Early human slavery was NECESSARY for human progress

[Syed]

That's going to come as a hell of a shock to the Chinese. Not to mention the Australian Aborigines and the Native Americans.

i should have said known world
lol

LOL, you'd still be wrong. The Chinese knew they existed, as did the Aborigines, Cherokee, Aztecs, Olmecs. You know, all the people of the world?

muslims did ruled some part of china

 

[Mageth]

That's going to come as a hell of a shock to the Chinese. Not to mention the Australian Aborigines and the Native Americans.

i should have said known world
lol

LOL, you'd still be wrong. The Chinese knew they existed, as did the Aborigines, Cherokee, Aztecs, Olmecs. You know, all the people of the world?

muslims did ruled some part of china

And they knew about the other parts, the parts that they didn't rule.

QED

 

[jonJ]

i should have said known world
lol

So your assertion is that Muslims ruled that part of the world they actually knew about, except for those parts they didn't -- i.e. Western Europe and Southern and Western Africa? Or is it just that if it wasn't ruled by Muslims, it doesn't count as 'known'?

 

[Stavian]

Syed has given no evidence?

6 word questions are not evidence?

And why is he writing in broken english?

 

[DrZoidberg]

It looks to me like Syed's making a basic error here; he appears to be assuming that ancient cities were "built", i.e., that they were planned from the outset and built according to that plan, with thousands of workers required to get the whole city up at once. This is, of course, just plain wrong. Ancient cities, with very few exceptions (Amarna is the only one that springs readily to mind) weren't built as such; they grew up organically from villages over decades and even centuries. No slaves were required in this process; houses were built by their future occupants, and great public works were mostly built by volunteer labour, as with the Xian cathedrals of the Middle Ages, or mosques.

And in some cases (many? most?), slavery actually hindered progress. Thus, for example, the Romans, who were familiar with the idea of the watermill, never bothered with this labour-saving device because they had slaves to do that work for them, and in a slave-based economy, it was easier to continue using them than to adopt labour-saving technology and have to find new uses for all the slaves who would have had nothing to do. We know that one technology can lead to another, so who knows what progress the Romans might have made had they not been dependent on their slaves to do the hard work?

Not only did they discover the watermill. They also discovered the steam engine, as well as making train tracks. They had all the components necessary to build steam powered trains. But it never went beyond toys. The most advanced usage of steam technology was their public steam baths.

 

[DrZoidberg]

tell me WHEN and HOW did slavery started? i like to hear your theory

It's not my theory. We don't have to speculate. We have archaeologists and ethnographers who have studied this subject for centuries. We know the facts.

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

Historically, expansion of slave use leads to economic decline and the fall of empires. Generally speaking, the fewer slaves, the healthier economy. But most importantly, a slave economy requires an already healthy non-slave economy. So slavery is not required for civilisation. Civilisation is required for slavery. As far as human progress is concerned, slavery is a dead end. It's like saying that drugs is human progress because it makes us happy for a short while.

Early history

Evidence of slavery predates written records, and has existed in many cultures.[7] Prehistoric graves from about 8000 BC in Lower Egypt suggest that a Libyan people enslaved a San-like tribe.[dubious – discuss][Capoid remains not found this far north][31] Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations.[citation needed] Mass slavery also requires economic surpluses and a high population density to be viable. Due to these factors, the practice of slavery would have only proliferated after the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution about 11,000 years ago.[32]

In the earliest known records slavery is treated as an established institution. The Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1760 BC), for example, prescribed death for anyone who helped a slave to escape or who sheltered a fugitive.[33] The Bible mentions slavery as an established institution.[7]

Slavery was known in almost every ancient civilization, and society, including Sumer, Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Ancient India, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Islamic Caliphate, the Hebrew kingdoms in Palestine, and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas.[7] Such institutions included debt-slavery, punishment for crime, the enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment, and the birth of slave children to slaves.[34]
Classical Antiquity
Main articles: Slavery in ancient Greece and Slavery in ancient Rome

The work of the Mercedarians was in ransoming Christian slaves held in Muslim hands (1637).

Records of slavery in Ancient Greece go as far back as Mycenaean Greece. It is certain that Classical Athens had the largest slave population, with as many as 80,000 in the 6th and 5th centuries BC;[35] two to four-fifths of the population were slaves.[36] As the Roman Republic expanded outward, entire populations were enslaved, thus creating an ample supply from all over Europe and the Mediterranean. Greeks, Illyrians, Berbers, Germans, Britons, Thracians, Gauls, Jews, Arabs, and many more were slaves used not only for labour, but also for amusement (e. g. gladiators and sex slaves). This oppression by an elite minority eventually led to slave revolts (see Roman Servile Wars); the Third Servile War led by Spartacus being the most famous and severe.

By the late Republican era, slavery had become a vital economic pillar in the wealth of Rome, as well as a very significant part of Roman society.[37] At the least, some 25% of the population of Ancient Rome was enslaved.[38] According to some scholars, slaves represented 35% or more of Italy's population.[39] In the city of Rome alone, under the Roman Empire, there were about 400,000 slaves.[40] During the millennium from the emergence of the Roman Empire to its eventual decline, at least 100 million people were captured or sold as slaves throughout the Mediterranean and its hinterlands.

 

[DBT]

definition of primitive is they lives in cave, huts not in city

Are you saying that it took nothing more than slavery to lift us out of our primitive condition of living in caves and into building cites? That slavery is the only means of advancement for primitive (cave dwelling) people?

thats exactly i am saying, early human did not invented money nor anyone work for other people, so the only way to build city was slavery, today we build city by pay workers, back then no money no pay worker

The idea of a ''city'' evolved over time, but to build a city takes knowledge, planning and the drive to build cities. Slaves provide none of these things. Slaves merely provide cheap labour.

 

[DrZoidberg]

It looks to me like Syed's making a basic error here; he appears to be assuming that ancient cities were "built", i.e., that they were planned from the outset and built according to that plan, with thousands of workers required to get the whole city up at once.

i am only saying is that EARLY slavery started when money was not invented and one one work for other people

In some places it was, in some places it wasn't. In Egypt, the Pyramids were built long before the invention of coinage, and without the use of slaves. .

pyramid build without money and without slaves?

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

It was a tax system. The free farmers had to work a part of the year on great works as tax. If you want to be cynical about it, the Egyptian tradition of building huge buildings was about keeping the population busy during the time of year that the Nile is flooded. Ie, they couldn't work their field. All they could do was wait for the Nile to recede. Just like every ruler, the Egyptian rulers, quickly learned that idle workers became restless and dangerous and started demanding reforms. So it was imperative to keep them occupied. Therefore Pyramids.

It's a similar logic behind the European building of churches, castles and cathedrals. Same goes for all the great works of the Roman Empire. They were primarily built by the Roman army in peace time, to keep them from raping the locals. I don't know of other similar systems in detail, but I would be surprised if this wasn't a global pattern of all great works. Bottom line, this is not the type of thing slaves historically have been used for.

 

[Syed]

definition of primitive is they lives in cave, huts not in city

Are you saying that it took nothing more than slavery to lift us out of our primitive condition of living in caves and into building cites? That slavery is the only means of advancement for primitive (cave dwelling) people?

thats exactly i am saying, early human did not invented money nor anyone work for other people, so the only way to build city was slavery, today we build city by pay workers, back then no money no pay worker

The idea of a ''city'' evolved over time, but to build a city takes knowledge, planning and the drive to build cities. Slaves provide none of these things. Slaves merely provide cheap labour.

i didnt say slave were engineer

 

[Syed]

It looks to me like Syed's making a basic error here; he appears to be assuming that ancient cities were "built", i.e., that they were planned from the outset and built according to that plan, with thousands of workers required to get the whole city up at once.

i am only saying is that EARLY slavery started when money was not invented and one one work for other people

In some places it was, in some places it wasn't. In Egypt, the Pyramids were built long before the invention of coinage, and without the use of slaves. .

pyramid build without money and without slaves?

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

It was a tax system. The free farmers had to work a part of the year on great works as tax. If you want to be cynical about it, the Egyptian tradition of building huge buildings was about keeping the population busy during the time of year that the Nile is flooded. Ie, they couldn't work their field. All they could do was wait for the Nile to recede. Just like every ruler, the Egyptian rulers, quickly learned that idle workers became restless and dangerous and started demanding reforms. So it was imperative to keep them occupied. Therefore Pyramids.

It's a similar logic behind the European building of churches, castles and cathedrals. Same goes for all the great works of the Roman Empire. They were primarily built by the Roman army in peace time, to keep them from raping the locals. I don't know of other similar systems in detail, but I would be surprised if this wasn't a global pattern of all great works. Bottom line, this is not the type of thing slaves historically have been used for.

white american enslave black for tax?

 

[Syed]

i should have said known world
lol

So your assertion is that Muslims ruled that part of the world they actually knew about, except for those parts they didn't -- i.e. Western Europe and Southern and Western Africa? Or is it just that if it wasn't ruled by Muslims, it doesn't count as 'known'?

is it spain and italy in western europe or not?

 

[DBT]

i didnt say slave were engineer

You didn't say it, but you did say that slavery was necessary for human progress. That without slavery human progress couldn't have happened. So, that slavery merely provided the labour but not the ideas, planning and drive to build, it wasn't slavery itself that was necessary for progress because slaves merely did what they were ordered to do. The ideas, planning and drive developed because there was a perceived need to build towns and cities for the mutual benefit of their inhabitants.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

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

It was a tax system. The free farmers had to work a part of the year on great works as tax. If you want to be cynical about it, the Egyptian tradition of building huge buildings was about keeping the population busy during the time of year that the Nile is flooded. Ie, they couldn't work their field. All they could do was wait for the Nile to recede. Just like every ruler, the Egyptian rulers, quickly learned that idle workers became restless and dangerous and started demanding reforms. So it was imperative to keep them occupied. Therefore Pyramids.

It's a similar logic behind the European building of churches, castles and cathedrals. Same goes for all the great works of the Roman Empire. They were primarily built by the Roman army in peace time, to keep them from raping the locals. I don't know of other similar systems in detail, but I would be surprised if this wasn't a global pattern of all great works. Bottom line, this is not the type of thing slaves historically have been used for.

I'd call it more of a corvee system, but otherwise this is exactly how I would have expanded on the point I made. Thanks for saving me the trouble.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

i should have said known world
lol

So your assertion is that Muslims ruled that part of the world they actually knew about, except for those parts they didn't -- i.e. Western Europe and Southern and Western Africa? Or is it just that if it wasn't ruled by Muslims, it doesn't count as 'known'?

is it spain and italy in western europe or not?

Spain and Italy are considered part of Southern Europe more than Western. In any case, Italy was never completely ruled by muslims; only Sicily and a few coastal towns like Bari were ever under muslim rule.

 

[jonJ]

The idea of a ''city'' evolved over time, but to build a city takes knowledge, planning and the drive to build cities.

You forgot rock and roll.

 

[jonJ]

i should have said known world
lol

So your assertion is that Muslims ruled that part of the world they actually knew about, except for those parts they didn't -- i.e. Western Europe and Southern and Western Africa? Or is it just that if it wasn't ruled by Muslims, it doesn't count as 'known'?

is it spain and italy in western europe or not?

Yes. So are Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belgium, The Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Austria. And among the Eastern European states never under Muslim control are the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland. Next question?

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

white american enslave black for tax?

How is that even relevant to anything being discussed in this thread? It's about "early human slavery", per the thread title, not about American slavery. OTOH, if you want to widen the topic to include other periods of slavery, we could discuss the enslavement of Africans by muslims, which was on a scale much larger than American slavery, or we could talk about the slavery in muslim countries which continues to this day. Or we could stick to the subject at hand ...

 

[Syed]

white american enslave black for tax?

How is that even relevant to anything being discussed in this thread? It's about "early human slavery", per the thread title, not about American slavery. OTOH, if you want to widen the topic to include other periods of slavery, we could discuss the enslavement of Africans by muslims, which was on a scale much larger than American slavery, or we could talk about the slavery in muslim countries which continues to this day. Or we could stick to the subject at hand ...

it is relevant to know did white american benefit from slave or they just having fun with slave

if american did benefited from slave then why egyptian and roman didnt have slaves according atheists?

 

[dystopian]

i should have said known world
lol

So your assertion is that Muslims ruled that part of the world they actually knew about, except for those parts they didn't -- i.e. Western Europe and Southern and Western Africa? Or is it just that if it wasn't ruled by Muslims, it doesn't count as 'known'?

is it spain and italy in western europe or not?

Yes. So are Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belgium, The Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Austria. And among the Eastern European states never under Muslim control are the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland. Next question?

Not to derail, but many of the countries you mentioned are *not* in Western Europe. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are in Northern Europe. Spain and Italy are Southern Europe. The UK and Ireland are commonly considered to be part of Western Europe including by the EU, but is considered to be Northern Europe according to the UN. European countries that belong to the 'Western' group of nations and cultures do NOT automatically fall under Western Europe.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

white american enslave black for tax?

How is that even relevant to anything being discussed in this thread? It's about "early human slavery", per the thread title, not about American slavery. OTOH, if you want to widen the topic to include other periods of slavery, we could discuss the enslavement of Africans by muslims, which was on a scale much larger than American slavery, or we could talk about the slavery in muslim countries which continues to this day. Or we could stick to the subject at hand ...

it is relevant to know did white american benefit from slave or they just having fun with slave

if american did benefited from slave then why egyptian and roman didnt have slaves according atheists?

Nobody, as far as I can tell, has said the Egyptians and Romans didn't have slaves. What we've said is that slave labour wasn't necessary for them to build their cities and, by extesion, their civilisations.

I and others have also pointed out that technological progress in the Roman Empire was actually hindered by the presence of slaves. This addresses your original topic, whereas American slavery does not.