We are Slaves

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by Messor, Feb 14, 2002.

  1. peter/peter U.W.P. Registered Senior Member

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    Everything needs to be slaved to something. If it wasnt there would be nothing but CHAOS.

    NO?
     
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  3. Messor Registered Member

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  5. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    They are only echoes.
     
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  7. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    On a different subject....

    Peter/Peter

    Can I rub your Avatar??? lol

    I use to have a bunch of them on Transformers. rub them to make them show themselves.. pretty cool!
     
  8. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    Slavery, as many have intimated, is tied closely to freedom, or rather lack of freedom.

    To be a slave to something means you have little to no choice to do otherwise.

    Everyone, who is not independently wealthy, are slaves to money. To eat, clothe yourself, warm yourself, cool yourself, obtain medical care, have possessions, all require money. If you don’t have money then you must earn it. In this sense most people are wage slaves.

    Can you live effectively and happily without money? Highly debatable. Being a beggar has little attraction for most people.

    Most people accept the inevitable that they must learn to be content as slaves in the hope of one day achieving some freedom. For many that is retirement, for some it is financial success in business, and others might win the lottery.

    True freedom means being able to choose to do whatever you want, whenever you want, and as many times as you want. When money is limited then the slave has to choose between alternatives, i.e. he cannot to afford to do everything.

    One could argue that even with enormous wealth there is a limit to what one can afford. And that is true to an extent. Being able to afford weekly trips in the space shuttle might drain money from even the wealthiest. But for the vast majority of normal activities the rich are effectively free.

    But for the moment we are not free from having to pay the ultimate price: Death. In this matter we have little choice. So we are not slaves to life but we are slaves to death, because we cannot escape it, there is nowhere to run, there is no amount of money we can pay to avoid it. Death is our master and we are its slaves. Until, maybe science can find a way out.

    Cris
     
  9. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    Re: hmmm,.....

    Fukushi

    Money doesn’t have to be in terms of notes and coins. In more primitive tribal cultures the barter mechanism is used in place of money. But the same principles apply even in such cultures, i.e. they don’t have near endless wealth and must exchange something for what they want, they are still slaves.

    Maybe, but I think that will lead to arguments about a more equitable distribution of wealth, principles of economics, capitalism versus communism, etc., etc.

    The problem occurs because there are limited resources to be shared by many. How do you create a system that shares the resources fairly? How do you choose who deserves what? The survival of the fittest (capitalism) still seems the best so far.

    The only way to be free of such a system, which requires some form of interchange mechanism (e.g. money) is to have unlimited resources. And I can’t see that happening anytime soon.

    Cris
     
  10. anna f Registered Member

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    We humans are not islands, but peninsulas and we all depend on someone/something...

    If I was completely cast off and absolutely free, it would frighten me - I would not know what to do with absolute freedom because it could only exist for me if I was the last person on this planet - at least as a "modern" slave I have something to strive for ie to 'free' myself from what you call slavery.

    In mythology, Sysiphus represented the quintessence of slavery. The gods had condemned him, to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futuile and hopelss labor...

    Yet, Albert Camus, the great French philosopher suggested that "il faut imaginer Sysiphe heureux" - One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

    I do.

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  11. Adam §Þ@ç€ MØnk€¥ Registered Senior Member

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    Camus is boring. Sysiphus was an idiot. He should have sat down beside the boulder in the shade and had a rest. :>
     
  12. anna f Registered Member

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    *lol* You should try and read Camus in French ;-)

    And Sysiphus was not an Australian either - different "work ethic" i guess

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    hehe. As to being an "idiot", ergo "stupid", I have been told that the higher the IQ the greater the predisposition for unhappiness.

    So, in the light of your assessment as to his intellect, I imagine Sysiphus even happier than before

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  13. mister62 Good Gravy Registered Senior Member

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    freedom can never exist. Freedom should never exist. The whole reason anything in this world ever came to be was interdependence (i believe that's the right word), no single thing can exist without the aid of another. The human body for instance, can be thought of as a whole, but isn't. Cells make up a body, and atoms make up a cell. Electrons, neutrons, a nucleus and protons make up an atom. But what makes up those? Who knows?
    So, having gone as small as we can go, can a neutron, proton, nucleus, or electron be free? NO.
    An electron is always pulled in by a proton, a proton Needs a neutron, so electron is a "slave" to proton. A neutron is needed in order for isotopes to exist so neutron is a "slave" to isotope. Proton is pulled in by another electron because electron needs proton. Proton is slave. Nucleus needs nutron and proton. Nucleus is slave.
    If you can't have anything that has matter be free, than no matter is free. However, nothing is free. I'm not stating that no thing can be free, no, i'm calling "nothing" a "something" that simply is not. Nothing, is an "object" that not one thing depends upon, except maybe thought of nothing. OH GEEZ! now we have to expand our theory. Not any thing or concept or any thing that can be thought of or depended on by any mind or consciousness or being can ever be considered free because something must depend on it or it must depend on something.
    "Slavery," is just a melodramatic term to say "oh poor me." Be happy that you are even alive, or maybe, be sad. Then kill yourself, but then you're still sad, even though you can't feel sadness because you are dead and there is no heaven or hell but there still is an almighty, he just doesn't care too much for us, we were just a mistake on that being's part.
    Is the almighty free?
    I don't know, never will. All i know is i wish i was an animal. I'd only know my emotions and the essentials to survive, i wouldn't care about all this, but being a human, i do. If i started being slow or sick, i'd die, and i'd squeal and cry out for anything to save me but nothing would, because the others are not really ignorant, they're smart. THey don't want to be eaten too. Dying like an animal is dying with honor.

    Oh wait. What was the topic again?

    Oh yes, that's right.

    CONCLUSION:

    freedom is a term that only exists on paper and can never exist anyplace else. Just like geometry.
     
  14. anna f Registered Member

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    Hi mister 62

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    Sooooo much wisdom from a 14 year old? Wow!

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    "Is the almighty free?" I personally dont think so, because I believe that our Gods are a projection of ourselfs...they are our creation and as limited as we are. That, of course, is a very personal opinion

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    I liked your post very much.

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  15. peter/peter U.W.P. Registered Senior Member

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    The vastness of your knowledge.

    All of you should have been Romans!

    The depths of your insights could forever have changed the historys of this sad world.

    I wish I could go back in time to Rome, I would have all the slaves I could ever want {wink - wink}

    Lets explore the other side of this long, long thread.


    ? Lets say the time is somewere in the glory days of early Rome.

    Would you or would you not, OWN Slaves?????

    Answer honestly. The WEB has no FACE....................
     
  16. Adam §Þ@ç€ MØnk€¥ Registered Senior Member

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    Freedom can not exist? Consider this: Is a man in a cage still a prisoner if he has no desire to get out? If he loves living in his cage?
     
  17. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    Ismu

    Perhaps we should open up the prisons, and then parents can take their kids to see the Inmates behind the bars ....

    "Look children, Theres a criminal. Thats what happens to you if you break the law" .... "Guard chuck him a banana!"

    Okay, again something stated here, we are Slaves to the Law, which in turn is a slave to a Popularity contest.... well thats what the law was about originally, until they turned round and stopped linchings lol.

    (Mob rule is a criminal act, because it disobeys order)

    Heheh... I'm starting to sound like Winston from 1984 By George Orwell.

    I prefer to mention though that everyone is a Slave to Mass consumerism. If it wasn't for you people out there consuming things and filling landfill site with un-necessary rubbish.

    Of course we could start that whole Kyoto Summit thing off again... Why does every other country in the world care enough to try and cut their pollution apart from one major polluter?????

    Capitalism for you... Again people enslaved... But for the love of money.
     
  18. ssivakami Registered Senior Member

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    Seems to me you're a genetic determinist.
    We are gene vehicles, but I think we can overcome our genetic propensities to a limited extent. In fact, IMO the progress of humans has probably been in direct proportion to their outwitting their genes .

    - Sivakami.
     
  19. ssivakami Registered Senior Member

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    You mean order, dont you ?
    Sure, the universe, is, in a sense, a slave to certain physical forces

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    - Sivakami.
     
  20. peter/peter U.W.P. Registered Senior Member

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    jumping...

    I thought the original intent of this post was a metphorical sense not scientific.

    I would still like some opions on may last post.


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    "? Lets say the time is somewere in the glory days of early Rome.

    Would you or would you not, OWN Slaves?????

    Answer honestly. The WEB has no FACE...................."
     
  21. anna f Registered Member

    Messages:
    16
    Freedom can not exist.

    The man in a cage who has no desire to get out has accepted this.

    If he loves living in his cage, he has made the "best he can" of a situation (reality) which he cannot change.

     
  22. anna f Registered Member

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    Re: The vastness of your knowledge.

    Tempted to portray myself as an enlightened, goody person, I would be inclined to say "NO WAY !!!!! What to you take me for!!!"....

    But, now, in 2002, I:

    - let the waiter in the pub/coffee shop serve me my drinks

    - buy the products that farmers sweated growing for me

    - probably use the products that oppressed miners bring out from the bowels of the earth...

    - wear joggers that - rumour has it - are made in countries where they employ child labor. (I try to be discerning there...but even adult workers who make my Nikes etc. are probably not doing it by choice.

    etc. etc.

    so, I conform to my social status in today's society. I fear I would have done the same in what you call "the glory days of early Rome".

    However, speaking metaphorically, if I had the choice to be Master or Slave, I would choose the latter. I loath responsability.
    ;-)
     
  23. peter/peter U.W.P. Registered Senior Member

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    My view,

    Here's what I think about my own question.

    If I was wealthy enough, I would have one for everything. Sombody to wash me, dress me, cook, clean, tend the garden, sleep with (several of those), do the laundry, anything you could think of.

    I would live in splended decidence, living off others sweet.

    No question about it......

    Honest

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