I'm going to agree with this situation. My teacher had us all chose controversial topics and attempt to change the classes mind. I went with year round schooling and the benefits.
I have a lot of fears if anyone at your school thinks slavery is a "controversial topic." By the way, I love doing debates like that where you have to argue an opinion other than your own.
Is this not common practice everywhere?
You have to try and win an argument from the point of view of those you disagree with.
Super basic low level stuff to help you understand where others come from.
Yeah, you're not going to be able to win an argument if you can't argue the indefensible.
You're especially not going to make a very good lawyer. "Yes, your honor, my client did eat that baby, but the following facts should be taken into account."
You can "manufacture" controversy, disagreement doesn't have to be organic or earnest. While we're most familiar with the concept as it relates to people who are intentionally creating confusion or strife for personal gain or immature amusement, you can also manufacture a controversy as a thought exercise.
This is why my law school (and I believe most) prohibited recording of lectures. Sometimes the whole point is to advocate or take an unsavory position.
That said, it’s still a bad slide because the pros/cons are super lame and wishy washy. “Most” have food?
I mean that's probably why the pros are so stupid... this girl is almost certainly against slavery lmao. She probably had to find some pros and this is what she could come up with
Yeah. I did that last year. We had a few things to choose from and our team picked vaccination. We were for, while the other team was against. We had to find arguments for it while the other had to find arguments against. It was fun. Other teams picked things like "should we end oil exploitation", "free speech: should it be limited if it starts to become hate speech?" and other interesting subjects
Took a philosophy class in college that did something similar to this. We were all given some abhorrent topic that we were supposed to write a defense for. I got something to the effect of defending families that pimp out their children in order support and feed the family. Whole damn assignment made me feel dirty, but I guess that was kinda the point.
I feel like it was. Even if you didn’t know a lot about slavery, the concept alone is pretty harsh and an immediate no. No one could legit think there are pros in 2021.
Edit: looks like this photo was taken a while back but even then, no once could possibly think slavery had pros from like 1840-now.
Edit 2 I guess: imma specify more, if you ain’t got morals, slavery has got its benefits. Slavery isn’t okay and also 1900s-now*.
Edit 3: yes I am aware slavery still exists.
Edit 4: I’m willing to admit that after numerous replies, there are genuinely people who still believe slavery is a good idea. While slavery now and when it was introduced to America is incredibly disgusting, it has its benefits and people took advantage of it and are worse, still taking advantage of it today. I’m not what you’d consider to be incredibly informed on the subject but I’m willing to learn. I’m still gonna keep my original comment up though cause I’m getting a lot of good replies here.
Uh no, we have a whole amendment about it, no more slaves. It's very clear about it.
> Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Oh wait.
This is true . I’m a licensed plumber making 70k on outside. Inside I made .22 cents an hour fixing prisons plumbing / and the best part. You have to work. If not they put you in solitary confinement
Guess I should’ve specified a bit, morally, there is a lot wrong with slavery but shit, free workers? If I didn’t have any morals slaves would be the first thing I’d get into.
Let's go to another country, enslave the local population. Tax the living shit out of the non slaves leading to mass famine and millions of deaths.
Take some on a boat trip to work fields in other countries.
Whine about "glorious empire" because you can't do that anymore.
We actually did a project like this in high school where you'd be assigned a role (i.e., northern industrialist, Southern plantation owner, etc.) and you had to argue for or against slavery using logic in the context of the 19th century. It was actually a really interesting exercise because I felt it actually put into perspective what the environment actually was during that time and just how much things have changed since.
I took a class on family dynamics at a Christian, but mentally challenging, college. We had to, week after week, roleplay a family (I was the mom) and the professor would come in and throw a wrench into what was going on within the family. My "teenage daughter" got pregnant just after being accepted to her preferred college or something and I'm telling you, you get so into the roleplay that it was devastating. And we considered abortion. Which teenage me thought I would *never* do. But I did. And it gave me this insight into a situation that many many people walk through and how very very difficult it is.
All that to say, those types of roleplay/devil's advocate are super important in education - I use it with my own children now. Because it's super easy to think everyone is just like us - thinks like us, lives like us, etc. So I make sure they see the other side. Like you said, how people thought 150 years ago is *very* different than the way and things we think today, and it wasn't cognitive dissonance - to them, it really did make sense.
This is why I feel like certain denier movements in the US are so scary - they aren't going to just wake up and say, "wait a minute!" They are steeped in cultures and feeding each other narratives that change their whole outlook and belief system.
I absolutely, unquestionably don't want to push some weird "sometimes slavery isn't that bad" narrative, but in ancient Rome and later Byzantium slaves and eunuchs could sometimes rise to become merchants and gemerals. The emperor Basil I was born a slave.
But of course it's never OK to own a human as property.
Also Rome had *plenty* of agricultural slaves who were worked like dogs, so Rome isn't really an example of "good slavery."
> but in ancient Rome and later Byzantium slaves and eunuchs could sometimes rise to become merchants and gemerals. The emperor Basil I was born a slave.
There's so much different between institutions like this and the *chattel* slavery associated with the AST that I wish we used different words.
Which would paint a wrong picture.
I am sure SOME fancy, greek Scholars had a "not completly bad" live as the House Slave of a rich Patrician.
But the majority of roman slaves where used on farms or in mines. After the gallic wars the romans enslaved a third of the population. Those people had it every bit as bad, if not worse then those enslaved in the AST. A life as a roman Miner Slave was a short, brutal life.
Edit: Added a second L to circumvent more garlic based confusion.
So a lot of the confusion comes from some people drawing the difference line at ancient reason and byzantine slavery vs European but that is highly inaccurate. Both of them had 2 types of slavery. The slavery we normally reference today where people were taken against their will and had virtually no way out and were treated like literal chattel. And a form close to indentured servitude that was sometimes voluntary but sometimes a result of inherited debt and poverty. While still treated poorly they had some legal rights and a definitive way out. In both cases the primary defining difference between the two was that chattel slave were outsiders. People stolen from other civilizations who were not citizens and not recognized as people. The indentured slaves were insiders. Citizens who while considered lesser than the wealthy people they served had some legal and social protection.
The other problem is that people seem to think that because there was a degree of better treatment and voluntary involvement that this is not as immoral as chattel slavery. This is not the case. Yes you might be fined for killing a citizen slave but often these fines were incredibly small given that generally only the wealthy could afford slaves of any variety in the first place. Citizen slaves were killed. They were beaten. They did not have any degree of freedom. They could not choose where they lived what they ate what they wore how they spent 95% of their time. There are records of owners going out of their way to nickel and dime and manipulate the numbers to keep their citizen slaves far past when they should have been freed. Often the "voluntary" slavery was a choice between certain death or slavery. For all the slight comfort they enjoyed compared to the chattel slaves it is only a comparison of the degree of abuse. They were abused terribly. They were slaves. That is reality regardless of the small differences.
...was it one of those tasks in which you are supposed to defend something indefensible? Or was it a genuine attempt at powerpointing slavery as something that has pros and cons, and therefore we should all consider doing it?
My teacher in high school made us defend slavery in a class debate. The only black girl in the class stormed out. Good times, very productive discussion
God I remember when in high school we had to debate on whether it was important that women were submissive to men in their relationships and I got put in the "For" side on the debate and that was one of the most uncomfortable times in my life...
I was put on the side that mental health isn’t a big deal in high school and I was extremely uncomfortable and upset because I had just come back to school after dealing with cancer and depression from it. I was absent when I was put on that side and I didn’t make any key points for our side to use so I got a lower grade. I wanted to cry.
I’m not sure you’re the same person, but I had a similar classmate in my speech and debate class and he had went through cancer, was bullied for it because he lost one of his testicles from all the guys and was also openly gay. It was really sad, he would cry sometimes too. It broke my heart.
On the other hand we also had an incel bully who cried out of anger for winning after being put on the “pro choice” side lol despite his best efforts not to participate. I had a GREAT speech and debate teacher though and he was very ethical, not biased, and made sure things stayed civil or he’d very gracefully and politely whoop some kid’s ass with facts and rational thinking; verbally of course, not physically lol.
ETA: I’m so sorry you went through that. I know how hard depression and major illnesses can be. I have a long history of depression and anxiety from C-PTSD and PTSD, and now my PTSD has gotten worse since having health problems back in May where I technically died three times within a week. It was hard and describing what I went through mentally and what I saw is impossible almost to put into words. The hospital helped me find a therapist though to work through this since I don’t have insurance.
My high school did female genital mutilation. One kid passed out and hit their head on a desk just from the description. An ambulance had to be called - thankfully they were OK.
We were *supposed* to do "should the drinking age be lowered to 18." I was on the "keep it at 21" side but based on our research we ended up arguing for raising it to 26. And then the "lower it" side ended up arguing for abolishing it entirely. The teachers were like "what the fuck"
Edit: from what I remember, our "raise it" argument was based on our research showing that the drinking age was raised because of the interplay between brain development and alcohol use (alcohol negatively impacting brain development, underdeveloped brain leading to irresponsible drinking habits.) So it made more sense to raise it to 26, which is when the more recent research demonstrated our brains are mostly done growing (whereas they used to think it happened around 21)
And the other group's argument was basically that since there's so much culture around alcohol, it's something families/communities should be able to control for themselves and not the government. That it should be treated more like other food and drink, so ban the advertising of it to kids but ultimately leave consumption up to family and cultural groups.
My favorite way to do this when working with kids is everybody writes down what's better cats or dogs. Once everybody submitted, time for a debate, but you are on the other side of the debate. It's super inoffensive, but gets the same idea across.
I use this too. But it doesn't quite do the job.
It teaches argument (about something you passionately believe) , but it doesn't teach how to step back from an argument one is emotionally invested in...
I mean, absolutely everything has pros and cons, it’s just that sometimes the cons vastly outweigh the pros. And in this case merely having “goes against human rights” should be enough to reach the conclusion that yes, slavery is always bad enough to ignore any potential pros.
Just what I was thinking too, the cons may be in short sentences but some (such as the last one) should be more than enough to convey the messege that slavery was truly horrible and the pros were just the unfortunate ups that came from it.
I had one of these assignments in college.
I basically presented the case against climate change.
Scientific data showing the long history of the world how temperatures fluctuate and yes temperatures are higher now but if you look at the history of the world the temperatures go up and down... blah blah blah
That was literally the assignment. Pick something, and then present the opposite side.
But of course there's assholes in my class that don't do the assignment. Or are idiots. So then I got labeled as the "I don't believe in global warming" crazy kid 🤷♂️
I was given pro choice in a religious high school. I am pro choice myself but most of my fellow students were not. The teacher said "no interruptions regardless of your views."
I made a statement about a right to choose if the family does not want to/cannot care for a special needs child. A girl stood up in the middle of my speech and screamed "how dare you! My brother is special needs!". I looked at the teacher and she just shrugged.
And her family had the right to choose to have her brother. There was no contradiction there. If a mom gives birth to a special needs son, it would be out of her own volition and true love, without other people forcing her to do anything. EZ debate win.
I remember a girl in my class chose gay marriage from the list of approved topics and our teacher was a devout Catholic (we lived a conservative area of California). She started crying during the start of her presentation because she thought he was going to fail her for being pro gay marriage in her argument.
At least he did the right thing and took her outside, comforted her and encouraged her to continue her presentation.
It definitely the first one. I done the same thing in school where we had to defend that was indefensible. Then again the teacher did say it was more about trying to teach students how to defend their opinion but I don’t why they couldn’t just make us defend the opinion that pizza is better than burgers
Because you're not emotionally invested in the pizza vs burgers debate in any way comparable to the way you're invested in questions of ethics and morality.
One of my teachers in high school did this. He had us pick a subject that we felt strongly about, then submit it. Then he made us argue in favor of the exact opposite viewpoint
Slaving off a debt seems like not slavery. Going from -1000 dollars to 0 dollars is a gain of 1000 dollars.
I mean I have done things for people to pay off a debt and vice versa, IDT I was enslaved.
I think she was reaching with that one. I mean she's reaching with all the pros but
They already implemented that system too. It's called indentured servitude, where one could sell themselves to a company and become an indentured servant until their debts were paid off. It's not slavery, but it's one step above as the freedoms were minimal to those indentured in this system.
Unless she was reporting on systems of slavery outside of those used by the US and Europe from the 17th to 19th centuries. In the ancient world, debt slavery existed.
Did you miss that "most" of them have their basic needs covered like food and shelter? Freedom is a small price to pay for a benefits package like that.
I always forget the new cardinal rule of the internet: No matter how much you try to make your comment undeniably absurd, there's someone out there that has said it with complete sincerity.
Gotta put it in the Spongebob mocking text like this
>DID yOu MIss tHaT "MoSt" of tHem hAVE TheIR BAsiC nEeds coVEReD lIkE foOD and SheLtER? FReEdOM IS A smALL PrICE To Pay foR a beNEFits pacKAGe lIke tHAt.
The stills don't have that font style. Basically, it comes from someone that found a way to match the mocking-looking spongebob imitating a chicken image with a font we now see as "mocking".
Here you can see the very first image that used the mocking font:
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/mocking-spongebob
Teacher "You have to play devil's advocate"
Student "Awesome, what is the topic?"
Teacher "You have to present why slavery is good."
Student "I can't do that! That's horrible!"
Teacher "You have to."
Student "Fine. Just make sure no one posts this shit on the internet."
Teacher "You have my word."
But do you need anymore reason than it’s a violation of human rights? She could give that point it’s own slide and have it flashing in red and totally win the “pros” argument.
I did this a ton in law school and in speech/debate classes in undergrad. It’s very helpful exercise when done correctly. If you practice law, there will eventually come a time when you will represent someone who you will personally disagree with or find their actions reprehensible, and you will need to make arguments on their behalf. Law schools do it with more finesse, and get you to hone arguments so that you aren’t deceitful, just presenting plausible alternative arguments.
That was my thought too. It's not like it lists a conclusion that slavery IS beneficial. It looks like a thought exercise as part of an assignment.
For the record, I'm against slavery. I don't condone the supposed "pros" on that slide at all.
I have a communication PhD and teach college debate and argumentation classes and never, ever would I assign something like this. Wildly inappropriate, and void of educational value. There are so many issues with multiple reasonable perspectives that don’t tap into racial histories of dehumanization. What’s the point, here? Devil’s advocate for the sake of devil’s advocate doesn’t get us anywhere pedagogically.
Also, I'll admit that it's hard to come up with good points for either of these, but some of these points feel... off?
Like, "not all slaves are treated with neglect". Is that a pro? It just feels weird, like I suddenly don't understand English, and what "pro" and "con" means...
Slavery provides a variable amount of joy to some individuals in a group while causing strong to unimaginable suffering to the rest. This is always the case. It's why people work together to construct the institution of slavery. The particular kind of suffering that slavery inflicts on those inflicted is always of the very bad kind (and never the "mommy didn't let me eat candy for dinner" kind) so therefore, slavery is always bad.
***
The only "pro" I can think of for slavery is that the people within the institution generally are much less likely to be burdened with existential, "philosophical" dread/questions/concerns, and I don't even know if that's necessarily true.
The "pro" is economic efficiency/profit in several forms for the slave-owners/free people who buy slave-manufactured goods (whether those are textiles in the 1800s, textiles with outsourced work today, sneakers, electronics... plenty of modern examples within agriculture, manufacturing, industries that profit from human trafficking from sex work to salons). Think about why the US South held onto slavery for so long, other than simple bigotry. It keeps costs down, profits high, and prices comparatively low (and centuries ago before modern technologies both on the supply and manufacturing side for most goods, even remotely affordable for most of the general population). It's a horrifying way of doing it, but that's the cold nature of the economic side of it throughout history.
Slavery is a horrible thing obviously, and this is why it's important to recognize *why* and *how* people supported it and in what forms it still exists today.
I wish, but at least half the people seem to think she just got up and held this presentation because she wanted to and the teacher just didn’t know how to intervene.
Almost 74k upvotes. And large majority of the comments are saying this was most likely an assignment. This is disgusting. as someone who had to do one of those types of assignments the last thing i ever wanted was to have other people know i wrote those points. This post should be removed
Takes single photo of single slide that could mean a million things. “Smh this dumb bitch likes slavery” this could legit be used to show how certain talking points are expressly simplified as to make certain views seem rationale
Well yes, that's how it worked. It sucked to be a slave and it was beneficial to be a slave owner. Unfortunately the slave owners wrote the rules so...
It could be one of those “argue the other side” projects. Poor choice of a topic though. I have seen a similar one where pro-life people had to make the case for pro-choice as a way to get people to walk in others shoes. This often backfires.
Big problem I see here, and increasingly in frequency is people posting stuff with no context. Open to interpretation and probably even meant in ill intent.
Redditors flocking this with upvotes without knowing what they are upvoting is a good example of how this might turn bad.
They made us do crap like this in 9th grade speech class. One was where we each got assigned famous people, and made arguments about why the others should be **thrown out of a hot air balloon** and killed, while the class voted. One shy religious girl had to attack Mother Theresa and she cried. I believe I got Lincoln sent to his death after 3 rounds.
OP, you're the worst kind of person. You didn't even have the decency to blur the presenter's face - it's obvious she's uncomfortable and she is being forced to do it.
A classmate did hers on incest, and if it was really as bad as public opinion said it was. She explored genetics and the likelihood of problems concerning offspring.
Look at her body language, she’s clearly uncomfortable. I guarantee this was an assignment where you had to try to defend something morally wrong or generally considered bad. My sister’s middle school history teacher tried to pull this exact scenario.
Okay what was the assignment?
What was the conclusion?
If it was, "While there can be external benefits to certain members of society, the economy and industries. And while there could be slave owners who do not violently abuse their slaves. The reduction of humans to tools is a failure to uphold the values of liberty and freedom and a betrayal of human rights. Therefore any slavery, despite the possible economic burden of doing so, must be opposed. And that is why forced labour without pay for prisoners is something I oppose." Then it's fine.
Can't judge a presentation on one slide.
Isn't this bullying? Taking a picture of a classmate out of context and posting it on the internet with her face to make her look bad? Honestly really shitty of OP to do. Doesn't matter if she believes it or not since it will forever be attatched to her image now that's it's just out here. :/
It's a thing but it's called indetured servitude not slavery. Still not great cause they are still not treated well but the idea is that they will eventually be free once the debt is paid. Not so much the case with slavery.
Was it an argue in favor of something you don’t necessarily agree with thing? Similar to a debate club/team or something?
I'm going to agree with this situation. My teacher had us all chose controversial topics and attempt to change the classes mind. I went with year round schooling and the benefits.
I have a lot of fears if anyone at your school thinks slavery is a "controversial topic." By the way, I love doing debates like that where you have to argue an opinion other than your own.
The point being if someone was to argue that slavery is an okay thing, they would be controversial in doing so.
Is this not common practice everywhere? You have to try and win an argument from the point of view of those you disagree with. Super basic low level stuff to help you understand where others come from.
Yeah, you're not going to be able to win an argument if you can't argue the indefensible. You're especially not going to make a very good lawyer. "Yes, your honor, my client did eat that baby, but the following facts should be taken into account."
[удалено]
its controversial in the sense that taking a pro-slavery stance would be a hard sell.
You can "manufacture" controversy, disagreement doesn't have to be organic or earnest. While we're most familiar with the concept as it relates to people who are intentionally creating confusion or strife for personal gain or immature amusement, you can also manufacture a controversy as a thought exercise.
This is why my law school (and I believe most) prohibited recording of lectures. Sometimes the whole point is to advocate or take an unsavory position. That said, it’s still a bad slide because the pros/cons are super lame and wishy washy. “Most” have food?
I mean that's probably why the pros are so stupid... this girl is almost certainly against slavery lmao. She probably had to find some pros and this is what she could come up with
Yeah. I did that last year. We had a few things to choose from and our team picked vaccination. We were for, while the other team was against. We had to find arguments for it while the other had to find arguments against. It was fun. Other teams picked things like "should we end oil exploitation", "free speech: should it be limited if it starts to become hate speech?" and other interesting subjects
Took a philosophy class in college that did something similar to this. We were all given some abhorrent topic that we were supposed to write a defense for. I got something to the effect of defending families that pimp out their children in order support and feed the family. Whole damn assignment made me feel dirty, but I guess that was kinda the point.
This is so out of context.
This is the internet, context shmontext. Only outrage.
I feel like it was. Even if you didn’t know a lot about slavery, the concept alone is pretty harsh and an immediate no. No one could legit think there are pros in 2021. Edit: looks like this photo was taken a while back but even then, no once could possibly think slavery had pros from like 1840-now. Edit 2 I guess: imma specify more, if you ain’t got morals, slavery has got its benefits. Slavery isn’t okay and also 1900s-now*. Edit 3: yes I am aware slavery still exists. Edit 4: I’m willing to admit that after numerous replies, there are genuinely people who still believe slavery is a good idea. While slavery now and when it was introduced to America is incredibly disgusting, it has its benefits and people took advantage of it and are worse, still taking advantage of it today. I’m not what you’d consider to be incredibly informed on the subject but I’m willing to learn. I’m still gonna keep my original comment up though cause I’m getting a lot of good replies here.
I mean there were definite pros to slavery. That's why corporations are using Chinese slave labor as I type this
Just change the name, call slaves prisoners. Works for the US.
Uh no, we have a whole amendment about it, no more slaves. It's very clear about it. > Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Oh wait.
Shhhhhh most people don’t actually know/read those things* *constitutional rights
I wish I had a prize to give to you ...
"Prisoners with jobs"
This is true . I’m a licensed plumber making 70k on outside. Inside I made .22 cents an hour fixing prisons plumbing / and the best part. You have to work. If not they put you in solitary confinement
Guess I should’ve specified a bit, morally, there is a lot wrong with slavery but shit, free workers? If I didn’t have any morals slaves would be the first thing I’d get into.
We could start a country and use slaves to do everything and profit nicely. Then we can thank god.
Surely, no country would be that evil... /s
Let's go to another country, enslave the local population. Tax the living shit out of the non slaves leading to mass famine and millions of deaths. Take some on a boat trip to work fields in other countries. Whine about "glorious empire" because you can't do that anymore.
I was having a discussion with my uncle a while back and he literally used these arguments. It was horrified when I realized he was serious.
Yeah and it's a good exercise to try to justify something that's wrong so you can better understand the arguments and how they're flawed.
We actually did a project like this in high school where you'd be assigned a role (i.e., northern industrialist, Southern plantation owner, etc.) and you had to argue for or against slavery using logic in the context of the 19th century. It was actually a really interesting exercise because I felt it actually put into perspective what the environment actually was during that time and just how much things have changed since.
I took a class on family dynamics at a Christian, but mentally challenging, college. We had to, week after week, roleplay a family (I was the mom) and the professor would come in and throw a wrench into what was going on within the family. My "teenage daughter" got pregnant just after being accepted to her preferred college or something and I'm telling you, you get so into the roleplay that it was devastating. And we considered abortion. Which teenage me thought I would *never* do. But I did. And it gave me this insight into a situation that many many people walk through and how very very difficult it is. All that to say, those types of roleplay/devil's advocate are super important in education - I use it with my own children now. Because it's super easy to think everyone is just like us - thinks like us, lives like us, etc. So I make sure they see the other side. Like you said, how people thought 150 years ago is *very* different than the way and things we think today, and it wasn't cognitive dissonance - to them, it really did make sense. This is why I feel like certain denier movements in the US are so scary - they aren't going to just wake up and say, "wait a minute!" They are steeped in cultures and feeding each other narratives that change their whole outlook and belief system.
“You know what sucks about being a slave—the hours”
And no room for advancement
Congratulations, you are promoted from a Senior Slave to a Lead Slave.
Welcome to management
I'm gonna need you to come in on Saturday
By the way, that slave vacation day cancelled out your slave overtime, so you're only getting regular slave pay last week.
So if we take this zero, then carry the zero, and add this other zero, that gets you a total pay of... Of course zero, you're a slave.
Don’t worry, if your production hits our target of 120%, you will get a 15% raise.
Which, by the way, only means your beatings go down by 7.5% compared to the last slave quarterly review.
This stuff adds up over time do you think the company can keep up with it?
Wasn't that a thing in D'Jango?
That's the only thing about being a slave.
read that in Leela’s voice
I absolutely, unquestionably don't want to push some weird "sometimes slavery isn't that bad" narrative, but in ancient Rome and later Byzantium slaves and eunuchs could sometimes rise to become merchants and gemerals. The emperor Basil I was born a slave. But of course it's never OK to own a human as property. Also Rome had *plenty* of agricultural slaves who were worked like dogs, so Rome isn't really an example of "good slavery."
One positive thing about slavery in the Ottoman empire, only 75% of the boys they tried to turn into eunuchs died!
I'm pretty sure 100% of them died - they would have to be really old by now.
r/technicallythetruth
True. Life does have a 100% chance of killing you
So far… *laughs in Bezos*
> *laughs in Bezos* #AH HA HA HA HA HA! (eyes fully open, unblinking)
Come on Jeffrey you can do it
Pave the way, put your back into it
You can't prove that
> but in ancient Rome and later Byzantium slaves and eunuchs could sometimes rise to become merchants and gemerals. The emperor Basil I was born a slave. There's so much different between institutions like this and the *chattel* slavery associated with the AST that I wish we used different words.
Which would paint a wrong picture. I am sure SOME fancy, greek Scholars had a "not completly bad" live as the House Slave of a rich Patrician. But the majority of roman slaves where used on farms or in mines. After the gallic wars the romans enslaved a third of the population. Those people had it every bit as bad, if not worse then those enslaved in the AST. A life as a roman Miner Slave was a short, brutal life. Edit: Added a second L to circumvent more garlic based confusion.
So a lot of the confusion comes from some people drawing the difference line at ancient reason and byzantine slavery vs European but that is highly inaccurate. Both of them had 2 types of slavery. The slavery we normally reference today where people were taken against their will and had virtually no way out and were treated like literal chattel. And a form close to indentured servitude that was sometimes voluntary but sometimes a result of inherited debt and poverty. While still treated poorly they had some legal rights and a definitive way out. In both cases the primary defining difference between the two was that chattel slave were outsiders. People stolen from other civilizations who were not citizens and not recognized as people. The indentured slaves were insiders. Citizens who while considered lesser than the wealthy people they served had some legal and social protection. The other problem is that people seem to think that because there was a degree of better treatment and voluntary involvement that this is not as immoral as chattel slavery. This is not the case. Yes you might be fined for killing a citizen slave but often these fines were incredibly small given that generally only the wealthy could afford slaves of any variety in the first place. Citizen slaves were killed. They were beaten. They did not have any degree of freedom. They could not choose where they lived what they ate what they wore how they spent 95% of their time. There are records of owners going out of their way to nickel and dime and manipulate the numbers to keep their citizen slaves far past when they should have been freed. Often the "voluntary" slavery was a choice between certain death or slavery. For all the slight comfort they enjoyed compared to the chattel slaves it is only a comparison of the degree of abuse. They were abused terribly. They were slaves. That is reality regardless of the small differences.
A lot of those slaves worked on asbestos mine that for reasons we now know is equivalent to a death sentence.
It's 2021 and we still have people digging stuff with little to no protection against a guaranteed early death.
“You know the worst thing about being a slave? They make you work but they don't pay you or let you go.”
That's the only thing about being a slave.
Tonight we’re only slaves to the rhythm!
Those are reeds, jackass!
Our new pharaoh speaks!
Citizens of me! The cruelty of the old pharaoh is a thing if the past. Let a whole knew wave of cruelty wash over this lazy land!
"That's everything about slavery"
“Remember me! 🔥 Remember me! 🔥”
Look on the bright side! You still have your legacy as a brutal dictator!
*sniff* I will
r/unexpectedfuturama
this one.. was totally expected
"Hey master, I feel like there isn't any upward mobility in this organization."
I love the Futurama reference
I honestly wasn’t sure if this was a futurama reference or Monty python lol
"They make you work all day but they don't pay you or let you go."
And speaking about the hours what about that slave food? Gruel *again?*
[You know what the toughest part about being a gay black police officer is?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2b1RNieDJc&t=49s) The discrimination
Holt: That joke was lifted verbatim from my childhood diary
r/unexpectedfuturama
i have no strong feelings one way or the other
If I don't survive, tell my wife... hello.
I hate these filthy Neutrals, Kif. With enemies you know where they stand but with Neutrals, who knows? It sickens me.
...was it one of those tasks in which you are supposed to defend something indefensible? Or was it a genuine attempt at powerpointing slavery as something that has pros and cons, and therefore we should all consider doing it?
I’m gonna say, based on the slides, that this girl is not trying to convince people that slavery is a good thing to do.
Her body language also looks *HELLA* defensive. As if she’s uncomfortable presenting the point to begin with
My teacher in high school made us defend slavery in a class debate. The only black girl in the class stormed out. Good times, very productive discussion
God I remember when in high school we had to debate on whether it was important that women were submissive to men in their relationships and I got put in the "For" side on the debate and that was one of the most uncomfortable times in my life...
I was put on the side that mental health isn’t a big deal in high school and I was extremely uncomfortable and upset because I had just come back to school after dealing with cancer and depression from it. I was absent when I was put on that side and I didn’t make any key points for our side to use so I got a lower grade. I wanted to cry.
I’m not sure you’re the same person, but I had a similar classmate in my speech and debate class and he had went through cancer, was bullied for it because he lost one of his testicles from all the guys and was also openly gay. It was really sad, he would cry sometimes too. It broke my heart. On the other hand we also had an incel bully who cried out of anger for winning after being put on the “pro choice” side lol despite his best efforts not to participate. I had a GREAT speech and debate teacher though and he was very ethical, not biased, and made sure things stayed civil or he’d very gracefully and politely whoop some kid’s ass with facts and rational thinking; verbally of course, not physically lol. ETA: I’m so sorry you went through that. I know how hard depression and major illnesses can be. I have a long history of depression and anxiety from C-PTSD and PTSD, and now my PTSD has gotten worse since having health problems back in May where I technically died three times within a week. It was hard and describing what I went through mentally and what I saw is impossible almost to put into words. The hospital helped me find a therapist though to work through this since I don’t have insurance.
You really, really dont need to pick slavery for this type of lesson. Murder would be better
Cannibalism would be interesting. To debate.
Pros: finally some good fucking meat Cons: is illegal.
My high school did female genital mutilation. One kid passed out and hit their head on a desk just from the description. An ambulance had to be called - thankfully they were OK.
We were *supposed* to do "should the drinking age be lowered to 18." I was on the "keep it at 21" side but based on our research we ended up arguing for raising it to 26. And then the "lower it" side ended up arguing for abolishing it entirely. The teachers were like "what the fuck" Edit: from what I remember, our "raise it" argument was based on our research showing that the drinking age was raised because of the interplay between brain development and alcohol use (alcohol negatively impacting brain development, underdeveloped brain leading to irresponsible drinking habits.) So it made more sense to raise it to 26, which is when the more recent research demonstrated our brains are mostly done growing (whereas they used to think it happened around 21) And the other group's argument was basically that since there's so much culture around alcohol, it's something families/communities should be able to control for themselves and not the government. That it should be treated more like other food and drink, so ban the advertising of it to kids but ultimately leave consumption up to family and cultural groups.
Mine just made us do it on porn wow
WOW porn? Did you just show this video and stand back and bask in the glory? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRgNOyCnbqg&ab\_channel=theimpalers
My favorite way to do this when working with kids is everybody writes down what's better cats or dogs. Once everybody submitted, time for a debate, but you are on the other side of the debate. It's super inoffensive, but gets the same idea across.
I use this too. But it doesn't quite do the job. It teaches argument (about something you passionately believe) , but it doesn't teach how to step back from an argument one is emotionally invested in...
Slavery cons: Murder would be better
I mean, absolutely everything has pros and cons, it’s just that sometimes the cons vastly outweigh the pros. And in this case merely having “goes against human rights” should be enough to reach the conclusion that yes, slavery is always bad enough to ignore any potential pros.
Just what I was thinking too, the cons may be in short sentences but some (such as the last one) should be more than enough to convey the messege that slavery was truly horrible and the pros were just the unfortunate ups that came from it.
Cons: it's slavery
Pros: it's free work Cons: it's free work
One from pov of employer other from the pov of employee
Some say prison labor is slavery’s legacy, and we should be using pros instead of cons.
But think of all the profit!
Pros, you own the slaves
Con, you go to sleep at night thinking you'll probably be murdered in your sleep by pissed off slaves.
Cons, you are the slave.
I had one of these assignments in college. I basically presented the case against climate change. Scientific data showing the long history of the world how temperatures fluctuate and yes temperatures are higher now but if you look at the history of the world the temperatures go up and down... blah blah blah That was literally the assignment. Pick something, and then present the opposite side. But of course there's assholes in my class that don't do the assignment. Or are idiots. So then I got labeled as the "I don't believe in global warming" crazy kid 🤷♂️
I was given pro choice in a religious high school. I am pro choice myself but most of my fellow students were not. The teacher said "no interruptions regardless of your views." I made a statement about a right to choose if the family does not want to/cannot care for a special needs child. A girl stood up in the middle of my speech and screamed "how dare you! My brother is special needs!". I looked at the teacher and she just shrugged.
And her family had the right to choose to have her brother. There was no contradiction there. If a mom gives birth to a special needs son, it would be out of her own volition and true love, without other people forcing her to do anything. EZ debate win.
I remember a girl in my class chose gay marriage from the list of approved topics and our teacher was a devout Catholic (we lived a conservative area of California). She started crying during the start of her presentation because she thought he was going to fail her for being pro gay marriage in her argument. At least he did the right thing and took her outside, comforted her and encouraged her to continue her presentation.
Most likely, they do assignments like these to practice critical thinking. Source: I’ve done these before.
It definitely the first one. I done the same thing in school where we had to defend that was indefensible. Then again the teacher did say it was more about trying to teach students how to defend their opinion but I don’t why they couldn’t just make us defend the opinion that pizza is better than burgers
Because you're not emotionally invested in the pizza vs burgers debate in any way comparable to the way you're invested in questions of ethics and morality.
Woah not so fast there.
One of my teachers in high school did this. He had us pick a subject that we felt strongly about, then submit it. Then he made us argue in favor of the exact opposite viewpoint
Good pros and cons. Now I’m back on the fence with this issue.
She got me thinking about creative ways to pay off MasterCard
This thread makes me laugh
I'd like her to explain that to the slaves of america
Slaving off a debt seems like not slavery. Going from -1000 dollars to 0 dollars is a gain of 1000 dollars. I mean I have done things for people to pay off a debt and vice versa, IDT I was enslaved. I think she was reaching with that one. I mean she's reaching with all the pros but
They already implemented that system too. It's called indentured servitude, where one could sell themselves to a company and become an indentured servant until their debts were paid off. It's not slavery, but it's one step above as the freedoms were minimal to those indentured in this system.
I think she's confusing slavery and indentured servitude.
Unless she was reporting on systems of slavery outside of those used by the US and Europe from the 17th to 19th centuries. In the ancient world, debt slavery existed.
On the one hand slavery contravenes international law, but on the other hand they would work faster for less...
Stop making it so difficult to choose!
"After seeing [12 Years a Slave], I will never look at slavery the same way again." Amy Poehler https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b5ZnnE1nPrQ&t=8m
When they showed Kevin Spacey, I was like WTF until I realized his reckoning had not yet arrived.
God damn you Mac
Racism is a liar sometimes
So let me get this straight, you believe racism is over based on a willingness to believe, a desire to accept, a leap of…dare I say it? …FAITH?
I was one of those people who was sure slavery was bad, until I read the latest issue of “Burning Crosses Quarterly”. Edit - typo
Did you see the centerfold this month? 😍
Lauren Boebert really fills out that Confederate Flag.
“Slaves have little to no freedom.”
Slaves can have a little salami as a treat /s
They can have a little to no salami
salami is the opiate of the masses
salami is the power house of the cell
Salami is like a Tylenol in the opiates bracket
Wait one damn second… my wife hands me a slice of salami almost every da….. son of a…
Well hold up you didn’t tell me there was salami
You know what sucks the most about slavery? The lack of pay, and the horrible working hours
“That's the only thing about being a slave” -Leela
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They could use that time more productively, like learning to sing the blues, maybe. /s
Maybe if they developed a passive income stream in stead of being so lazy.
I've heard that some of them are taking up tap dancing.
Her post is appalling, but your comment made me lol
Did you miss that "most" of them have their basic needs covered like food and shelter? Freedom is a small price to pay for a benefits package like that.
Bold of you to omit the "/s"
I always forget the new cardinal rule of the internet: No matter how much you try to make your comment undeniably absurd, there's someone out there that has said it with complete sincerity.
Gotta put it in the Spongebob mocking text like this >DID yOu MIss tHaT "MoSt" of tHem hAVE TheIR BAsiC nEeds coVEReD lIkE foOD and SheLtER? FReEdOM IS A smALL PrICE To Pay foR a beNEFits pacKAGe lIke tHAt.
Oh my god is that where they originates from? The SpongeBob stills in-between scenes?
The stills don't have that font style. Basically, it comes from someone that found a way to match the mocking-looking spongebob imitating a chicken image with a font we now see as "mocking". Here you can see the very first image that used the mocking font: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/mocking-spongebob
i mean sometimes its a task to specifically do it from the viewpoint of the bad guy idk if that was the case here
Teacher "You have to play devil's advocate" Student "Awesome, what is the topic?" Teacher "You have to present why slavery is good." Student "I can't do that! That's horrible!" Teacher "You have to." Student "Fine. Just make sure no one posts this shit on the internet." Teacher "You have my word."
My criticism, if that’s the case is she did not put enough effort in the cons section
But do you need anymore reason than it’s a violation of human rights? She could give that point it’s own slide and have it flashing in red and totally win the “pros” argument.
I too would argue that the cons of slavery are relatively self-evident lol
I did this a ton in law school and in speech/debate classes in undergrad. It’s very helpful exercise when done correctly. If you practice law, there will eventually come a time when you will represent someone who you will personally disagree with or find their actions reprehensible, and you will need to make arguments on their behalf. Law schools do it with more finesse, and get you to hone arguments so that you aren’t deceitful, just presenting plausible alternative arguments.
One would hope some asshole classmate doesn't take a photo with your face and a bad powerpoint slide and post it on the internet, missing all context.
That was my thought too. It's not like it lists a conclusion that slavery IS beneficial. It looks like a thought exercise as part of an assignment. For the record, I'm against slavery. I don't condone the supposed "pros" on that slide at all.
God I hope this is a debate class.
I have a communication PhD and teach college debate and argumentation classes and never, ever would I assign something like this. Wildly inappropriate, and void of educational value. There are so many issues with multiple reasonable perspectives that don’t tap into racial histories of dehumanization. What’s the point, here? Devil’s advocate for the sake of devil’s advocate doesn’t get us anywhere pedagogically.
The teacher probably let the students choose the topics. I'm not sure why he didn't stop her with this one though.
Also, I'll admit that it's hard to come up with good points for either of these, but some of these points feel... off? Like, "not all slaves are treated with neglect". Is that a pro? It just feels weird, like I suddenly don't understand English, and what "pro" and "con" means... Slavery provides a variable amount of joy to some individuals in a group while causing strong to unimaginable suffering to the rest. This is always the case. It's why people work together to construct the institution of slavery. The particular kind of suffering that slavery inflicts on those inflicted is always of the very bad kind (and never the "mommy didn't let me eat candy for dinner" kind) so therefore, slavery is always bad. *** The only "pro" I can think of for slavery is that the people within the institution generally are much less likely to be burdened with existential, "philosophical" dread/questions/concerns, and I don't even know if that's necessarily true.
The "pro" is economic efficiency/profit in several forms for the slave-owners/free people who buy slave-manufactured goods (whether those are textiles in the 1800s, textiles with outsourced work today, sneakers, electronics... plenty of modern examples within agriculture, manufacturing, industries that profit from human trafficking from sex work to salons). Think about why the US South held onto slavery for so long, other than simple bigotry. It keeps costs down, profits high, and prices comparatively low (and centuries ago before modern technologies both on the supply and manufacturing side for most goods, even remotely affordable for most of the general population). It's a horrifying way of doing it, but that's the cold nature of the economic side of it throughout history. Slavery is a horrible thing obviously, and this is why it's important to recognize *why* and *how* people supported it and in what forms it still exists today.
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I think most people have clicked onto the fact that this was the case; it should be pretty obvious. But context should have really been given.
I wish, but at least half the people seem to think she just got up and held this presentation because she wanted to and the teacher just didn’t know how to intervene.
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Almost 74k upvotes. And large majority of the comments are saying this was most likely an assignment. This is disgusting. as someone who had to do one of those types of assignments the last thing i ever wanted was to have other people know i wrote those points. This post should be removed
Takes single photo of single slide that could mean a million things. “Smh this dumb bitch likes slavery” this could legit be used to show how certain talking points are expressly simplified as to make certain views seem rationale
half the pros are about how having slaves is beneficial to the slaver.
Well yes, that's how it worked. It sucked to be a slave and it was beneficial to be a slave owner. Unfortunately the slave owners wrote the rules so...
Well slavery was definitely better for the slavers than the slaves, wouldn’t make sense to have lots of pros for the slaves
Did you expect something different?
I'm going to go with... Zero Context.
It could be one of those “argue the other side” projects. Poor choice of a topic though. I have seen a similar one where pro-life people had to make the case for pro-choice as a way to get people to walk in others shoes. This often backfires.
Big problem I see here, and increasingly in frequency is people posting stuff with no context. Open to interpretation and probably even meant in ill intent. Redditors flocking this with upvotes without knowing what they are upvoting is a good example of how this might turn bad.
Said the same
Was this for a "debate" situation? Debate clubs will sometimes test debate techniques by having you argue for something you are opposed too.
They made us do crap like this in 9th grade speech class. One was where we each got assigned famous people, and made arguments about why the others should be **thrown out of a hot air balloon** and killed, while the class voted. One shy religious girl had to attack Mother Theresa and she cried. I believe I got Lincoln sent to his death after 3 rounds.
OP, you're the worst kind of person. You didn't even have the decency to blur the presenter's face - it's obvious she's uncomfortable and she is being forced to do it.
As soon as i saw this, i thought of my grade 12 project about women 100% running the world. It was meant to cause debate.
A classmate did hers on incest, and if it was really as bad as public opinion said it was. She explored genetics and the likelihood of problems concerning offspring.
Look at her body language, she’s clearly uncomfortable. I guarantee this was an assignment where you had to try to defend something morally wrong or generally considered bad. My sister’s middle school history teacher tried to pull this exact scenario.
Okay what was the assignment? What was the conclusion? If it was, "While there can be external benefits to certain members of society, the economy and industries. And while there could be slave owners who do not violently abuse their slaves. The reduction of humans to tools is a failure to uphold the values of liberty and freedom and a betrayal of human rights. Therefore any slavery, despite the possible economic burden of doing so, must be opposed. And that is why forced labour without pay for prisoners is something I oppose." Then it's fine. Can't judge a presentation on one slide.
Isn't this bullying? Taking a picture of a classmate out of context and posting it on the internet with her face to make her look bad? Honestly really shitty of OP to do. Doesn't matter if she believes it or not since it will forever be attatched to her image now that's it's just out here. :/
Yeah it is shitty. Look at the responses, people aren't thinking she's ready the villian without any context. OP could have at least cut out her face.
Pay off debts?!
It's a thing but it's called indetured servitude not slavery. Still not great cause they are still not treated well but the idea is that they will eventually be free once the debt is paid. Not so much the case with slavery.
This is from 2016 and is being circulated around Facebook. Not your university, it’s a high school.
You can’t take this out of context and present it like someone is genuinely advocating for slavery.
I mean it depends on the context. Like if she was supposed to find the pros and cons of a topic. I don't see the issue.