Well there isnt much you can do about it in anyway… I am perfectly aware Mr Avarr that Holders fall into the jurisdiction of the Royal Heir families…you are trying to survive and thrive in that feudalistic society. Per political designs, it is the slowest to succumb to any change. That was my point above to Miss Vess as well. Emancipation didnt mean Abolition. You cant take thousands of years of an Empire and overnight change that defining trait of its people. Empress Jamyl wasnt that fool. Nor I believe Empress Catiz is either.
Bear in mind the audience here. The Empress is addressing the entire Empire, including the Heir families, and the lesser Holders.
“Approaching fast”, has to be put into the appropriate context for the Empire. Societal change that is “fast” for Amarr is on the order of several decades.
Remember, it took the Theology Council many years to reach a decision about the theological status of cloned capsuleers.
“Fast”, for a Holder means “within my lifetime”, which could reasonably be a few centuries.
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What’s kinda sad is, well ya I have to agree with you on that time scale…
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If you self-declare as an abolitionist, you are painting a “kick me” sign on yourself, your family, your business interests, for all your rivals to use to further their agenda.
For a minor holder, to claim to be an Abolitionist, invites others to scheme to seize your holding, by petitioning your liege lord, or even their liege lord.
A holder whose holding is an estate on a planet, their liege lord would be the planetary Holder, whose liege would be the system Holder, then the constellation Holder, then the Regional Holder, who will almost certainly be a member of the Heir Families.
For the estate Holder, to declare Abolitionist status, invites the other estate Holders on the planet, to try and petition the planetary Holder, or even the system Holder, to seize the estate of the Abolitionist.
At risk would be the estate Holder, their family, their extended family, and all the freemen commoners who work on the estate, and the slaves who live and work on the estates. They would all be at risk of being enslaved for “heresy” or whatever charge the scheming rivals could make stick.
Capsuleer Holders have a lot more leeway, but are still vulnerable. They have families, even if they are disowned by their family, those family members are still at risk from scheming rivals.
Thus, most Abolitionists do not speak openly of their actions, because to do so, places many others at risk.
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The various empires have been shouting that for centuries, and it’s been proven by research. I am not sure even the Amarr themselves contest this. In this age of automation and robotics there is no good reason to keep slaves, at all, and even less reason to have them work the way they often do (by hand, sometimes with primitive hand tools even). Machines can be multitudes more productive then slaves, and multitudes cheaper to boot. As an added bonus, they do not provoke international condemnation or violent freedom raids from the other Empires, the cost of which must be astronomically higher then the benefits.
The Amarr know this, I think. By now, they are knowingly using a less efficient method, practicing slavery out of spite or misguided religious zeal, and that is, I feel, the most disturbing part. Your people, Mr Avarr, are not people that are susceptible to reason on a societal scale.
I am rather surprised that pictures of Amarr vessels are taken by camera drones, and not by jettisoning a slave out into space, attached to a rope and equipped with a primitive black/white camera.
I also wish to respond to this a moment. Considering that you are Amarr, I will explain in more detail, as you might not be familiar with the concept of “empathy”.
Yes, you are right, and the Holder who frees slaves by buying them is still doing the right thing. How can that be? Well, you see, slaves are people. Every slave freed is something we should applaud, and enable at every turn, and I would much rather see the slavers have money then one more slave.
Because every one of our kin is a Human being, who deserves a life that they control, with liberty, freedom from fear of the whip or vitoc and the ability to be happy.
This isn’t just a galactic game of chess to end slavery, there are real damn lives involved here!
And on that scale, it matters. If a holder buys slaves and frees them, it is good because those people will enjoy new, free lives that they wouldn’t have otherwise. It doesn’t change the needle on slavery as a whole, but it doesn’t always have to. As much as we want to help all our people, helping some is fine too.
Because the alternative to that way of thinking, Mr Avarr, is a very cold calculus that does not take into account the value of Human lives and looks purely at the results on a macro level. If that is what we’re going to do, I would have to discount every single so-called “abolitionist” in the Empire and say that all their acts of compassion, the slaves they may have liberated, the people they may have helped, have zero value. They mean nothing, their actions don’t mean anything, and they are useless as far as the fight for freedom is concerned.
And to the slaves who would be liberated I should turn a blind eye and tell them, sorry, your liberty isn’t important, we’re only concerned with the big picture here. If that means you have to continue to slave for your masters, so be it.
And while such cold calculus might get us to our end goal faster, we would lose something vital in the process, the part that makes us Human.
Yes, when it comes to the cause of abolishing slavery, of ridding the galaxy of this practice forever, these people, including the Holder who in my eyes is “doing his part”, are useless. Considering how resistant the Empire is to change, how blindly zealous it’s people are, and how entrenched it’s faith is, anybody who is not involved in active resistance against the Empire is useless on that front. They will never accomplish anything of note. Not you, not your parents who freed “the vast majority” of their slaves (sucks to be those slaves not freed, huh? They really couldn’t find a decent bot on the market, or what?) None of them.
But that doesn’t mean they don’t accomplish anything of note outside of that grand cause. Every. Life. Has. Value. Every slave freed is a good cause, every person who is given a better life is worth it. On that scale, what they do has meaning, and I feel we should respect them for that.
To do otherwise is to turn our hearts as cold as that of the foe we claim to oppose.
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… primitive hand tools? Most slaves use machines. Yes, our equipment is more manual and hands-on than the pure automation you might see in some of the other empires, but saying we’re using hand tools is quite beyond the pale. Slaves make up 50% of our population, and hold the vast majority of blue collar jobs. Amarr society wouldn’t be able to function if its laborers were working completely by hand.
Yes, it is likely that profit ratios could be improved by a widespread shifting over to the most modern tech, but the economic incentive in switching from a slave-based economy is lower than people think. There are very high costs in replacing the existing infrastructure and establishing a safety net that is less dependent on work (as pure automation leads to joblessness which leads to either humanitarian issues or freeloading off government allowances. And without the option of selling one’s self into slavery when truly destitute, a new safety net would need to be instated). Current earnings are acceptable in light of that. Say what you will about the morality of our leaders, but they are not incapable of reason. That reasoning just leads to, in most cases, maintaining the status quo.
And, no, every slave freed is not, necessarily, a good cause. It takes more than that. There are considerable hurdles involved in transitioning a born-and-raised slave into independent living, without which would see that slave suffering more than they did in slavery. Most slaves live normal lives without experiencing excessive harm, and can and do find happiness and fulfillment in that life. Yes, there is absolutely a high potential for harm in slavery, and many people are directly (or indirectly) hurt by it, but there is also a high potential for harm in thoughtless freeing of people without the means in place to provide for their transition to independence.
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Yes, they are. And incapable of developing a moral centre, as well. Their faith blinds them to both, just as it does you.
In addition, are you being deliberately ignorant of the facts, or what? Spare me the Amarr propaganda that they are better off with you, please. It is never not a good cause to free a slave ! Naturally, the liberation will be done properly, and they will receive the help and support they need to reintegrate. It is most certainly no excuse to leave them in the clutches of merciless slavemasters who feel they need to spend their life in service to work off a nonexistent sin for a nonexistent god (or devil).
What you people are doing, Samira, is called brainwashing. You raise children from birth to believe they are destined for nothing but servitude, and that God has decreed they must work, and that they can only be content in their situation because there is nothing else for them, and then you have the gall to claim they live “normal lives without experiencing excessive harm”? No, these people have been broken. They’ve accepted the word of God because they either know nothing else, or have been sufficiently beaten and chained as to give up hope of improvement. Oh, and maybe just one or two would genuinely be happy in their situation, but psychopaths exist in every society. But hey, that’l excuse the billions of others, right?
And no matter how comfortable you make their lives, no matter how many liberties you so “graciously” deign to grant them, they are still slaves, their fates are still bound, they do not enjoy the same liberties that the rest of us do, and most of them, dear, will never be as “fortunate” (or pitiable) as you have been.
So kindly take those arguments, and go to hell, Kernher. That is certainly where you belong.
There are plenty of people who think otherwise. Plenty who release slaves with no net to catch them and think they’ve done them a wholesome and noble service. There are plenty of former slaves living in the Empire, Federation, and yes, even the Republic, who fail to climb out of poverty because they don’t know how. Plenty who, in their freedom, wish to return to slavery, because their livelihood was more secure and easier then.
You made it. I made it - though it took a long time and some pretty big pit falls before I started to really feel comfortable in my freedom. But not everyone does, and encouraging blind emancipation without regard to the consequences only risks hurting those people.
I am quite aware what it is, Vuld, considering I grew up in it. And I and most of my family felt quite content and happy with where we were. The same with most other slaves I knew. The most extreme examples of abuse didn’t happen in our community. Sure, everyone’s had thoughts of what life would be like if they were freed, some thinking it would be better, some afraid of it, and plenty who just didn’t care because they were more concerned with the present. Was there damage? Absolutely. I grew up hating myself for what I was. And I’m probably better now than I was then. But don’t discount people’s ability to find happiness in spite of adversity, especially when the average slave’s life is relatively stable. And don’t discount that there are free people who, in some cases, suffer lives worse than the average slave. But even then, or even with what I was saying above, of slaves freed carelessly and trapped in poverty, even they can adapt and find some manner of happiness in spite of it, through friends and family and all the small joys.
Life isn’t black and white.
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Ms. Vuld, while you may have missed it, I will point out that I also said that I thought the desire to free individual slaves was an entirely understandable one that I did not at all fault. I do admit, however, that yes, my concern tends to be with the ‘cold calculus’ of the ‘galactic chess game to end slavery,’ rather than with specific individuals, as you say. I have never denied that this is my focus. Nor have I ever denied that my motives are primarily that I believe the Empire would be better off without slavery, and more effective at spreading the Faith. My motives in this are not altruistic, and I do not make claim that they are.
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Yeaaaah, gonna say trying to lecture Samira about how she felt when she was a slave… not a strong move.
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I mean, it’s cute that you’re trying and all, but you should probably be a little more careful about where you aim your vitriol. Don’t get me wrong, it’s lovely to see and all, but your chosen target merely make you look like an ignorant idiot.
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Do you guys ever just try to bait out a several-paragraph or page response from someone with the specific intent to not even acknowledge it? I hope so.
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It turns out you can derail an off-topic thread; but you have to debate slavery to do it.
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Nah, it’s all still off-topic.
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Let me see if I can wade into your hot mess:
True, I’m not terribly skilled at flying larger spaceships yet, but the fact that you willingly referred to Ms. Jenneth as an ‘abolitionist’ clearly shows that I know more than you.
Wasn’t trying to, sweetheart. Or did you miss the entire paragraph I wrote stating that we are beyond words now? Literally the only thing I said about the gentleman is that he had a good point about the roots of slavery.
But hey, trying to make a point about something I didn’t say is more important than responding to the substance of what I wrote. Right?
That’s why every other word in my response was italicized. Italics are meant to convey sarcasm.
I was making a point illustrating how difficult it would be to avoid supporting slavery while living in Amarr, a point which I wrapped up by stating that such individuals should leave it. Which you supported, by the way, offering even more examples that I hadn’t thought of while writing. Thanks for the assist!
Now, do you want to talk more about what makes legitimate abolitionism, or would you rather keep debating on things I didn’t say? Because if you’re angling for the latter, I have much better ways to spend my time. Like watching paint dry, or washing my Wreathe by hand.
That last sentence was sarcasm too, just so you know.
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Now who’s trying to use something that wasn’t said? A first-day pilot right out of their academy can inject up to supercapitals. I don’t know how large a ship you can fly. That’s true even despite your statement—you could be lying. You could also claim to be sarcastic-after-the-fact again. Who knows? Nor do I particularly care. What you can fly has no bearing on your understanding of cluster-wide politics.
You want to claim you were making a point about it being ‘difficult’, that’s peachy. I don’t give a damn. It’s not ‘difficult’ to avoid indirectly supporting slavery while living in the Empire, it’s impossible. To claim the former is analogous to claiming it’s ‘difficult’ to flap your arms on Pator and fly up into orbit unassisted. Not difficult at all; just impossible. Or was that ‘sarcasm’, too?
You also want to claim that abolitionists who are trying to work within a system to abolish slavery aren’t ‘legitimate’, hey, your choice. You’re just gonna be wrong, and continue to demonstrate how little you know.
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No they’re not.
They are for emphasis.
Sarcasm is conveyed by, oh, I don’t know, writing in a particular style, maybe that would do it, rather than obvious text formatting. No, wait, that’s silly, isn’t it. People wouldn’t notice if it was sarcasm, unless it’s Preformatted text.
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Dark Times ! It’s Graelyn !
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