"The Story of Your Enslavement." What's wrong with this?

[FBM]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbp6umQT ... r_embedded[/youtube]

On first viewing, I picked out a couple of fallacies, but there are nevertheless a few things that I find attractive about this short film. Do you find something wrong with it? If so, specifically what? I don't want to influence your answers with my own ideas just yet...

[charlou]

Dog earing this one for tomorrow ...

[FBM]

Yeah. It's a bit of a for me, too.

[Trolldor]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbp6umQT ... r_embedded[/youtube]

On first viewing, I picked out a couple of fallacies, but there are nevertheless a few things that I find attractive about this short film. Do you find something wrong with it? If so, specifically what? I don't want to influence your answers with my own ideas just yet...

I couldn't finish it.

The whole thing felt like a piss poor apologetics piece for big business.

[Comte de Saint-Germain]

I believe thatI know the guy who did this. I was involved on a forum with one of his followers, who relayed my posts to their personal forum, where they discussed responses. The guy is uneducated in philosophy, or anything for that matter, and does some sort of radio show. He also discusses his own personal philosophy which comes pretty close to Ayn Rand. In fact, the cult-like behaviour of the group shows pretty much that.

Turned off the video when it dawned on me. Not going to get dragged back into that kind of a discussion. The guy is a moron, and what I've seen of the video is moronic. Human beings suddenly becoming afraid of death as an important part of human development? Laughable.

[Beatsong]

I agree with the Comte. It's tranparent libertarian bullshit cloaked in juvenile pseudo-economics of the lowest order.

The most basic fallacy, which runs through the whole thing, is the idea that governments - who impose the terrible "evil" of taxation - and the economic "ruling classes" (ie the rich) are one and the same. This is clearly nonsense, as can be seen every time rich leaders of big business etc. complain about "big government", about taxation, about regulation and loss of economic freedom etc. In many cases the forces that drive "statism" via taxation and those that "farm humans" to exploit them as capital are not just different, but positively antagonistic to each other.

The next most basic is the presumption at the end that a society with no government or taxation would be "peaceful". And moving down from there there are innumerable further fallacies, which I can't be bothered going into as I'm certainly not going to waste another 10 minutes of my life watching it again.

You need to understand that noone outside of the USA takes this crap remotely seriously.

[mistermack]

This is pretty awful bullshit. This guy has absolutely no idea of what it's like to be a slave. To be bought and sold, and be someone's propterty from birth, that's slavery. To eat what you are allowed, to work when you're told to, to get whipped if you don't. To have to ask for permission to marry, to have your kids grow up as someone else's property. To have no access to medicine, unless it's practical financially for your owner. And loads of stuff that we have forgotten that slaves had to endure.
I don't think that many REAL slaves would agree with this crap.

We all work for others, to some extent, in the capitalist system. Everytime you buy something, you pay a tiny amount to microsoft, for the use of windows. And to the shareholders, that own the business.
And to the shareholders, who own the oil business that provided the fuel to transport the item. etc. etc. etc.
That's a fact of life, just as much as taxation. But it's not slavery.
If you want to be totally free, get rid of capital, and get rid of govornments. And see what shit you end up with.
.

[camoguard]

I think it's thought provoking but basically rubbish. It's like an exercise in remembering why persuasive arguments don't necessarily mean I need to act on anything. I definitely agree that there is a balance of competing interests of the cows and the farmers (to use the video analogy). But it has to be like that. I am selfish and I don't necessarily see how my selfishness perpetuates a system that hurts other people via unfair business practices or pollution or something. Secondly, there are things that can only be done with cooperation, such as orgies and large buildings. Also, space ships. Lastly, I think governments unfortunately are a result of a form of evolution. As in, I don't think you can quite pick your government in a sense. I think you're only allowed to ratchet it forward one piece at a time because you're limited by your perspective.

So basically.

Individuals have an interest in their own autonomy.
Governments have a purpose that accomplishes things that individuals cannot accomplish on their own.
However, the sense of slave/master is definitely cyclical because the masses always outnumber the government and are the people in the police uniforms. We could always overthrow them but for what? That's a lot of work for something that is mostly working.

[Rollo.Cohen]

Surely you can't deny that our awareness of our mortality is a defining point in what it means to be human? It is what spawned religion, for a start - and that seems one of the most fundamental aspects of our own self-propagating systemic oppression.

To say we are slaves is a moot point - a question in semantics. To say we are not as free as we could and should be is clear. That is the important issue here, and as anything else that raises awareness of this fact, I support this video.

[FBM]

I had forgotten that I'd ever started this thread.

The content seems to fit an old pattern: Reach your preferred conclusion, then revise history to support it. I see a lot of cherry-picking and hyperbole. And emotional appeals.

That said, it's valuable that this perspective is expressed so that we do examine our leaders and analyze their behavior. We do need to be shaken out of our complacency from time to time. Not sure that this particular vid contains any real substance, but the perspective it represents should be an option.

[charlou]

[youtubeuk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI[/youtubeuk]

[FBM]

Right on, Charlou. We need to keep the perspective alive.

[Ronja]

[youtubeuk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI[/youtubeuk]

Thanks, Charlou.

I may have spotted the "original" (root) fallacy in the "Enslavement..." video - about 1 min into it, I think. But I'll need coffee and some thinking before I attempt to claim anything definitive.

Anyway, anything that starts with "this is the story of your (whatever)..." is suspect out of principle - what in the name of Merlin's pants can this guy know about anyone's story e.g. here at RatZ? Also, anything that claims to hold the keys for freedom is suspect the same way Scientology and all the other "we will save your sanity and/or soul" woo is.

FBM, how did you find this? (just curious)

[FBM]

I have only the foggiest memory of starting this thread. Not even that of how/where I ran across the vid in the first place. I'm interested in hearing which of the several fallacies struck you as most fundamental.

[Ronja]

I have only the foggiest memory of starting this thread. Not even that of how/where I ran across the vid in the first place. I'm interested in hearing which of the several fallacies struck you as most fundamental.

and thanks while I'm typing the longer thing. This is a really interesting thread and perfect for waking up to, on a day when I need to have my brain as on-line as possible.

RatZ rocks!