I'm trying to do. But that's a bit difficult to do in my position and with the time frame I have...
Also, I figure that slavery is a yes/no proposition - you are enslaved, or you are not - with no choice and more importantly option to chose involved. I am using that word in the broadest human trafficking/bondage sense (as well as taking into account other non-financial costs that make "getting out" possible, which seems to be the biggest issue here as I am not talking about simply being legal property). The rules I'm trying to use here mean I have to view everything in yes-or-no terms, and so as long as it's clear that the argument was leaning one way or another it shouldn't matter if I reduce something to a strawman or not. It does matter a little if you guys do, because the thing I'm trying to get an answer to is more complex than just the literal ownership of human beings. (You're Australian? Am I understanding that correctly based on "from Sydney"? What I'm talking about would include the circumstances behind its British beginnings as a penal colony, and why not everyone wants to leave a country that has its own section under Everything Trying to Kill You. The quick answer is probably that, as with any homeland, there are tremendous costs both financial and otherwise to doing so, that keep it from being a likely option.)
I assure you that I'm not this illogical in real life (or, hell, even elsewhere on this board), and this is all for the sake of plotting out a Na No Wri Mo entry. I'll share links to it and everything, to anyone who asks.
That is a slightly different thing than what I am trying to get answered... but yeah, that's common ground. And I have not been saying that tech itself is dehumanizing.
The problem I see IRL is that we are overly reliant on a single class of communications hardware largely manufactured by 6 main companies, running software largely produced by 2, and society is changing to meet their needs rather than those of the people who must use them or be left behind.
As it is difficult to compete in a world where you are increasingly required to shell out money for necessary tech when you are unable to... Take that to a rather extreme conclusion, and you have a story element, albeit one that's existed visually since the sixties (I have an Ultra Seven episode in mind, and I know of a few Doctor Who episodes that touch on it - Star Trek seemed to avoid it by being in a largely post-scarcity society).
The question I've been asking is based around the illusion of choice, not the total lack of it. The idea is, you can move from one gilded cage to a better one but never live outside a cage, even though that's certainly better than just existing as a tool yourself; I am interpreting those as two aspects of the same thing, and it looks like everyone has focused only on the second or that I'm interpreting it that way at all. Essentially, I see the story element as a Hobson's Choice - the system is such that you can thrive under it, or you don't thrive at all (which is thankfully not what the real world is like).
Fair enough, but I find your approach confusing. How do you plan on writing this?
I think there is a difference between a symbolic or metaphorical use of slavery and an explicitly detailed comparison.
1. "Robert realised that social media had become as restrictive as shackles around his wrists."
2. "Robert started to wonder if social media was any different from human trafficking, or indentured servitude. By giving up his private identity, had he become a slave?"
Based on what you've just said, it sounds like your intention is to appeal to emotion rather than logic, which (to me) seems like the first approach.
On the other hand, it seems like you're taking the second approach when you explain your concept with reasoning like this:
Once you start to detail logical connections between slavery and social media, you invite logical criticisms that don't really have reason to occur to readers when you're just using abstract metaphor. Hyperbole then seems to emphasise the awkwardness of the comparisons.
Also, in one of your posts you mentioned having a rational inquiry approach, but the idea that "slavery is a yes/no proposition" is irrational the way you've expressed it. It's a false dichotomy.
Btw you're right, I'm Australian.
edited 9th Oct '15 3:16:24 AM by editerguy
Problem being, I'm not getting very many of those logical criticisms, even after taking a less emotional, hyperbolic route. (Even you are taking time to discuss my approach rather than answer any questions I originally had, which may help my interactions on this site but will not be very useful when I actually write the story.)
I'm beginning to doubt that either approach would have worked, and the topic itself would have invited laughably, blindly emotional responses no matter how I phrased it. Look at the thread this one is an offshoot of: a bunch of tropers managed to browbeat the poster into changing his story entirely rather than offer advice on how to make a particular aspect of it work, and that thread made it clear it wasn't inviting an emotional response.
But as to the dichotomy: you are either in slavery, or you are not. There's no third option there, because it precedes all other options. ...as I appears to me for the sake of writing a story, anyway. Here it means you are A) alive and enslaved or dead and enslaved, or B) alive and free or dead and free, and I have trouble seeing where the false dichotomy is when anyone under A) is unable to move to B) without tremendous effort and cost if at all.
We did tell the OP how to make his story work. We told him to remove the colonialism apologia, which would necessitate changing the story entirely. Or did you prefer the story when it was arguing that every human being was awful and deserved to be enslaved, including all future children born in bondage? Because that's a pretty fucking stupid and awful position to take, for reasons I made abundantly clear in said thread.
No, editerguy is right. This is a false dichotomy. Labour rights aren't a binary variable. They exist on a spectrum, with full worker rights and social safety nets at one end, chattel slavery at the other, and a whole mess of variations in-between, like serfdom and sweatshop labour. If a man works a 12-hour shift and just barely covers his cost of living, and there's no social safety net to support him if he loses his job and has to find another, he's not exactly "free", is he? He may not be the legal property of his employer, but they still hold an immense amount of power over him. If they asked him to do something outside his contract, or even outside the law, he's not really in any position to refuse.
edited 10th Oct '15 5:01:34 PM by Tungsten74
I discussed your approach because you responded to posts with contradictory responses like "it shouldn't matter if I reduce something to a strawman or not" and "Choosing to work with an idea ... is the only way to begin any rational inquiry".
These are incompatible responses because one involves giving up on logic, the other embraces it.
When you ask "what am I missing, if anything?" and "why"... well, if I explain why you are making a logical error when you don't care about logic, I'm wasting my time. So I ask what is your approach before I type out a long post that you might dismiss as irrelevant.
But, since you brought it up:
There's a grey area.
This is circular logic. You're starting with A and B and saying no one will get stuck between those two points. You're not allowing for the possibility of also starting with an intermediate point, let's call it AB. For example serfdom, or other 'slavery-like practices'. That 'slavery-like practices' is actually a legal concept (link to example) is reflective of the fact that it is hard to draw a clean, obvious line between slavery and other forms of exploitation. See also
edited 11th Oct '15 12:47:18 AM by editerguy
I still don't see what your problem is with a fictional story that argues an obviously unsustainable point, to a modern readership that is perfectly likely to see how flimsy the explanations would necessarily need to be (as IRL colonialism apologia tends to be). I'd really be more interested in a story that argues a lousy point well, than a good point poorly, and since I can't tell how well or poorly it's going to be argued before the story is written I'd prefer to wait and see.
And I have also made it clear repeatedly that I'm not talking about just one very specific legal definition of the contractual ownership of human beings. I included peonage and indentured servitude (and etc.) for a reason.
While those responses are contradictory, the comparison is invalid because they're not talking about the same thing.note
I'm well aware that there is something really wrong with that initial logic, and I'd like to reassure you that it's that way on purpose because that's how it's going to be phrased in the story. Because of that, it needs to be airtight in a way that makes sense in-story; that is, the logic itself needs to hold up both to citizens under it and outsiders, who can chose to agree or disagree with it separate from whether or not they take the drastic actions to not live under it. Of course, it also has to be something a modern reader can quickly disagree with (the "slavery" part, not the general luddism that would lead to them throwing away their own mobile devices or anything counter-productive like that) on the whole, even if the actual conditions aren't so bad in-story.
The "slavery-like practices" bit only works at the level of a legal concept; to someone who has to live in that supposedly gray area, there's no difference. I find it hard to believe anyone would use a legalese phrase like that to describe what they've just escaped from, and that's why it's a black-and-white choice to me. If there's any grayness in this or any legally similar situation, it's due to an individual's lack of awareness of other options rather than the situation itself being gray (by modern first-world standards, anyway) - it is a question of perspective.
On that note, I think someone mentioned "sheeple" earlier in the conversation. That's a word I despise at a personal level, as even I'm not so cynical that I feel the need to think so poorly of others. Every human action is the result of a series of internal decisions - you have to be fully aware of this if you intend to create a living world - and to call them or anyone "sheeple" is to deny that they make those decisions.
...But the trick is, there are only so many possible decisions a sane person can make (that they think will lead to a positive outcome). With enough external control over those possible decisions, you control the outcomes. This is nothing new; it's entirely possible to force someone into thinking their situation is a Catch-22 or Hobson's Choice with no third option, without realizing how that came to be the case. (I think it is no coincidence that the popular names of those forced choices come from a novel and a person respectively.) The question I'm going to ask through the story is, will they care?
A. I don't have a problem with fictional characters holding terrible opinions. I have a problem when the fictional narrative in which they exist agrees with them. You may have noticed in that thread that I instantly changed my tune when the OP said they didn't think their fictional colonialists were right, and were writing the story with the intention of criticising their beliefs.
B. There are plenty of modern readers who think european colonialism was a good thing. The point is not "obviously" unsustainable. A lot of people still think that the racist paternalism of empire was worthwhile, and that we are worse off without it. Fuck those people, and fuck any story that agrees with them.
C. If you write a story that argues a racist, colonialist, White Man's Burden point "well", but you don't personally agree with that point, how is that any different from writing such a shitty work and being sincere? The shitty work is still out there, still encouraging shitlords to continue being shitty.
And I have made it clear why your conception of slavery, no matter how broad it may be, does not match up with reality. But I guess you didn't pick up on that, as you'd already dismissed my arguments as "too emotional", while simultaneously insisting that I actually agreed with you somehow.
You argued that the reason anyone would instate a system of slavery was because they wanted "labour minus identity". That's wrong: systems of slavery were established because people wanted labourers that couldn't disobey them or demand better, because they would be punished. If they wanted "labour minus identity", they could just employ people normally, but stipulate in their contracts that they have to wear masks at all times, and only refer to each other as "comrade" or something.
Dehumanisation is not the "point" of slavery. Forced labour is the point. Racial epithets and stereotypes on the other hand, yes - the point of THAT is dehumanisation. And the point of dehumanisation is to keep the people with any power in society (including the slaveowners) from realising how awful systems of slavery actually are.
And without the premise that the purpose of slavery is dehumanisation, your entire analogy falls apart.
edited 15th Oct '15 4:39:35 AM by Tungsten74
Sigh.
A) Browbeating someone into agreement shouldn't be a prerequisite for "changing a tune".
B) European colonialism was both good and bad, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a majority opinion that would insist it's solidly white or black.
C) SO LET THEM. It takes time and effort to improve in art, not a sudden influx of facts from someone who purports to know them. (The difference, again, is that one is written well, and one is not. While this wouldn't necessarily be a problem if they were writing an encyclopedia, it would kill a fictional story.)
Your arguments have tended to be emotionally over-the-top and poorly thought out, everything in this one particularly. It makes it difficult to agree with what you're saying, let alone want to take it into consideration, when it's clear you're shooting from the hip like that.
As you seem to be doing here.
I never said that dehumanization (huh - took you for an American for some reason) was the point of slavery. That would be like saying the purpose of the internal combustion engine is to prop up the petroleum or metals industries. Dehumanization (but specifically a lack of identity that may or may not follow - you can dehumanize something all you like, but it only works if everyone and the target believes it) is necessary to the whole, though, and thus is a contributing factor which has to be upheld and supported for the system to function. "Human labor minus identity, as cheaply as possible" were my exact words, not "cheap human labor, as anonymous as possible". (In online terms, "data minus human identity, as cheaply as possible". After all, "cheap data, as anonymous as possible" is no different from gibberish.)
You've misunderstood what I said, so your conclusion isn't valid. (And I assume that you aren't deliberately misconstruing it.) The problem is, you will probably refuse to believe that this is the case, and so you won't change your tune and actually be helpful until I fully agree with you.
(Also, the purpose behind racial epithets and stereotypes isn't always dehumanization; it's just as often a display of power to express them - "I have power" rather than "I have power, and you don't nor should" - assuming it's not just the person truly being unaware of what not to say and do. ...Unless those who engage in it are taking the time to think about why they're doing it, of course, and carefully calculating how to do the most amount of damage with the least effort.)
Am I understanding correctly that you want to write a hyperbolic story with an internal logic that ignores the logic of the real world, and argues a viewpoint you disagree with? Is this some kind of postmodernism I'm not familiar with or am I off the mark, here?
So there's no difference between someone "shackled" by their use of "modern social communications paradigms", a sweatshop labourer, and someone sold to a plantation owner? Nonsense.
This explains the fallacy you seem to be relying on:
edited 15th Oct '15 5:25:21 PM by editerguy
(Whew. It's you this time.)
No, I'm using hyperbolic phrasing to draw attention to a story element I plan on using, to see if the logic (warped as it is) checks out, and so far that seems to be the case if the reactions I've been getting are properly representative. (I say again that none of the arguments I've heard here actually break down my initial one, and are largely opinions on whether and why it shouldn't be done. Incidentally, there are many practical reasons against using slavery that would have done that, but I'm the only one providing them.) I doubt that element will matter much outside of the second act, where the protagonist infiltrates a city that runs on it.
The story itself will be in my usual, under-embellished style; the logic governing one physical location inside of it probably will be hyperbolic by our standards, which I disagree with and plan to write out in a way that makes it seem like something we would all want to avoid IRL.
The protagonist hold views in line with what you and I would consider normal, with a mix of liberalism and conservatism on specific issues for the sake of character complexity. The City has been cut off from the outside world through fear and physical distance, though it's more accurate to say that it is cutting itself off, and still more accurate to say that a severe minority is taking steps to keep it that way. As such, the views inside the city are a little warped by our (IRL) standards; I'm currently thinking of it as a Paradigm City version of the DPRK, with a bit of MazinkaiserSKL or AuraBattlerDunbine mixed in (and in practice, the protagonist is more like Raiden and Loran added then divided by two, than any of those characters).
But of course, I shouldn't have to explain all of this - the context isn't important here, as I was only ever trying to get feedback on one specific point. If I wanted anything more, I'd go ask this question in Writer's Block and give a mountain of my notes for perusal by a bunch of kids who desperately need assistance more than I do. Instead, I'm here in World Building where this sort of fact-gathering is the norm.
Since the conversation has jumped tracks and switched to me, though...
I would say that, for a sufficiently broad definition of slavery, there's enough commonality between those two things to turn it into a story. Realistically, I'm aware that there isn't (though that still doesn't save the use of the phrase "slavery-like practices" outside of legalese), and I understand the difference between a manufacturing/market monopoly and a system of human segregation. I do believe there is a correlation between the two that, if left unchecked, may lead to causation (if not to the point of slavery, then to economic and social segregation), and I can recommend books and articles that support this. And in my mind, I'm actually using the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy (wherein I use certain information to make a point) to prop up a Hobson's Choice for that initial social media/slavery argument, rather than having BPD; the video was unnecessary.
I will also remind you that you brought up "slavery-like practices" in the first place, and that by quoting you I was responding to your commentnote , not stating my views on slavery necessarily. I understand what you're saying, but the argument doesn't necessarily follow from the original context of the quote.
(I think you don't shoot from the hip when you respond, and are taking the time to think out what you're about to say - for which I'm grateful, let me be clear - but cherry-picking single lines like that works better with people who are succinct. Unlike me
.)
I think that's about it?
EDIT: goddammit, why don't those pages have a Main page...
edited 16th Oct '15 12:12:13 PM by DeusDenuo
What are you talking about? I know I'm the one who brought up slavery-like-practices.
Firstly, that doesn't effect the substance of what I was saying.
Secondly, the mere phrase 'slavery-like-practices' was never the substance of my argument, rather, it was an elaboration of a point Tungsten74 already brought up (which you've ignored). The substance of my argument is that there is no clean, obvious line between slavery and other forms of exploitation.
To flesh out the point I was making a little, here's my tiny essay:
Why say that there is continuum on which rights can be exploited rather than a clear line between slavery and freedom?
Firstly, this is reflected in basic provisions in this area. For example, the Slavery Convention’s preamble includes the need “to prevent forced labour from developing into conditions analogous to slavery”. (my emphasis) The reality recognised here is that we can see a continuum of exploitation which can slide towards slavery. I'm aware (thankfully not through personal experience) that my own country has various "slavery-like" offences as distinct from slavery.
Secondly, you can talk about legalese if you like, but unless you can explain what the clear line between slavery and freedom is, your arguments are without substance. If it is black and white, where is the line of demarcation?
Finally, clearly there is a difference between someone who has 'no freedom' because of social media and someone who has no freedom because they're a sweatshop worker. Again, someone sold to a plantation owner has a different experience. The difference is not merely legal, and only a particularly narcissistic facebook addict would feel the difference between their experience and the sweatshop worker's experience does not matter.
That's a very unhelpful thing to do on purpose.
It doesn't.
I'll go back to the OP:
What you're missing is what slavery is. You're trying to squeeze a word into a box it doesn't fit into, apparently for narrative expediency. Echoing what other people have said, the "why" is that you don't seem to know much about it. In your OP you even equated human trafficking with Facebook, which is pretty hard to follow. But to reiterate, you are assuming a clear line of demarcation which is not evident. Your approach is based on a false premise, and consequently fails from a rational perspective.
edited 16th Oct '15 11:03:54 PM by editerguy
So hang on. Are you accusing me of black-and-white thinkings, or not? It seemed like you were at first - thus the YT link - and now you're asking me to clarify that I am.
The issue necessarily has to be black and white, and I assume it's pretty clear to anyone who has been in an iffy situation whether they were under slavery or not. But at the same time, it can't be easily defined.
It is not your or my place to decide that for someone else, I believe. If that person has been in a situation where the only word they have to describe it best would be "slavery", that is good enough for me; if not, then not. My objection is that the legalese exists to be objective and to translate nicely, when the situation is more subjective than that - I can't really argue the point, and neither can you, without that personal experience.
Article One of that convention seems pretty clear-cut; I generally have been drawing the line at sustainable pay AND/OR ownership (as that would necessarily not include wards of the state, for example, which I believe you country has had plenty of in its early days, and mine has entirely too many of now). I've been saying since the start that for my purposes that I've been deliberately using a broad definition of "slavery", and this is so I don't have to keep referring to other "slavery-like practices" every time the word comes up.
I have never said, incidentally, that the difference between online data control and offline slavery doesn't matter, just that they are similar enough to draw a comparison. I have also been saying that, if you don't think there is a comparison, go ahead and try to find a job without a device or online profile ("of which FB is just the easiest platform to use as an example" were my exact words - why does everyone keep assuming I'm only talking about FB?). It's getting more and more difficult to even look for gainful, legal employment without one.
Think of it this way - you are currently using this site because the mods don't think that losing the password to your old account, then starting up a new account, counts as sockpuppeting. If the definition of sockpuppeting was expanded to include sockpuppeting-like practices (having more than one account period), you'd be out. But there's clearly a subjective (well, personal) explanation that defies the objective one, yeah?
Now imagine that that absurdly general definition were to be expanded out into a world-wide thing, and you could be banned completely for, essentially, losing your password - but that's considered to be a rare enough thing that the economy relies on people having access, no exceptions.
What would you call that, if not slavery (or "slavery-like practices"), from the perspective of someone who can be completely cut off from the interconnected world at the whim of someone who doesn't care to listen to anyone's subjective explanation? What is your word for it - the best I could come up with was "slavery" - when you can exert that much control over someone else, and decide for them whether they can be a part of the world or not?
...And of course it all fails from a rational perspective - I've been repeating that. Just because a question includes false premises by your standards, doesn't mean it can't be answered when the answer I'm asking for is whether or not I'm missing something in the "false premises" I'm giving. I am well aware that there are, or must necessarily be, huge flaws in what I'm trying to put together, and I need to know what they are besides the fact that they are false premises.
What is your answer, after all that?
Man, the first post just poorly explains the whole idea, with none of the answering posts actually clearing things up. You could make a whole story about how invasive social media is without getting into the very poorly considered comparisons to slavery (and quite frankly if you're not using said social media for work purposes you can just lie and they don't check very thoroughly because anyone can make up multiple e-mail accounts) and I'm not even sure how giving up your personal information even relates to slavery.
For the reason that slave owners don't actually give a fuck about people's identities, they just care that they have a work force.
But yeah, if these social media accounts aren't actually being used for work and just something used for fun (and many people have accounts for both reasons and give away varying levels of information of each, hell my tumblr doesn't know anything but my email) then even the vaguest allusions to slavery just falls apart. It kind of makes you look pretentious.
The perceived lack of privacy is probably a wiser tack to take.
You've written a long post, but I'm stuck on one point.
So why are you arguing it's anything other than a terrible idea? The "blindly emotional" arguments you've criticised are far more logical than yours.
What are you after?
edited 25th Oct '15 4:16:01 AM by editerguy
So, we were having a conversation in this topic
that I managed to drag a little off-topic. To make up for it, and to keep that discussion on-topic, I propose we move this part of it over here.
Ahem.
My point is that the purpose of slavery (in the broad sense that encompasses human trafficking, peonage, indentured servitude, etc.) is to get human labor minus identity, as cheaply as possible - if anyone has a better way of phrasing this, go for it - but online, human labor is meaningless. Instead, it's that personal info and usage experience, recorded for as close to forever as modern data storage techniques allow, that is valuable. The majority of people will just give that information away for free, in the name of a better user experience or social life, or even just boredom.
(I specifically have FB in mind here, but the hardware necessary to connect to other people isn't blameless - and if anything, shoulders more blame by giving an inherently social species platforms to work on - and there are plenty of other entities that do the same.)
The comparison to slavery comes from how much of your private identity you have to give up in order to use modern social communications paradigms effectively; at the extreme end, you end up with no privacy, and thus no more personal identity that identifies you as a unique person in real life, because the fun in life is in discovery.
Data minus identity, in exchange for minuscule overhead costs per user: that's the comparison, and the similarity, that I see.
With me so far? A and B have the same 'a', 'b', and 'c' (as well as how the people involved don't have much choice about getting out of their situation - call that 'd'), adjusted for the difference in corporeality. This makes them equivalents as I understand it, but my the problem is that I'm aware that I might not be seeing all the little strings and subtleties.
As that all ended up being interesting to me, I've decided to start considering it for my Na No Wri Mo novel this year. In that other thread, I brought up that I have trouble seeing the difference between a smartphone (increasingly becoming a requirement for participation in the modern world - which facilitates the use of social media, of which FB is just the easiest platform to use as an example) and the collars that all humans would be required to wear as a second-class race under the first-class one in the OP's story. My idea doesn't bother with collars; it's phones all the way.
So: this isn't "has this already been done?" so much as "what am I missing, if anything?" I'm looking for a what and a why, not "this is bad and you should feel bad". Any takers?
edited 1st Oct '15 1:25:13 PM by DeusDenuo