Sad sight outside Wal-Mart - nobody helps fallen man

electrictroy

electrictroy

Banned
I was at Wal-Mart yesterday & I saw a middle-aged man slip on the ice & fall to his knees - seriously hurting himself. Did anybody help the man? Nope. Just left him lay there as they streamed in & out of the store.



By the time I got there, I could see the blood staining his pants, so it was obvious this was not some trivial fall. He badly scrapped himself, so I helped him inside & to the rest room so he could clean the wounds.


Sad.


It's christmas time, but instead of charity, people are showing callousness: Just letting some poor middle-aged man lay there on the sidewalk. What's happened to our society?
 
Fortunately there are a lot of good people in this world, unfortunately they just were not shopping at Wal-Mart yesterday
 
They didn't step on him, for walmart that's an improvement.

Though this reminds me of a time I slipped on ice in cambridge. I had a heavy backpack (books and stuff I bought shopping) and fell, slamming my knee into the ground. Took me about 2 minutes to get up, since I couldn't move my leg very well and I kept reslipping, and no one even bothered to help. I had to walk 15 minutes to a subway station, as I was in the middle of two. My knee killed and I was limping.
 
People are just too afraid of a lawsuit, and I don't blame them. There was this one case where a thief fell through a greenhouse roof, landed on a knife, and won huge money from the greenhouse owner in court. Ambulance-chasers and their powerful lobbyist groups in congress have made it too risky to help your fellow man. I still help people out, I know it's stupid and idealistic, but like yourself I just can't see being so selfish and letting them win.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']They didn't step on him, for walmart that's an improvement.

Though this reminds me of a time I slipped on ice in cambridge. I had a heavy backpack (books and stuff I bought shopping) and fell, slamming my knee into the ground. Took me about 2 minutes to get up, since I couldn't move my leg very well and I kept reslipping, and no one even bothered to help. I had to walk 15 minutes to a subway station, as I was in the middle of two. My knee killed and I was limping.[/QUOTE]

People laugh at me when I fall, so I suppose you can consider yourself lucky that they just ignored you.

However, this comes as no surprise to me. People are generally assholes.
 
[quote name='camoor']People are just too afraid of a lawsuit, and I don't blame them. .[/QUOTE]
We are protected by "Good Samaritan" laws. For example, you see some guy choking & you try to squeeze him & instead break a rib that punctures his heart (hey, it can happen) & leave him dead.

Good Samaritan laws protect us. We were *trying* to help, so case dismissed.

troy
 
[quote name='electrictroy']We are protected by "Good Samaritan" laws. For example, you see some guy choking & you try to squeeze him & instead break a rib that punctures his heart (hey, it can happen) & leave him dead.

Good Samaritan laws protect us. We were *trying* to help, so case dismissed.

troy[/QUOTE]

Those aren't a blanket cover for preventing lawsuits (and not all states have them IIRC). It's basically something to prevent mecial care personel from being sued while rendering aid in an emergency. For starters there has to be the emergency, using the same example if the guy you tried to save was not actually choking but you thought he was, you could be sued. Also worsening injuries is not always coverd, particularly if you don't have any medical training. For instance in an effort to help someone who had wrecked in their car you pull them out when there's no immediate danger, but the process of moving them causes a neck injury that wouldn't be covered.

All that said I'd probably still help the guy if it looked like he needed.
 
[quote name='electrictroy']I was at Wal-Mart yesterday & I saw a middle-aged man slip on the ice & fall to his knees - seriously hurting himself. Did anybody help the man? Nope. Just left him lay there as they streamed in & out of the store.[/QUOTE]
It was just a ploy to save a good parking space. :cool:
 
[quote name='Duo_Maxwell']It's basically something to prevent mecial care personel from being sued while rendering aid in an emergency. For starters there has to be the emergency,...... Also worsening injuries is not always coverd, particularly if you don't have any medical training. [/QUOTE]


I think you have it backwards. *Trained* personnel can still be sued, because they should know what they are doing.

But untrained people (us) can not be sued, because the goal of a Good Samaritan law is to *encourage* people to not just stand by & do nothing. The goal of the Good Samaritan law is to encourage people to practice CPR & other Aid Techniques, even if they do it wrong.

troy
 
[quote name='capitalist_mao']People laugh at me when I fall, so I suppose you can consider yourself lucky that they just ignored you.

However, this comes as no surprise to me. People are generally assholes.[/QUOTE]

Actually you have better luck getting someone to help you when there's only one person around, the more people around they just assume someone else will do it. It's an example of bystander apathy, the most well known incident being the murder of Kitty Genovese, which shocked many people.

I remember they even aired something to this effect on nbc or one of the major networks. They had 2 actors (one male, one female) and the "boyfriend" was being very aggressive and threatening to his "girlfriend", who was terrified. The vast majority of people did nothing (many tried not to look), some picked up their cell phone (most put it down, I think one made a phone call) a very few said something, but only a couple didn't walk away when the boyfriend said everything was ok. Afterward they interviewed a bunch of people and, after being told of the situation, most expressed suprise that they did nothing and just left them alone. They never thought they'd do that.

Some people aren't like that though. I remember a time I saw a motorcycle stop at a red light and the guy just tipped over. A woman ran out onto the street to help him (he wasn't hurt), but thats the exception.
 
[quote name='electrictroy']I was at Wal-Mart yesterday & I saw a middle-aged man slip on the ice & fall to his knees - seriously hurting himself. Did anybody help the man? Nope. Just left him lay there as they streamed in & out of the store.



By the time I got there, I could see the blood staining his pants, so it was obvious this was not some trivial fall. He badly scrapped himself, so I helped him inside & to the rest room so he could clean the wounds.


Sad.


It's christmas time, but instead of charity, people are showing callousness: Just letting some poor middle-aged man lay there on the sidewalk. What's happened to our society?[/QUOTE]

You were shopping at Wal-Mart -- not exactly the creme of the crop in terms of clientele, so this doesn't surprise me.
 
[quote name='electrictroy']I think you have it backwards. *Trained* personnel can still be sued, because they should know what they are doing.

But untrained people (us) can not be sued, because the goal of a Good Samaritan law is to *encourage* people to not just stand by & do nothing. The goal of the Good Samaritan law is to encourage people to practice CPR & other Aid Techniques, even if they do it wrong.

troy[/QUOTE]

Actually that's not the reason entirely, some say you can't look the other way but they don't require you to render life saving aid especially a lay person. Using the car wreck example, some laws would require you go for or call for help, you aren't required to move the accident victim particularly if the situation isn't life-threatening. If you don't believe me read a law book and look up the purpose behind these laws. Medical personel (while not on the job obviously) would find coverage as easily as a lay person under a majority of the laws.

Most are worded:
"Any person who, in good faith, renders emergency medical care or assistance to an injured person at the scene of an accident or other emergency without the expectation of receiving or intending to receive compensation from such injured person for such service, shall not be liable in civil damages for any act or omission, not constituting gross negligence or the rescuer acting unreasonably, in the course of such care or assistance."

Negligance and acting unreasonably are the key phrases here and is usually the point at which the legality and responsibility of such acts are argued upon. One looks far more negligant in an attempt to pull off an emergency medical procedure without any training. Besides most Good Samraitan laws don't automatically apply to the situation of the man falling, because although it may have injured him, it wasn't necesarily an emergency (though that could technically be argued too I guess). In short if had you caused him to fall and say shatter a hip while assisting him depending on your state's statute it's not automatically covered by a good samaritan law. Which is my whole point, you can't automatically chalk up everything under that law and say case dimissed. All the statutes are different, and like I said it's not a blanket that covers everything. I will admit I was really wrong about one thing, after a google search to find the wording above apparently all 50 states do have some kind of good samaritan law now.
 
This reminds me of an interesting experiment I heard about in a psych class one time. Basically it consisted of someone needing help (I'm not sure what it was but they made it seem serious). Anyway they found that people are much more willing to help out when they are the only person around. When someone needed help and there were tons of people around, the person had to wait around forever for someone to help. If the person needed help and there was only 1 or 2 people around they were helped out almost immediately.
 
I want to know why this is on the vs. Board.

Obviously the people passing him by were Democrats. There was no government program designed to help people that have fallen and can't get up and without that Democrats are completely clueless on what to do.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']I want to know why this is on the vs. Board.

Obviously the people passing him by were Democrats. There was no government program designed to help people that have fallen and can't get up and without that Democrats are completely clueless on what to do.[/QUOTE]
No, no, no. They were OBVIOUSLY republicans. They believe that everyone ought to help themself, whether it's monetarily or medically.
 
Why would anyone stop to help a middle aged man? 40 year old men can take care of himself. As long as the limbs weren't jointed in odd places, pick yourself up, brush off, and buck up.

Woman falls? sure, most people would stop.

Elderly person, or child falls? Most people would stop.

handicapped person or fat person falls? Yup again.

Able bodied man falls? No one cares.

This is just anecdotal proof of a much wider problem of discrimination against men between the ages of18-50 as not worthy of concern and the high social expectation of having to take care of our own business. It's not fair and there ought to be a law to protect us from our own folly...
 
Sad.

Next time, take it upon yourself to kick the ass of everyone who doesn't help out. Help the man up, make sure he's okay, then run into the store, scout out the people who passed him by, and beat the living hell out of them. Then push them down on the same spot he fell, in a big dogpile. Top it all off by spitting on them.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']Actually you have better luck getting someone to help you when there's only one person around, the more people around they just assume someone else will do it. It's an example of bystander apathy, the most well known incident being the murder of Kitty Genovese, which shocked many people.[/QUOTE]

This is very true. There have been studies that have shown that despite having a lot more cars on the road, you'll have more luck in getting someone to stop and help you if you're broken down in a rural area than an urban one. In the city, the vast majority of people think someone else will do it and won't stop.

Bravo, electrictoy, for helping that unfortunate guy who hurt himself, and for being the one who didn't assume "someone else will do it," and instead being that someone.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']I want to know why this is on the vs. Board.[/QUOTE]


Don't know. I posted to the off-topic & there's nothing controversial about this.

troy
 
To touch on psychology again, it's called "the bystander effect" about as shocking as milgrams studies on obedience... really sheds light on human nature. There are cases where people are dying in an alleyway and everyone just watches from their window without a single call to the police.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

Props to you for going against the flow.
 
[quote name='weimerwanger']about as shocking as milgrams studies on obedience[/quote]
meh. no it isn't.

really sheds light on human nature.
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Y'know, the more I think about it, "human nature" is about as useful and well-defined a concept as "intelligent design." When someone doesn't know how to refer to patterns of human behavior, it's always "human nature."
 
[quote name='weimerwanger']To touch on psychology again, it's called "the bystander effect" about as shocking as milgrams studies on obedience... really sheds light on patterns of human behavior. There are cases where people are dying in an alleyway and everyone just watches from their window without a single call to the police.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

Props to you for going against the flow.[/QUOTE]

fix'd... happy now, damn scientologist?
 
Ya know, I saw a similar event with elephants. One large elephant became stuck in the mud & the whole *crowd* of elephants were reaching in with their trunks, trying to help their comrade.

What is it about human beings that they are more callous than elephants?



AND, more importantly, is this a recent phenomenon? If we went back to Colonial America or Ancient Rome, would we see the same "bystanders doing nothing" effect? Is this an innate human instinct, or a recent phenomenon caused by the industrial age? Were Colonials/Romans more caring/helpful than today's modern humans?

troy
 
[quote name='electrictroy']Ya know, I saw a similar event with elephants. One large elephant became stuck in the mud & the whole *crowd* of elephants were reaching in with their trunks, trying to help their comrade.

What is it about human beings that they are more callous than elephants?
[/QUOTE]

lol, as I read that, I got a vision of DeLay's 'comrades' in the party of the elephant fundraising for his defense team.
 
[quote name='electrictroy']AND, more importantly, is this a recent phenomenon? If we went back to Colonial America or Ancient Rome, would we see the same "bystanders doing nothing" effect? Is this an innate human instinct, or a recent phenomenon caused by the industrial age? Were Colonials/Romans more caring/helpful than today's modern humans?

troy[/QUOTE]

The Ancient Romans were much harder then today's societies, they thought of mercy as a weakness and that's why hardly anyone was spared in gladitorial fights. A fall would probably be interpreted as a sign of weakness more then anything else - as for whether you would be given any help, it would depend on whether you were a patrician, plebeian, or slave.

As for the Colonial Americans, why don't you go ask the American Indian tribes or African-American slaves how "helpful" their masters were. I'm sure if you were white, landed, and of the proper christian denomination, you would have received a helping hand.
 
[quote name='electrictroy']Ya know, I saw a similar event with elephants. One large elephant became stuck in the mud & the whole *crowd* of elephants were reaching in with their trunks, trying to help their comrade.

What is it about human beings that they are more callous than elephants?[/quote]

You forgot an important difference. The elephant was part of the group. It's totally different when you're dealing with a stranger that has no relation to anyone. Most social animals would do (or would be likely to do) the same thing. I had a pet rat once who, when its friend got sick for a while, brought it food and helped her move around the cage by pulling her.

There's also the difference of the elephant groups having a leader (who takes it upon themself to make decisions, and therefore isn't looking as much at others responses) and human mobs not having one.

Though elephants even have "funerals" for dead elephants, so they're not the last one you should expect to engage in behavior like this.


AND, more importantly, is this a recent phenomenon? If we went back to Colonial America or Ancient Rome, would we see the same "bystanders doing nothing" effect? Is this an innate human instinct, or a recent phenomenon caused by the industrial age? Were Colonials/Romans more caring/helpful than today's modern humans?

troy
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Undoubtebly yes. Hell go to many poor countries, homeless people are often left dying on the street.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']Undoubtebly yes. Hell go to many poor countries, homeless people are often left dying on the street.[/QUOTE]
I'm sure much wasn't being done for the sick and dying of a long time ago. Famines, plagues and other nastiness of history seemed to make most of the populous care more for themselves and less for their fellow man.

However, I think people nowadays are more needlessly callous. That is to say, people have no reason to be mean and nasty.
 
Unfortunately it seems like alot of people get this way in stores around the holidays, caring more about getting some material object than how many people they shoved out of the way in the process of obtaining it. The black friday sales are good examples of this (seems like there is a report of someone getting trampled somewhere every year), as well as the way people act when the hot toys of the year are going on sale. It has been like this for as long as I can remember, though.

I don't know what the answer is, as I can't control anyone else's behavior other than myself and society definately promotes greed. I do commend the OP for helping the injured man, though.
 
[quote name='camoor']The Ancient Romans were much harder then today's societies, they thought of mercy as a weakness ........

As for the Colonial Americans, why don't you go ask the American Indian tribes or African-American slaves .......[/QUOTE]


re: Romans I think you're right.

re: Colonial Americans... I was talking about *inside the city* like New York or Philadelphia. I'm trying to imagine folks like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington walking out of Independence Hall & ignoring a fellow citizens laying there in pain.

I can not.





As for slavery, I think it's important to remember that ALL societies were like that. Dating as far back as 10,000 B.C. there have been separate classes of slaves & citizens. You criticize 1700s-era humans, but they were BORN into that society. It was tradition & we all know how hard it is to break tradition... especially one that's ~12,000 years old.

AS FOR WE MODERN HUMANS, we still have slaves. We call them machines & we feed them oil/coal. If those machines had not been invented, it's likely we'd still be living an agrarian culture & slavery would still be alive & well.

troy
 
[quote name='electrictroy']re: Colonial Americans... I was talking about *inside the city* like New York or Philadelphia. I'm trying to imagine folks like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington walking out of Independence Hall & ignoring a fellow citizens laying there in pain.

I can not.





As for slavery, I think it's important to remember that ALL societies were like that. Dating as far back as 10,000 B.C. there have been separate classes of slaves & citizens. You criticize 1700s-era humans, but they were BORN into that society. It was tradition & we all know how hard it is to break tradition... especially one that's ~12,000 years old.

AS FOR WE MODERN HUMANS, we still have slaves. We call them machines & we feed them oil/coal. If those machines had not been invented, it's likely we'd still be living an agrarian culture & slavery would still be alive & well.

troy[/QUOTE]

If you're going to cherry-pick some of the best representatives of the colonial era (Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington...) then you're probably right, they would have helped their fellow man (well the jury is out on Franklin). However it is unrealistic to think that the common colonial man had the same moral fiber as these great visionaries.

In my post I was not criticizing the colonials, I was just answering your question. Yes, slavery was an accepted practice of the colonial era (a practice that all of the founding fathers you mentioned abhorred), yet it follows that the average white man would probably not bother to help pick up a fallen African American slave or Native American.

As for your assertion that slavery was needed to keep the wheels of society running until we hit the industrial era, I find that notion absurd. It is true that modern society employs slaves, it's just that these days they live in countries like China and their labor is in service of companies such as Nike and Nestle. You could make an interesting arguement that certain societies throughout history were better off as a whole because of slavery, but personally I don't buy it.

Furthermore, just because a tradition may be hard to break, it doesn't mean that it's morally right or can be excused.
 
Too much wishfull thinking with the founding fathers, especially when its suggested slave owners abhorred the practice. Some may have been uneasy with it though (jefferson in particular). The founding fathers are as much myth as reality.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']Too much wishfull thinking with the founding fathers, especially when its suggested slave owners abhorred the practice. Some may have been uneasy with it though (jefferson in particular). The founding fathers are as much myth as reality.[/QUOTE]

"I clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our [Federal] union by consolidating it on a common bond of principle."

"I never mean... to possess another slave by purchase; it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted, by which slavery in this country may be abolished by slow, sure, and imperceptible degrees."

"There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see some plan adopted for the gradual abolition [of slavery]

- George Washington
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Jefferson's views on slavery are even more negative - I can pull them up if you need me to. Just because they had slaves, it doesn't mean that they didn't disapprove of the practice. After all, Washington refused to break up the families of slaves under his care - it would have been worse for the slaves if he had sold them and thereby split them up.

Sure there may be alot of mythology surrounding the founding fathers (cherry tree, inaccuracy in that crossing the frozen river pic, wooden teeth, etc) but they were truly the embodiment of the "philosopher kings" (pardoning the term) that Plato wrote about. I'd take their innaccurate but heartwarming tales over the contemporary mythology of Our Leader (terrorists under every bed, talking directly to the christian god like a merry old king of England, the "mission accomplished" leader playing dress-up in military garb when he never did anything but fly over the skies of Texas during Vietnam)
 
[quote name='camoor']Jefferson's views on slavery are even more negative - I can pull them up if you need me to. Just because they had slaves, it doesn't mean that they didn't disapprove of the practice. After all, Washington refused to break up the families of slaves under his care - it would have been worse for the slaves if he had sold them and thereby split them up.

Sure there may be alot of mythology surrounding the founding fathers (cherry tree, inaccuracy in that crossing the frozen river pic, wooden teeth, etc) but they were truly the embodiment of the "philosopher kings" (pardoning the term) that Plato wrote about. I'd take their innaccurate but heartwarming tales over the contemporary mythology of Our Leader (terrorists under every bed, talking directly to the christian god like a merry old king of England, the "mission accomplished" leader playing dress-up in military garb when he never did anything but fly over the skies of Texas during Vietnam)[/QUOTE]

But washington purchased slaves even after his marriage to martha. Washington did not free his slaves even upon his death, but instead upon his wifes death. He had his slaves work from sun up to sundown 6 days a week. Its difficult to say he abhorred slavery when he was fully willing to utilize slaves. Sure his opinion changed as he aged, but it never changed to the point where he decided slavery was so abhorrant that he refused participate in it. Sounds more like a man with conflicting opinions than anything else.
 
Washington did not free his slaves even upon his death, but instead upon his wifes death. He had his slaves work from sun up to sundown 6 days a week. Its difficult to say he abhorred slavery when he was fully willing to utilize slaves.
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There are so many errors in this paragraph, I don't even know where to start. It's true Washington employed slaves, but THEN HE SWITCHED CROPS. He switched to a crop that was easy to grow & no longer required slaves constant attention (like corn... you plant corn & then just leave it alone). Since he no longer needed slaves, Washington planned to free all of them.

As an experiment, he freed half, and then monitored their progress & discovered that most of them starved or became bums, and many of them ended up dead. Washington realized that it was a mistake to free uneducated people who have no idea how to care for themselves.

So he kept the other half under his care. He did not need them, but he kept them to avoid his earlier mistake.... releasing a few every year as he determined them "smart enough" to care for themselves. In other words, he was treating his slaves as we treat the illiterate...wards needing to be cared for.


[quote name='camoor']it follows that the average white man would probably not bother to help pick up a fallen African American slave or Native American.[/quote] Maybe, but the original message was about a WHITE man surrounded by WHITE people.... who just left him lay there (you didn't know that... know you do). So if one is looking to the past, we would envision a white colonial (roman) surrounded by white colonials (romans).... how would they react.


As for your assertion that slavery was needed to keep the wheels of society running until we hit the industrial era, I find that notion absurd. It is true that modern society employs slaves, it's just that these days they live in countries like China and their labor is in service of companies such as Nike and Nestle.
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Voluntary servitude in exchange for wages is NOT slavery (else we'd be slaves too). Slavery is *in*voluntary by definition. So no the folks in China/SE Asia are not slaves. Low-paid, yes, but that's still voluntary and not slavery.



Modern society replaced slaves with machines. If we did not have machines, I think slavery would still be alive in both America & Europe, because we depend on them to collect the crops/build great structures. Can you show me a pre-industrial (and successful) society that did NOT have slaves?


troy
 
I visited Monticello a couple years ago, and the tour guides tried to reconcile Thomas Jefferson's views on slavery. They said that he disliked slavery, but yet had slaves of his own. The tour guides tried to tell us that in those times, the only way to survive as a business and be able to compete was to own slaves since everyone else in the south did at that time. So if Jefferson didn't own slaves, he would be out of business.
 
Also, Jefferson did not actually "own" the slaves. They were owned by Jefferson's creditors.... same way that a bank owns your car until you pay it off.

So if Jefferson had attempted to release his slaves, his lenders would have drug him to court & thrown him into debtors' prison.

troy
 
[quote name='electrictroy']Voluntary servitude in exchange for wages is NOT slavery (else we'd be slaves too). Slavery is *in*voluntary by definition. So no the folks in China/SE Asia are not slaves. Low-paid, yes, but that's still voluntary and not slavery.

Modern society replaced slaves with machines. If we did not have machines, I think slavery would still be alive in both America & Europe, because we depend on them to collect the crops/build great structures. Can you show me a pre-industrial (and successful) society that did NOT have slaves?

troy[/QUOTE]

Unless you're an anarcho-capitalist, I cannot see how you can call the following practices "voluntary servitude".

Walmart's rollback on human rights:

At a press conference last Friday in Midtown Manhattan, members of the National Labor Committee and China Labor Watch provided the public with an answer. According to their research, Wal-Mart operates over 1,000 "secret" factories in China. One of these, a factory in Lungcheong, requires its workers to work 13 hour days, six to seven days a week, for as little as 18-33 cents an hour — well below the already abysmal Chinese minimum wage.
Mr. Li Qiang of China Labor Watch said that his organization has been at the forefront of a push to publicize the awful conditions at Lungcheong and other sweatshop locations. He stressed that the Chinese government is complicit in the human rights violations that occur on a regular basis at these factories, as they allow Wal-Mart to circumvent Chinese law.
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http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/5-12-19/35912.html

Nestle:

The problem of illegal and forced child labor is rampant in the chocolate industry, because more than 40% of the world's cocoa supply comes from the Ivory Coast, a country that the US State Department estimates had approximately 109,000 child laborers working in hazardous conditions on cocoa farms. In 2001, Save the Children Canada reported that 15,000 children between 9 and 12 years old, many from impoverished Mali, had been tricked or sold into slavery on West African cocoa farms, many for just $30 each.
Nestle, the third largest buyer of cocoa from the Ivory Coast, is well aware of the tragically unjust labor practices taking place on the farms with which it continues to do business. Nestle and other chocolate manufacturers agreed to end the use of abusive and forced child labor on cocoa farms by July 1, 2005, but they failed to do so.
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http://www.alternet.org/story/29337/

As for societies without slaves, there are many tribes within the Inuit (you may know them as Eskimos), where the native people lived in almost unbelievably harsh conditions without slavery. These people lived in a truly communist state - the community decided everything because resources were so scarce there was no room to store excess food, clothing, and then bicker over who would enjoy the leisure time. So yes, societies can work without slaves and in communist states, it's just that human nature and greed will eventually destroy the equilibrium of such a society if it moves into a land of plenty.
 
[quote name='electrictroy']There are so many errors in this paragraph, I don't even know where to start. It's true Washington employed slaves, but THEN HE SWITCHED CROPS. He switched to a crop that was easy to grow & no longer required slaves constant attention (like corn... you plant corn & then just leave it alone). Since he no longer needed slaves, Washington planned to free all of them.

As an experiment, he freed half, and then monitored their progress & discovered that most of them starved or became bums, and many of them ended up dead. Washington realized that it was a mistake to free uneducated people who have no idea how to care for themselves.

So he kept the other half under his care. He did not need them, but he kept them to avoid his earlier mistake.... releasing a few every year as he determined them "smart enough" to care for themselves. In other words, he was treating his slaves as we treat the illiterate...wards needing to be cared for.
[/QUOTE]

I'd really be interested in the info that states washington attempted to free his slaves but the plan failed (if this is the case, why did he have them freed by his wife?) and where he didn't work them.
 
I read it in the Biography "Washington - Indispensible Man", but I'm sure there are *thousands* of websites where you could verify that George freed half his slaves when he was age 40-45. It also describes how Washington switched to a low-labor crop (corn I believe) that did not require slave labor.

BTW, I find it distasteful when people try to paint the Founders of this Country as devils. They grew up in a time period when many injustices were happening (most europeans were still *owned* by landowners) & they were fighting to break those customs. They didn't solve all the problems, but they did put us on the path to freedom. They should be praised, not vilified.




As for China, I repeat what I said earlier: CHINESE WORKERS ARE ACTING VOLUNTARILY. If they are working in lousy conditions (for example, below minimum wage), they are free to QUIT and go back to their farms. THEY ARE NOT SLAVES. Same as I just quit my job last year. The job sucked... so I quit. The Chinese workers have the same option.

Now, I do agree it's despicable for China to have minimum wage laws, and not enforce them, but what do you expect from a Communist country? Chinese leaders don't give a damn about their citizens. Like the former monarchs of Europe, all they care about is themselves. The REAL problem there is a LAW that is not enforced.





And finally the Eskimos: I asked for examples of *successful* societies. I don't consider living in -50 degree weather, wearing rotting skins, and dying at age 40 a "success". Can ou show me a successful/civilized society that did not have slave labor? I can not. Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Medieval Europeans..... all the great societies were built on the backs of slaves. *Even in modern life.* We freed the humans, but we still have slaves: Our machines that we feed with oil/coal are our slaves.

What if oil/coal had never been discovered?
I think human slavery would still be alive.

troy
 
[quote name='electrictroy']And finally the Eskimos: I asked for examples of *successful* societies. I don't consider living in -50 degree weather, wearing rotting skins, and dying at age 40 a "success". Can ou show me a successful/civilized society that did not have slave labor? I can not. Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Medieval Europeans..... all the great societies were built on the backs of slaves. *Even in modern life.* We freed the humans, but we still have slaves: Our machines that we feed with oil/coal are our slaves.

What if oil/coal had never been discovered?
I think human slavery would still be alive.

troy[/QUOTE]

The average Ancient Roman lived for 22 years which is less then the Cro-Magnon's lifespan (which was around the mid 30s). War, small pox, assassination, crucifixion (6000 were crucified after Spartacus's rebellion), there were a million ways you could die no matter what class you came from and each way was crueler then the last. Do you know how many people and animals were sacrificed in a single showing of gladitorial games; at it's height in the capital of Rome the colisseum deaths would have numbered in the thousands. So if quality of life is your issue, it is wise to steer clear of citing the Roman civilization. Likewise for Ancient Greek and especially Mideval European life (Mideval Europe - a place so vile that even Ghenghis Kahn would not step foot in it for fear of being coughed on :D )

There are many definitions of success, some would argue that living a basic but content communal existence in intense cold is superior to working or warring yourself to death for the glory of an Imperial ruling class.

The true question is whether all the scientific and artistic advancements made by civilizations such as that of the Romans required slavery. Given that slaves were often rebellious and worked less because they were resentful of their position in society, it could well be that if slavery had been replaced with second-class citizenship it would have resulted in a net gain of societal output. Just because almost every artistic and scientifically advanced civilization until now has had slavery does not mean that slavery was necessary or even a contributing factor to their success.

It is silly to compare machines to slaves - machines have been used throughout history, they are not a new development of the 20th century. A better arguement would be that our technology has improved to the point where we no longer require slavery to be a "successful" civilization - yet if slavery is examined from a purely pragmatic perspective I still think that it has caused more problems for civilization then it has solved.
 
Just found this BTW - holy crap!

There was one notable exception to this passage in which the Jewish victims were first killed via crucifixion rather that being hung on a tree after death as was the case with the high priest, Alexander Janneus in which 800 Jews were crucified in Jerusalem in 267 BCE before their wives and children. While on the cross, according to Josephus (Ant. 12:256) the women and children were then slaughtered before their eyes.[2] Perhaps one of the unique aspects of Jewish crucifixion was that when employed on women, according to the Mishna, they faced the cross whereas men were crucified with their back to the cross. (M. Sanh. 6.4)
Click to expand...

http://www.joezias.com/CrucifixionAntiquity.html

I'm going to live with the eskimos for sure - even if the pussy is mighty cold...
 
Hunters and gatherers are actually believed by many researchers to have lead better lives. The growing populations could not support that lifestyle, but there was usually more activity, variety and amount of food before people began to settle down and farm. You just can't support very large populations when hunting and gathering.

The logic behind your succesful or civilized societies is hopefully just based on lack of knowledge (hey, I'm being optimistic for once). There are many different ways to define such things, and many of the most technologically advanced socieites would have been shocking, due to what they don't have, to many less "succesful" groups.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']There are many different ways to define such things, and many of the most technologically advanced socieites would have been shocking, due to what they don't have, to many less "succesful" groups.[/QUOTE]

That reminds me of the true historical tale from the late 19th century where a rich businessman took an American Indian chief to see one of the whiteman's great cities. The businessman took the chief around to all the great sites of the town, and many of the towering buildings, and at the end of the tour he asked the chief how impressed he was. The chief merely replied that in a city so rich, why would the people allow starving beggars to roam the streets.
 
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