What's the difference between being a slave and a serf? When slavery was common hundreds of years ago, your master kept 100% of what you earned. Now they take about 50%. Masters used to keep you in line with whips - now they use threats, lawsuits, and jail. Why do people support serfdom? Is low self-esteem the basis of accepting ethical double-standards and wanting others to rule our lives? Do we allow government's smoke-and-mirrors because we're too guilty to admit we have low self-esteem?
FTA: "The history of ethics has been a history of exploitation. From time immemorial, individuals were set apart into two groups: those that must obey the rules, and those that need not. The people must observe ethics and morals, while rulers not. The ethics that you and I must observe correctly advocates that one should not steal the property of others, should not murder, and should not force others to do something against their will. But note that those ethical rules do not apply to government - the government takes your money, calls it "democratic taxes," and presto! - it is now authorized to steal. If one enslaves another, this is considered a heinous crime. After all, slavery is the antithesis of individuality! However, in the case of government, they will draft you to "serve your nation" for a year, call this conscription "military service," and serfdom becomes perfectly legal. If one kills a neighbor, this is murder. However, if he is an agent of the government - particularly that of the United States - using an olive-green uniform, and invoking a "preventive" war or similar excuse, suddenly it becomes permissible to murder - legally. Counterfeiting is a crime, but only for you and me. For the government has the money-printing machine, or more precisely, the counterfeiting machine. If it is they doing it, fine. If it is we, we go to jail."
DISCUSS!
Original posting by Braincrave Second Life staff on Aug 5, 2010 at http://www.braincrave.com/viewblog.php?id=283
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Sep, 2017 update: Although Braincrave resulted in two confirmed marriages, the venture didn't meet financial targets. Rather than updating our outdated code base, we've removed all previous dating profiles and retained the articles that continue to generate interest. Moving to valME.io's platform supports dating profiles (which you are welcome to post) but won't allow typical date-matching functionality (e.g., location proximity, attribute similarity).
The Braincrave.com discussion group on Second Life was a twice-daily intellectual group discussions typically held at 12:00 PM SLT (PST) and 7:00 PM SLT. The discussions took place in Second Life group chat but are no longer formally scheduled or managed. The daily articles were used to encourage the discussions.