Slavery

[stonetoes]

Too many people with WAAAAAYYYYY too many guns for it to be a remotely plausible option.

And too many people with no guns to resist those people with WAAAAAAYYYYY too many guns.

I mean, it's not like we get guns out of vending machines here.

I'm not sure turning this thread into one about guns is going to be productive, but at the moment there are supposedly 90 guns for every 100 Americans. (Source: Small Arms Survey, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Small Arms Survey 2007: Guns and the City at 39 (Aug. 2007)

With, say, 90% of the population dead, that's a hell of a lot of guns per person floating around.

[Drool]

Well, yes, but that doesn't mean 90% of Americans have guns. Many people have multiples. Also, I don't know if that survey includes inoperable guns, collections, and other various firearms that won't be in any way useful. To say nothing of weapons destroyed in the nuclear exchange (I wager many of those guns are illegal ones in the hands of street gangs who concentrate in cities and would be more likely to be targeted) and ones otherwise rendered inoperable over the course of 70-some years through neglect. Sure, we'd have more than, say, England, but you aren't going to be tripping over them either.

Also, if that includes weapons held by the military, then the numbers would drop even further as military bases would be prime targets.

[CaptainPatch]

Yes, cherry-picking. Did you even try to find "the other side of the story" while doing your research? Then how can you contend that your view is accurate? I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that most are, indeed abused. But by no means all. Very rarely in Life does "ALL" apply to a LARGE population.

Again with the apocalyptic worst-case scenarios. Those who refused to comply peacefully might end up this way, but it's not the only option regarding those who do comply, as I've already talked about.

In case you haven't noticed we are the two extremes of the same issue. My view is the worst case scenario. Yours is the best case scenario. The thing is, if we split the difference, you still lose. You lose because with everything that the Desert Rangers have on their plate, your policy does, in fact, initiate a war. At a time when the Desert Rangers have a somewhat fragile existence. THIS ONE ISSUE would consume pretty much ALL of the organization's attention. And the Reputation of the Desert Rangers will be that _it starts wars_ to enforce its will on others. Some people will cheer loudly for the Rangers. Others WILL start to wonder, "If they win this war, who will they go after next?" That is NOT a thought the Management at Ranger Center wants to be on people's minds. They would become the Iran of their era: What happens if we let it grow? _Can_ we risk trusting them to always "do the Right Thing?" Or are they dictators in the making? There's no way to _prove_ that your answer IS the Truth. And people have a tendency to assume the worst in others.

BTW, Slavery is still very much alive and kicking in the USA. Here's an example of a highly organized operation in American Somoa: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2789629.stm and http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=145 You would think that the US government would have spotted it and shut it down immediately. But as it turned out, Tom Delay, the Senate Majority Leader when Bush was President, was actually a part owner.


Drool & ravenstrike:

You make the basic assumption that the people with all the guns would automatically fight against slavers wherever they turn up. What happens if the people with all the guns are the ones that _become_ the Slavers? I posted a personal anecdote concerning a LARGE number (@50) of well-armed survivalists in NE California. It was practically a wet dream of theirs that "if everything went to hell", they would have the opportunity to start hunting people of color for sport and profit. "Put them back in the place where they belong!" I seriously doubt that such an attitude is limited to NE CA and only NE CA.

[Drool]

You make the basic assumption that the people with all the guns would automatically fight against slavers wherever they turn up.

I did no such thing; quite the opposite, in fact.

[CaptainPatch]

You make the basic assumption that the people with all the guns would automatically fight against slavers wherever they turn up.

I did no such thing; quite the opposite, in fact.

My bad.

[ravenshrike]

Yes, cherry-picking. Did you even try to find "the other side of the story" while doing your research? Then how can you contend that your view is accurate? I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that most are, indeed abused. But by no means all. Very rarely in Life does "ALL" apply to a LARGE population.

Without consequences, human nature is to abuse those they have direct control over unless their is a personal familial or friendship connection. Slaves RARELY fit into a person's monkeysphere. So unless your slaver society has managed to perfect the communist system of political commissars and applied them to everybody owning slaves(an impossibility given the numbers involved) the vast majority of slave owners are going to abuse the vast majority of slaves. The abuse may not always take the same form but it WILL occur.


That doesn't even consider that at least 10% of people fit the definition of sociopath.



As for the gun issue, slavery is only viable economically if there is not a sizable portion of the non-slave population violently resisting the system. Seeing as post-apoc abolitionists would certainly take as many of the freed slaves into their ranks to violently resist slavery any large-scale economic slave system would rapidly collapse.

[Woolfe]

Woolfe: One generation = the span of time that goes from birth until a person in turn has a child of his own. Usually 20-25 years. If it has been 89 years since the nukes dropped, that would make it 3-4 generations.

I wasn't my Generation was really related to a critical mass of people. So Gen 1 Only pre bombers, Gen 2 A mix of Pre bomb and 1st gen after bomb, With pre bomb dying off, gen 3, very few pre bomb, lots of 2nd and 3rd gen children.

Generation was probably not a good term for what I was trying to impart. As this was more about when the children started began to move from followers to leaders in the communities. (Does that make sense?)

In your Risk Management evaluation the one possibility that you (I am inclined to believe deliberately) did NOT include was the possibility that the Slavers and slave-owners would unify against the threat you pose. And that is the ONE possibility that, if it occurs, would most likely utterly destroy the entire Desert Ranger organization. If you do NOT factor that possibility into the equation, then you are cherry-picking your scenarios to steer your conclusion to the one you wanted from before you even started the process.

Thats correct, see my spiel on the economy of slavery as the main reason that I did not include the possibility of Slavers and Slave owners unifying. In my opinion they would only have a small lead on the Rangers in this area. And if you take into account the rangers relative control of the previous area, the slavers/slave owner combination could even be smaller than the whole. (even whilst larger than the current contingent). Your comment on the slavery being so rife is in my opinion an extreme situation. If I included that, I would also need to include the opposite, which is very few slavers. You are cherry picking just as much as me
I did consider it by the way. But I already had such a big wall of text I decided not to

And BTW, just because your team (as pitiful as it was at the very beginning) has had military training does NOT preclude others from having training just as good or even superior.

Nope it doesn't, you are completely right. But that comes down to the whole "intelligence" thing. As in recon, discovery, investigation, diplomacy, etc etc etc... Know thy enemy.

Reminds me of the OKW High Command in WW2: "The enemy WILL do this because that is what we have planned for!" We can see where that kind of thinking got them.

Don't use one isolated instance as an assumption that I wouldn't modify my actions if the circumstances were different.
I have explained several times that I have been approaching this from the point of view of a single relatively small community of slave owners/slavers, that may have other contacts and allies externally, but nothing to the extent of a League of slavers. If there was a League of Slavers, then as I have also explained, my actions would be completely different.

[Woolfe]

Too many people with WAAAAAYYYYY too many guns for it to be a remotely plausible option.

And too many people with no guns to resist those people with WAAAAAAYYYYY too many guns.

I mean, it's not like we get guns out of vending machines here.

But its America, I thought thats how you GOT guns over there

pssst that was Sarcasm... just in case anyone wasn't sure

[Drool]

But its America, I thought thats how you GOT guns over there

Nah, we're born with them. The doctor slaps your ass to make you breathe and then hands you some bullets. Traditionally, the umbilical cord is "cut" with a Magnum.

[CaptainPatch]

I have explained several times that I have been approaching this from the point of view of a single relatively small community of slave owners/slavers, that may have other contacts and allies externally, but nothing to the extent of a League of slavers. If there was a League of Slavers, then as I have also explained, my actions would be completely different.

Well, then, we're not talking about probabilities at all. I was suggesting likely Social Dynamics based on Historical trends and patterns, (And trying to speak up for a minority group that you were lumping in with the EVIL Bad Guys.) You apparently have focused on the parameters that you wanted to make your scenario turn out the way you wanted. No wonder we weren't coming to any kind of consensus.

[Dingus]

I agree that slavery is a "serious" issue, and could add to the atmosphere. But I don't think it should be there just to provide something for the "good guys" to hate and oppose, and for the "baddies" to condone and endorse.

It should - imo - be presented as something you have to look from different (explained) angles to fully understand the motives of using it, and provoke thoughts about its justification in the given situation. Weighing the morals and benefits of it without being judgemental.

Well put. There is a socio-economic angle that can be explored ala the south in the civil war. There is a mafia angle that can be explored. There is a survival angle (people selling kids to feed their other kids). Lots of ways it can be done and reasons for why it is happening.

[ravenshrike]

I agree that slavery is a "serious" issue, and could add to the atmosphere. But I don't think it should be there just to provide something for the "good guys" to hate and oppose, and for the "baddies" to condone and endorse.

It should - imo - be presented as something you have to look from different (explained) angles to fully understand the motives of using it, and provoke thoughts about its justification in the given situation. Weighing the morals and benefits of it without being judgemental.

Well put. There is a socio-economic angle that can be explored ala the south in the civil war. There is a mafia angle that can be explored. There is a survival angle (people selling kids to feed their other kids). Lots of ways it can be done and reasons for why it is happening.

Slavery in the south only arose because of the extremely large supply of cheap, uneducated slaves procured over hundreds of years from rival tribes of Africans willing to club their neighbors over the heads and sell them to the slave traders who were originally dutch who got the ides from the arabs. Not to mention they needed labor primarily for picking tobacco and cotton and then removing seeds from the cotton prior to the invention of the cotton gin with a VERY large export system in place for the goods. The economic pressures for a large slave trade are NOT in place in the post-apocalypse.

[Keaton]

The economic pressures for a large slave trade

Yeah, it's hard to maintain the standards if you got used to them:


Poor, poor Southeners, poor Scarlet.

[Zahar]

As for the gun issue, slavery is only viable economically if there is not a sizable portion of the non-slave population violently resisting the system. Seeing as post-apoc abolitionists would certainly take as many of the freed slaves into their ranks to violently resist slavery any large-scale economic slave system would rapidly collapse.

Or there would be open war, considering the slavers could organize and become a society themselves.

It could lead to VERY interesting scenarios, from Spartacus to the start of the Mongol Empire (they were not slaves, but kept fighting each other by the Jin - now called Chinese - until they united under Gengis Khan, a man that accepted all the ragged and rejected by the other tribes and created an army to defeat them all, much like an slave army could).

[ravenshrike]

As for the gun issue, slavery is only viable economically if there is not a sizable portion of the non-slave population violently resisting the system. Seeing as post-apoc abolitionists would certainly take as many of the freed slaves into their ranks to violently resist slavery any large-scale economic slave system would rapidly collapse.

Or there would be open war, considering the slavers could organize and become a society themselves.

It could lead to VERY interesting scenarios, from Spartacus to the start of the Mongol Empire (they were not slaves, but kept fighting each other by the Jin - now called Chinese - until they united under Gengis Khan, a man that accepted all the ragged and rejected by the other tribes and created an army to defeat them all, much like an slave army could).

Which is a scenario that you would not get less than 100 years after a freedom loving society collapsed with plenty of literature to learn to read from. And, y'know, guns. See slavers always have less people than non-slavers. The ONLY reason the free poor whites fought with the confeds was because of the hundreds of years of tradition already present, which CaptainPatch is somehow saying will rise up overnight in an area where slavery had never been present before. Not gonna happen.

[Keaton]

he ONLY reason the free poor whites fought with the confeds was because of the hundreds of years of tradition already present

You don't need hundreds of years to get used to a comfortable, decadent life in abundance, exploiting your employees without giving back shit. Heck, even some businesses in our freedom-loving democratic societies today work that way.
Even here in Germany, you have people getting paid near to nothing for hard work (the government helps out, yeah, socialism, I know^^). Heard that's much more present in the US too (without the government helping out). People love to exploit other people, always did, always will. The reason it's limited in democratic societies is that the oppressed party can count on the sympathy of the majority which holds the power. If there is no society, no majority that has free access to free press/media so it would know and care about the injustice then pretty much anything can happen reaaally fast, including slavery.

I bet even a couple of days are enough.
So I believe slavery is very easy to imagine in a postapocalyptic setting, everywhere on the globe.

[ravenshrike]

Except the slavers would not have the manpower given that there would be plenty of abolitionist towns with more people and more resources. It would be impossible to set up the sort of Hanseatic slaver league discussed by Patch.


I'm not arguing you might get the occasional bastard holding people against their will and forcing them to work for him, or even a town a la Vault city in Fallout 2 but large scale slavery needs INFRASTRUCTURE to succeed. Which will not be present.

[Keaton]

Well, you have a point there.
...
But Max Max would also make no sense if you take it that seriously.
And I love those movies!

Fallout 1&2 too, all the scum and rotten bastards in these games, not likely to happen but great fun!

[Woolfe]

I have explained several times that I have been approaching this from the point of view of a single relatively small community of slave owners/slavers, that may have other contacts and allies externally, but nothing to the extent of a League of slavers. If there was a League of Slavers, then as I have also explained, my actions would be completely different.

Well, then, we're not talking about probabilities at all. I was suggesting likely Social Dynamics based on Historical trends and patterns, (And trying to speak up for a minority group that you were lumping in with the EVIL Bad Guys.) You apparently have focused on the parameters that you wanted to make your scenario turn out the way you wanted. No wonder we weren't coming to any kind of consensus.

Well we didn't set any hypothetical boundaries in all fairness And I believe I started it

I still disagree with you on the minority group... I still lump em in with the bad guys. Slavery needs to be eradicated.
I also think your concept of a league of slavers, especially if based on historical trends and patterns is wrong. The one thing in common with all those societies you mentioned was a stable and prosperous society. In those societies they can afford to enslave others to do their bidding, as it allows them to produce more at a lower cost. We just don't have that in the Wasteland (based on first game).

[CaptainPatch]

Let me just iterate one of my foundation conclusions: There will either be NO organized Slavery, or it would be pervasive (Deep South model). If the hostility to Slavers is intense, when they poke their noses up out of the muck, abolitionist-minded people would hunt them down "before the disease takes hold and starts to spread". If that doesn't happen, then Slavery starts to become a stable factor in the (re-) developing Economy.