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The tale of a slave
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Login
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Mar 12, 2009 09:32:57
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THE TALE OF A SLAVE
From "Anarchy, State, Utopia" by Robert Nozick, p.290-292 (1974).
Consider the following sequence of cases... and imagine it is about you.
1. There is a slave completely at the mercy of his brutal master's whims. He often is cruelly beaten, called out in the middle of the night, and so on.
2. The master is kindlier and beats the slave only for stated infractions of his rules (not fulfilling the work quota, and so on). He gives the slave some free time.
3. The master has a group of slaves, and he decides how things are to be allocated among them on nice grounds, taking into account their needs, merit, and so on.
4. The master allows his slaves four days on their own and requires them to work only three days a week on his land. The rest of the time is their own.
5. The master allows his slaves to go off and work in the city (or anywhere they wish) for wages. He requires only that they send back to him three- sevenths of their wages. He also retains the power to recall them to the plantation if some emergency threatens his land; and to raise or lower the three-sevenths amount required to be turned over to him. He further retains the right to restrict the slaves from participating in certain dangerous activities that threaten his financial return, for example, mountain climbing, cigarette smoking.
6. The master allows all of his 10,000 slaves, except you, to vote, and the joint decision is made by all of them. There is open discussion, and so forth, among them, and they have the power to determine to what uses to put whatever percentage of your (and their) earnings they decide to take; what activities legitimately may be forbidden to you, and so on.
7. Though still not having the vote, you are at liberty (and are given the right) to enter into the discussions of the 10,000, to try to persuade them to adopt various policies and to treat you and themselves in a certain way. They then go off to vote to decide upon policies covering the _vast_ range of their powers.
8. In appreciation of your useful contributions to discussion, the 10,000 allow you to vote if they are deadlocked; they commit themselves to this procedure. After the discussion you mark your vote on a slip of paper, and they go off and vote. In the eventuality that they divide evenly on some issue, 5,000 for and 5,000 against, they look at your ballot and count it in. This has never yet happenned; they have never yet had occasion to open your ballot. (A single master also might commit himself to letting his slave decide any issue concerning him about which he, the master, was absolutely indifferent.)
9. They throw your vote in with theirs. If they are exactly tied your vote carries the issue. Otherwise it makes no difference to the electoral outcome.
The question is: which transition from case 1 to case 9 made it no longer the tale of a slave?"
  "The dedication to repetition — the search for nirvana in a single held tone or an endlessly cycling rhythm — is one of electronic music's noblest gestures." |
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V3NOM
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Posted : Mar 16, 2009 02:36
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Nioreh
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Posted : Mar 18, 2009 13:15
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I would say # 5 made it the tale of the citizen.
In search of the perfect psyktrans. |
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Login
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Mar 19, 2009 08:09
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#5 in fact sounds like an a welfare state. Which scares me still.
"The dedication to repetition — the search for nirvana in a single held tone or an endlessly cycling rhythm — is one of electronic music's noblest gestures." |
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Kaz
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Posted : Mar 19, 2009 10:40
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There are a few things that separate the last number with a modern democracy.
a) the master in no point is subject to a judicial system
b) the master is not a person of equal rights and responsibilities as the slaves
c) the master's rule is not limited to a set maximal period or less, cannot be removed from office, and does not have a necessity to delegate authority
d) there are no checks and balances to make sure that power is not held permanently in one place whatever the circumstance
e) the master was never a slave, and will not return to be one when his term is over
Pardon my cynicism, but this is like comparing humans to germs, without saying "excluding the differences". Nozick's theories are pretty decent, but far from perfection. He does show some of the weaknesses of democratic rule, but his views are limited and IMO, have greater faults (makes the common mistake of assuming that people can not and will not abuse his system).
http://www.myspace.com/Hooloovoo222 |
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Nioreh
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Posted : Mar 19, 2009 11:24
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Quote:
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On 2009-03-19 08:09, Login wrote:
#5 in fact sounds like an a welfare state. Which scares me still.
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Indeed it does, but it's necessary considering the selfish mentality of the modern world - assuming the taxes are well spent of course. In order for the modern society to work as a whole we have to sacrifice freedom for security. Mutual limitation of freedom is the key to functional relations between people, and of course a great deal of patience and understanding.
In search of the perfect psyktrans. |
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IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Mar 20, 2009 23:24
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Quote:
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On 2009-03-19 10:40, Kaz wrote:
There are a few things that separate the last number with a modern democracy.
a) the master in no point is subject to a judicial system
b) the master is not a person of equal rights and responsibilities as the slaves
c) the master's rule is not limited to a set maximal period or less, cannot be removed from office, and does not have a necessity to delegate authority
d) there are no checks and balances to make sure that power is not held permanently in one place whatever the circumstance
e) the master was never a slave, and will not return to be one when his term is over
Pardon my cynicism, but this is like comparing humans to germs, without saying "excluding the differences". Nozick's theories are pretty decent, but far from perfection. He does show some of the weaknesses of democratic rule, but his views are limited and IMO, have greater faults (makes the common mistake of assuming that people can not and will not abuse his system).
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well Nozick is one of the few philosophers that accept the faults on his theories and write about them, which is pretty honest IMO.
I think this tale wasnt intended to criticize democracy but to make people criticize their own role.
"The dedication to repetition — the search for nirvana in a single held tone or an endlessly cycling rhythm — is one of electronic music's noblest gestures." |
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jabba
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Posted : Mar 27, 2009 18:20
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9th and don't ask it is ..........
To focus sometimes you need to spin hard on your soul's axis..... just don't ask how and what it means ;) |
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Xolvexs
IsraTrance Senior Member
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Posted : Apr 2, 2009 17:28
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i think humans have become over conscious beings, we think too much about things and derive pleasure from it and then we feel guilty about those things that please us and then we train ourselves to believe that pleasure and anything you derive tremendous happiness, sex, drugs,sleeping, sitting, etc from must be suppressed and things u hate doing , work, studying,praying, helping etc, must be encouraged. This is why i call all my employees "slaves" and have tied them with blackberries, sattelite phones, laptops.
In original form slavery was conducted using things like whips, chains, chokers etc because at the stage of human evolution we did not have the weapons of mass distortion, disinformation and above all peer pressure from E News and CNN on how to live ur life.
In fact i feel slaves in chains experience far greater freedom than most democratized or as i call them "sanitized societies". As for one thing they are not dependent on tv and internet for entertainment, they get to be naked, when not working they can just sit around and squat and that makes them happy.
When we look at the present day society where slaves are treated with care and paid, they become peramanent slaves to their providers as they begin to feel
"my boss is looking after me". At this stage a transoformation takes place --Slaves to Dependents.
Dependents are permanent slaves who u can be sure will never leave in fact they are the slaves that will fight for the right to be entrenched in slavery.
Instead of one master now the slave has on average nothing less than 10 masters
1. Family
2.President, Elected representatives.
3.IRS, and other Tax Authorities
4.Seniors at work, bosses, etc
5.Psychiatrists and Doctors
6.Police
7.God-men
8.Older Generation that wants you to continue their ways
and so on
so now people are in slavery except they refuse to accept that they are in slavery and deny it, this amazing as now
you are given rights, freedoms etc
but did you ever sign a consent form for that? or were you ever told that the enemy of nation etc is actually a better place to live?
What ends up happening is that you are brainwashed right from birth. This i would like to illustrate with a simple example;
When someone asks you where you were born?
Typically you would name the city state or country. But thats not where you were born,
you were born in your mother's stomach.
The minute you u name the country state city etc, you become slave. You are not told this when you are born.
Infact the slavery phenomenon is so active that we fail to see it. Another example when a woman is preganent everyone is out to help her and make her feel comfortable, its like we are rejoicing arrival of a fresh slave. Once this new gooey slave mass is out, the help rate drops by a whooping 40% (like the psytrance act 40%) then people complain about the lady with crying baby on the flight...
To further justify you are slave and will be a slave till end of your life--
Suicide is condemned instead of being encouraged- you do not have the right to choose the time of your death. That right goes only to the Judge or the police or the military.
loosing slaves by suicide is the way out of slavery, but your masters call it escapism.
well i can go on
but now my master says your time is up
go back to work
When death comes to your doorstep, make sure you are alive |
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jabba
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Posted : Apr 4, 2009 10:16
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OK why 9th .....?
its simple.... only freedom always has issues seen by the slaves and the masters since only a free mind thinks out of the box all else go round and round 
To focus sometimes you need to spin hard on your soul's axis..... just don't ask how and what it means ;) |
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Freeflow
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Sep 23, 2009 12:53
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Great thread!
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