What is a slave and what is a prisoner? (rough notes)

Page 3 of 6 [ 95 posts ] Go to page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Next

Sand
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Age: 98
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,484
Location: Finland

21 Sep 2009, 7:57 pm

Vana wrote a good deal of stuff but her conclusion that a slave is always free to choose death rather than slavery seems to me to be an adolescent bit of nonsense. Death is not in any way freedom. It is total defeat and no sane person chooses that who has any hope of getting rid of an oppressor.

Orwell
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 8 Aug 2007
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 12,518
Location: Room 101

21 Sep 2009, 8:57 pm

ruveyn wrote:

And I am very bright. I am smarter than 95 percent of the human species now alive.

You keep bragging about this. Why? This claim is, I presume, based upon some IQ test.

To put into perspective, ruveyn: If we are to trust IQ tests as a valid measure of intelligence (I do not) then it would be possible to create a group of people larger than the population of Indonesia, all of whom are smarter than you and dumber than me (ie, roughly 4% of the world population). And yet there are still hordes of people next to whom I am a complete moron. Being smarter than this or that percentage of the general population is meaningless, as is the concept of trying to quantify and objectively compare intelligence in the first place.

_________________
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Vana
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

Joined: 15 Sep 2009
Gender: Female
Posts: 57
Location: Kiev

21 Sep 2009, 9:51 pm

Sand wrote:

"Give me liberty of give me death." You have to call their bluff. And if you die, no loss, it was all free anyway.

Torture happens. People do hold out under torture. Can you? You can do anything.

(But a lot of 'sane' people do choose death if you think about it for a moment... As well, no matter what you choose, all choices include death in the end.)

A death threat, that's slavery. Bound and gagged, that's a prisoner. (A slave is a mind slave, a slave to $ymbols and signs; a prisoner is a body prisoner, a prisoner of chains and bars.) A slave is 'compeled' by something imaginary, a threat; not by a real force against the will. This is why we say things like 'a slave to money'. A slave and a prisoner both, by the fact of their being living souls, enjoy in what in law is called liberty. No one can ever make you move a muscle against your will. And you can not move a muscle but by your will. This is why you have 'freedom of movement'. You have 'freedom of expression' and 'the right to remain silent' because they are your natural capacities; they originate from 'inside' you, and they have no external cause whatever. 'Free-thought' obviously could never be stopped.

Awesomelyglorious
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 17 Dec 2005
Gender: Male
Posts: 13,157
Location: Omnipresent

21 Sep 2009, 10:18 pm

Sand wrote:

Well... I think Jean-Paul Sartre made the same argument in regards to the nature of freedom.

Additionally, the ability to die for a cause, or push so hard towards something that death becomes likely/certain, is a sort of freedom. By choosing death, one can potentially live, or at the very least, one can oppose that which one is opposed to, and thus express an individual's will. At the very least, choosing to die liberates a person of the burden of trying to stay alive, because many of our actions are bound by that constraint, but a person approaching death never has to given these constraints a worry at all.

Vana
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

Joined: 15 Sep 2009
Gender: Female
Posts: 57
Location: Kiev

21 Sep 2009, 10:40 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

By choosing death, one can potentially live, or at the very least, one can oppose that which one is opposed to, and thus express an individual's will. At the very least, choosing to die liberates a person of the burden of trying to stay alive, because many of our actions are bound by that constraint,

Bingo! Only when we percieve that our own life is nothing can we truly make moral and self-less choices. Or really choose to live.

Quote:

but a person approaching death never has to given these constraints a worry at all.

Is there someone who is not approaching death?

Sand
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Age: 98
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,484
Location: Finland

21 Sep 2009, 10:52 pm

This enthusiasm for not being alive is a rather huge piece of black humor worthy of only unthinking adolescent non-thinkers. Anybody who looks at the world with even a modicum of sanity knows that the basic possession of value that every living thing should hold most dear is life itself. If pain makes that not possible then there is absolute defeat but religions and nations have always held life cheap in comparison to the total nonsense they put forth of an afterlife or liberty or freedom or whatever. A person can sensibly die in the attempt to attain liberty but the goal is to live free, not to die. When you die you are not free. You are simply not. You are totally defeated.

techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 6 Feb 2005
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 24,506
Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi

21 Sep 2009, 11:02 pm

Sand wrote:

I have to say that statement is your own opinion and perspective - based on how your wired, your sense of self, how you sense the world around you, etc.. That a priori you know as 'you' could be different in an incredible myriad of ways and in ways that would be equally unshakable. Also, forms of oppression that someone can labor under can be an absolute horror show, some even with AS have inward identities that are constantly abashed by their external selves in ways that they can't possibly reconsile with thus their own body and nervous system betrays them to a degree where everything they could have wanted seems like its been strangled right out of their lives and any hope for the future - just for a relevant example.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 21 Sep 2009, 11:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sand
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Age: 98
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,484
Location: Finland

21 Sep 2009, 11:08 pm

techstepgenr8tion wrote:

Sand wrote:

You are stating the obvious. I cannot assume as acceptable what I see as incredible gullible stupidity.

techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 6 Feb 2005
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 24,506
Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi

21 Sep 2009, 11:10 pm

Sand wrote:

You are stating the obvious. I cannot assume as acceptable what I see as incredible gullible stupidity.

You could be right, I'm still trying to get a sense of what I'm reading and who its coming from.

Sand
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Age: 98
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,484
Location: Finland

21 Sep 2009, 11:36 pm

techstepgenr8tion wrote:

Sand wrote:

You are stating the obvious. I cannot assume as acceptable what I see as incredible gullible stupidity.

You could be right, I'm still trying to get a sense of what I'm reading and who its coming from.

To be alive is to be an active agent in the universe. To be dead is to be a set of rather complicated compounds no longer coordinated towards any purpose I feel enthusiastic about. If I were a male praying mantis and my genetic disposition provided my mate to bite off my head to release my sperm to continue the species I might have a different attitude but seems not necessary for my species, whatever the emotional temperament of my wife.

Fuzzy
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Age: 52
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,223
Location: Alberta Canada

21 Sep 2009, 11:49 pm

Orwell wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

And I am very bright. I am smarter than 95 percent of the human species now alive.

That 4% is roughly 260 million people. More than 1/4 billion. And still many more who are smarter yet. That puts my ego in its place, but does it do so for ruveyn? And I test higher than he does(but still short of orwell).

I too think IQ tests are banal and short sighted.

The people I choose as friends - such as orwell - are intelligent in ways that I am not. My personal growth depends on broadening my view points. I do not always agree with their positions, but what I gain from interaction with them is worldliness and increased empathy.

When I meet someone that has no empathy for others, not even a cognitive sort of empathy, I see that the only thing I will learn from them is closed mindedness. I do not ruminate very deeply on their proffered wisdom. Their sermon might as well be solitary, ruveyn.

_________________
davidred wrote...
I installed Ubuntu once and it completely destroyed my paying relationship with Microsoft.

skafather84
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 20 Mar 2006
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,848
Location: New Orleans, LA

22 Sep 2009, 12:12 am

Vana wrote:

Quote:

but a person approaching death never has to given these constraints a worry at all.

Is there someone who is not approaching death?

........But yeah, we're all dying. Why focus on that? That finish line comes no matter what...why bother staring it down?

_________________
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. ~Heinrich Heine, Almansor, 1823

?I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me.? - Hunter S. Thompson

Vana
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

Joined: 15 Sep 2009
Gender: Female
Posts: 57
Location: Kiev

22 Sep 2009, 12:40 am

skafather84 wrote:

That's great, you know South Park! Super. I love it!

Quote:

........But yeah, we're all dying. Why focus on that? That finish line comes no matter what...why bother staring it down?

Of course. Some people will do things one way, others will hear about some other way. That's just right. Don't give it any heed at all, like you say, just ignore death...

skafather84
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 20 Mar 2006
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,848
Location: New Orleans, LA

22 Sep 2009, 12:45 am

Vana wrote:

skafather84 wrote:

That's great, you know South Park! Super. I love it!..

Couldn't resist...when I read your response, it just came across to me with that same kind of teenage angst.

/impulsive

techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 6 Feb 2005
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 24,506
Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi

22 Sep 2009, 12:49 am

Sand wrote:

I can respect that. On the other hand though, I'm also personality quite familiar with the feeling that this very existence is a big nothing - especially for the amount of blood, sweat, and tears invested in growing up right, becoming an adult, trying to make your way in the world, trying to become enough of a man or woman to be an adequate mother/father, raising kids, etc., all of that seems like a draconian price to upkeep one's life in decent standing - then just have it all evaporate out into nothingness again as a zero sum. Can't help but mention that we're also hopelessly tethered to this thing called DNA which will, by its own mechanics, insure that we remain benighted in cruelty, baseness, and stupidity as long as we continue to draw breath as a race on this earth. For someone who does perhapse get existentially sickened watching nature shows and seeing the vulgarity that genetic survival-of-the-fittest imposes on the quality and value of this existence, a big nothing becomes an even bigger nothing.

Orwell
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 8 Aug 2007
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 12,518
Location: Room 101

22 Sep 2009, 1:00 am

Fuzzy wrote:

When I meet someone that has no empathy for others, not even a cognitive sort of empathy, I see that the only thing I will learn from them is closed mindedness. I do not ruminate very deeply on their proffered wisdom. Their sermon might as well be solitary, ruveyn.

"When you see a man of worth, think of how you may emulate him. When you see one who is unworthy, examine yourself." -Confucius

_________________
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Page 3 of 6 [ 95 posts ] Go to page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Next

Jump to:

What is a slave and what is a prisoner? (rough notes) Post Reply New Topic

What is a slave and what is a prisoner? (rough notes)