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SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! Mesa and South Africa

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Re: SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! Mesa and South Africa
Post by cthia   » Sun Jul 06, 2014 12:02 pm

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n7axw wrote:
David is right to point out that Lincoln did not enter the war to abolish slavery. Preserving the union was indeed his foremost goal. But it is also true that Lincoln despised slavery and ran as the standard bearer of an anti-slavery party and made anti-slavery speeches himself.

Don

President Lincoln being black himself may explain much of that.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African- ... am_Lincoln

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! Mesa and South Africa
Post by hanuman   » Sun Jul 06, 2014 2:52 pm

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namelessfly wrote:For most of human history, CHANGE was virtually non existent. There was little technological innovation. Populations oscillates around equilibrium level. People generally lived their lives in the same manner as their great-to-the-tenth grandparents had. When change occurred, it was usually a very unpleasant change such as war, famine, earthquakes, floods or war.

The rapid advancement of technology makes change inevitable. However; the progressive argument that change should be promoted because it is inevitable is a logical fallacy. Change has to be evaluated on at least practical if not moral criteria.

The Southern States and Mesa have historical events, particularly the Hatian Slave Revolt, to inform their opinions and judgements. One can argue that the danger of a slave uprising makes the abolition of slavery imperative. However; the Hatian Slave Rebellion was itself the result of liberalized policies. The Haitian slave masters just like Southerners such as Thomas Jefferson were in the habit of having sex with their black slaves which resulted in Medes race children. The Hatian slave holders freed their hybrid children, educated them and allowed them to enjoy many rights.

Given Honorverse technology, I find it extremely difficult to imagine how genetic slavery can be economically viable beyond people adapted for harsh environments or sex slaves. Even so, voluntary genetic modification of one's own children motivated by the lure of high hazardous duty pay or colonization opportunities. There is no shortage of sex workers in a free society either.

One factor that might mitigate conflict on Mesa is the realization that the carnage inflicted by operation Hudini was orchestrated by a secretive cabal.


Namelessfly, your statement re human history cannot be further from the truth. Change is and always has been a constant and inevitable factor of human life. The only way for ANY human society to completely avoid any form of change would be not only to completely avoid outside influence but to impose such rigorous standards of behaviour that daily life and interpersonal interaction would become virtually impossible. Whether it was contact with merchants from another land, or a nomadic clan of shepherds setting up camp just outside one's village, or an invasion by another kingdom, or buying a new houseslave on the market, ancient societies were forever exchanging ideas, cultural memes, goods and people.

You're talking about technology being a major driving force of change. That's true, but what do you think flint knives were, or stone scrapers, or pottery wheels? Those were technological innovations as well, you know. Modern technology doesn't DRIVE change, it simply gives change impetus; in other words, it's a driving force behind the RATE of change.
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Re: SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! Mesa and South Africa
Post by kzt   » Sun Jul 06, 2014 3:26 pm

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hanuman wrote:You're talking about technology being a major driving force of change. That's true, but what do you think flint knives were, or stone scrapers, or pottery wheels? Those were technological innovations as well, you know. Modern technology doesn't DRIVE change, it simply gives change impetus; in other words, it's a driving force behind the RATE of change.

Sure, there were changes. Over hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of years. Evolution of stone tools is pretty well understood and were very slow. For example, initial use of stone tools was about 2.6 million years ago. It was only 200,000 years ago that stone tool tech was advanced enough to make things like stone spear points. Significant advances occurs at intervals of tens of thousands of years initially, dropping to thousands of years by the start of the neolithic.
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Re: SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! Mesa and South Africa
Post by Tenshinai   » Sun Jul 06, 2014 3:53 pm

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hanuman wrote:
Namelessfly, your statement re human history cannot be further from the truth. Change is and always has been a constant and inevitable factor of human life. The only way for ANY human society to completely avoid any form of change would be not only to completely avoid outside influence but to impose such rigorous standards of behaviour that daily life and interpersonal interaction would become virtually impossible. Whether it was contact with merchants from another land, or a nomadic clan of shepherds setting up camp just outside one's village, or an invasion by another kingdom, or buying a new houseslave on the market, ancient societies were forever exchanging ideas, cultural memes, goods and people.
...


And as has been found more and more, even in the pre-historic times, long before agriculture and the shift towards more fixed settlements, even then trade has been shown to have existed over vast distances (central Europe to central Asia proven, even further likely but not entirely proven).

And the smaller the scale of population, the more radical the influence of trade tend to be.


And when looking at far more recent history( a century or a few back), there is often the belief that people were born and then lived and died within a rather small area.

Having been part of historic research that among other things looked at that, that´s a complete myth. Even just looking at my own family records i found that even with clear focus with maybe 20-30km around here and 2 other locations, many of my ancestors often married hundreds of km away, and then sometimes starting that new family in a brand new place, completely elsewhere.

Moving 500 km, or even over a 1000 km even in the 15th century was found to essentially be nothing extraordinary...
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Re: SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! Mesa and South Africa
Post by hanuman   » Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:07 pm

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Tenshinai wrote:
hanuman wrote:
Namelessfly, your statement re human history cannot be further from the truth. Change is and always has been a constant and inevitable factor of human life. The only way for ANY human society to completely avoid any form of change would be not only to completely avoid outside influence but to impose such rigorous standards of behaviour that daily life and interpersonal interaction would become virtually impossible. Whether it was contact with merchants from another land, or a nomadic clan of shepherds setting up camp just outside one's village, or an invasion by another kingdom, or buying a new houseslave on the market, ancient societies were forever exchanging ideas, cultural memes, goods and people.
...


And as has been found more and more, even in the pre-historic times, long before agriculture and the shift towards more fixed settlements, even then trade has been shown to have existed over vast distances (central Europe to central Asia proven, even further likely but not entirely proven).

And the smaller the scale of population, the more radical the influence of trade tend to be.


And when looking at far more recent history( a century or a few back), there is often the belief that people were born and then lived and died within a rather small area.

Having been part of historic research that among other things looked at that, that´s a complete myth. Even just looking at my own family records i found that even with clear focus with maybe 20-30km around here and 2 other locations, many of my ancestors often married hundreds of km away, and then sometimes starting that new family in a brand new place, completely elsewhere.

Moving 500 km, or even over a 1000 km even in the 15th century was found to essentially be nothing extraordinary...


All of that is very true. And it doesn't even take into account the tremendous impact that our environment, and changes to that environment, might have on a society.

It's always a bad idea to make sweeping generalizations wrt humanity's nature and experiences. We are a species that is prone to diversification - one of the major reasons for our success as a species has always been our innate ability to adapt to changing circumstances or new conditions. Not just culturally or in terms of economic activity, but also on the physical level.
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Re: SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! Mesa and South Africa
Post by Hutch   » Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:36 pm

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cthia wrote:
President Lincoln being black himself may explain much of that.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African- ... am_Lincoln


I would note for the record that the section it is in is "Unverified" and I quote from the site:

The academic consensus of historians rejects most of the specific claims below that the men may have had some African ancestry, the consensus acknowledging the long history of interracial relations in the United States.


Making bald-faced statements of fact where fact is not established is something I think even your niece would not approve of.

Spanking complete, press on.
***********************************************
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow.

What? Look, somebody's got to have some damn perspective around here! Boom. Sooner or later. BOOM! -LT. Cmdr. Susan Ivanova, Babylon 5
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Re: SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! Mesa and South Africa
Post by cthia   » Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:42 pm

cthia
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Hutch wrote:
cthia wrote:
President Lincoln being black himself may explain much of that.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African- ... am_Lincoln


I would note for the record that the section it is in is "Unverified" and I quote from the site:

The academic consensus of historians rejects most of the specific claims below that the men may have had some African ancestry, the consensus acknowledging the long history of interracial relations in the United States.


Making bald-faced statements of fact where fact is not established is something I think even your niece would not approve of.

Spanking complete, press on.

Spanking accepted. I really should have been more politically correct (npi) and said instead, 'man of color.' :o 8-) :lol:

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! Mesa and South Africa
Post by biochem   » Wed Jul 09, 2014 10:32 pm

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Just wanted to point out that there is a VERY important difference between slaves in the southern US and those exploited by debt slavery in company towns. In the south individual slaves could be sold away from their families at the whim of the owner. The sale of a family member was considered by the slaves themselves to be the worst of the various types of suffering that they endured. So while those exploited by company towns suffered greatly, at least they didn't need to worry that their children would be sold.
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Re: SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! Mesa and South Africa
Post by hanuman   » Thu Jul 10, 2014 1:40 am

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biochem wrote:Just wanted to point out that there is a VERY important difference between slaves in the southern US and those exploited by debt slavery in company towns. In the south individual slaves could be sold away from their families at the whim of the owner. The sale of a family member was considered by the slaves themselves to be the worst of the various types of suffering that they endured. So while those exploited by company towns suffered greatly, at least they didn't need to worry that their children would be sold.


That's because slaves are generally regarded as livestock. However, that is not the only institution in which that kind of attitude prevailed. Any kind of ideology or social convention that reduces a particular category of people to a second-class status - whether based on race, gender, religion, sexuality, language, physical or mental disability or whatever - promotes the kind of attitude that dehumanises and marginalises those 'Others', frequently in order to justify the ruling class' monopolisation of power and wealth.

A favourite tactic that was employed to generate support for oppressive measures aimed at black people, was to spread tales of black male sexual violence against white women, or to raise the alarm about the so-called dangers of miscegenation - in other words, the mixing of races that would supposedly lead to the 'degeneration' of the white race.

Not too surprisingly, that same tactic is used by conservatives today when they warn about the dangers same-sex marriage poses to 'traditional' marriage. I've never really understood how the former can endanger the latter, but I suspect it is based on the fear that the legalisation of same-sex marriage will tempt straight married men to divorce their wives in order to marry men instead.

Anyways, my point is that at the end of the day ANY form of discrimination against or oppression of a class of people on the basis of biological traits, socio-cultural identity or economic status is related to all OTHER forms thereof, because any such discrimination is caused by a fear that those who are different will imperil the stability and security of society-at-large, and by doing so will threaten people's livelihoods.
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Re: SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! Mesa and South Africa
Post by namelessfly   » Thu Jul 10, 2014 8:57 am

namelessfly

I think he was making a joke.


Hutch wrote:
cthia wrote:
President Lincoln being black himself may explain much of that.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African- ... am_Lincoln


I would note for the record that the section it is in is "Unverified" and I quote from the site:

The academic consensus of historians rejects most of the specific claims below that the men may have had some African ancestry, the consensus acknowledging the long history of interracial relations in the United States.


Making bald-faced statements of fact where fact is not established is something I think even your niece would not approve of.

Spanking complete, press on.
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