Welcome the the existential crisis called adulthood.

adulthood.

Adulthood is now defined as "trapped on the plantation without fences indentured slavery"?

If youre in a bad position financially you should take some accountability for the decisions you made throughout your life that put you there. I travel all the time, have plenty of fun, and never felt like a slave.

Good for you bro.

Must be living the illusion. It's a bit hard to to take reality like that.. it is a lil too harsh

Thanks bro.

Right, blame billions of individuals for their own misfortune instead of any kind of systemic analysis. Shaming people with vastly different opportunities won't teach you about the world.

Some people work their asses off while other people sit on their asses and look at their phones all day.. dont blame people who had goals and aspirations and worked hard to achieve them. All im saying is if youre 30 years old makimg minimum wage you should take some accountability for the decisions you made that put you there... who else's fault would it be?

You are seemingly thinking of one person at a time, if that's how you understand the world then explaining a complex system of exploitation and power won't be worth my time.

This is just the argument, "Get over it, we all go through it." In other words. Lol.

My favorite is if you don't have kids so you can have more money the conservatives and corporate shills will freak out with articles about "growing the economy" like humans are a kind of domestic animal to be bred for profit.

https://thinkprogress.org/abortion-restrictions-labor-force-fd5a0d7689cb/

The wealthy take most of the profits of our labors and still believe we owe them more.

The wealthy take most of the profits of our labors

I realized this morning that for most people at the bottom, working a low-wage job, the ROI on the misery endured is comparable to being homeless. The living conditions affordable with a low-wage job aren't worth the security. People in low-wage jobs are receiving less and less stability for the amount of dignity given up.

For people without kids or parents (that's how fucked up our country is) to watch, homelessness might be the more rational choice.

I have seen a lot of "alternative" living situations in my lifetime. Occupy, friends living in campers, people sleeping in the park under tarps, and outside of the city is rumored to be around two hundred or so men that live in makeshift shelters in the woods. My bf and I are considering studying construction and buying a cheap cabin in the middle of nowhere to live in. But who knows if we'll ever get there, we're already in our thirties.

Wage slaves

You know some very well off countries DO NOT have a 'credit rating' system let alone a heavily manipulated one that scams pensioners out of their retirements like the one currently in operation within the United States.

How the hell is a credit rating system scamming people out of their pensions........

In the UK and similar, old folks are often called pensioners. They don't call it social security over the pond.

(By the way)

COMMIE SODKJDSMLAAOWIWUSUDUDUJDS FUCK YEEEEEOOOOUUU ZIONIST SHILL SKSKSKAO SIEG HEIL FUCK HISLTER KILLL GOD CHRIST MUAN FUCK FUCKFDUSIWJWJ

So...what I’m gathering from this is that the only way to not be a slave is to...

• own nothing
• work for nobody
• fight for survival instead of work for survival

Mmm...I think I’ll take modern day slavery.

I don’t feel like killing people for water.

That's a nice thought, but I never see anyone get past "we need a new concept". You want to theorize on any actual ideas on what the new concept should be, that wouldn't be easily exploited?

You are not a slave anyway. That line of thinking is so self defeating. Go start a business and work for yourself.

Go start a business and work for yourself.

If you think that is solving the imbalance of power....you have a ton of living to experience yet. You are showing your naiveté by writing that statement.

Have ran multiple 'successful' businesses..... you realize one thing after awhile:

1) You can never compete with the people who supplant labor laws because they have special access to slave wage labor. You do to but not at the levels/prices they have access to.

2) Those same people if they deem your product/service profitable enough can/will come in & rip your team apart & hijack your business/intellectual property without recourse.

3) Those same people have access to funds at rates you will never be able to touch even with an excellent 'credit rating'.

Anything less than that is just masturbating yourself into thoughts that 'you made it' because you have money, housing & time to take vacations.

It's still a massive imbalance of power & democracy because your vote/wishes have nothing to do with the puppet stage act/propaganda that directs it all.

Unless you are ready to kill, cheat & steal you are a slave to a supplanted system of sociopaths in multi-generational power.

Not only that, a lot of people aren't in a position in life to just go and start a business. And honestly, that market is becoming so over saturated now. Depends on what your business is at the end of the day though. Just my thoughts.

That's why people will tell you to find a specific niche and become an expert so people will pay for your service. However, even these niches are becoming more saturated.

Build strong individuals. Strong character.

Build strong families.

Strong communities.

Work from home if possible.

Keep learning.

We must become autodidacts. Schools just promote conformity and mindlessness. Sometimes the easiest way to indoctrinate/dumb down is by “educating” them in masses.

Do you have a practical suggestion?

So...what I’m gathering from this is that the only way to not be a slave is to... own nothing work for nobody fight for survival instead of work for survival

Or you stop speaking so passively like a good pliant little doofii & express yourself in a fashion that helps take back some of the imbalance of power.

Show me the way...

You do not know de way.

Nope.

The difference between what you're describing and real slavery is that you can fucking quit your piece of shit job and try for better. You can even walk out, most places of work won't chase you.

In true slavery you're stuck with zero options and will be hunted and possibly killed should you choose to leave.

With no choice but to fall in line or starve it is slavery, anybody telling you different is trying to sell something.

Frederick Douglas wants a word. Many slaves bought their freedom, were allowed to travel, and moved up and down the hierarchy.

The point is that people are resisting the degree of influence others have over their life. You can't just make up definitions for words to invalidate another's point.

Not free; just free-ranged.

Agreed!

Free range slavery

I've been saying as much for a while.

Slavery never went away....

....it was just expanded to include all races.

It already included all races atleast throughout human history that is

depends on where you draw the box, man. we're all slaves to something. for instance, we're slaves to the limitations of our physical bodies, or our minds, or our perspectives, etc. the fact that we are limited beings will not change. there's strength in this too, however, when We figure out how to use our collectiveness to test theories out and report back to the crowd. so we got that going on. really i think the whole slave thing ultimately comes down to how do we minimize our limitations - and that's a question of better design.

also, in the design sense, hierarchies (aka slavery) are ripe for lulz enacted via the device of slack. good times, you know.

otherwise i totes agree.

Uh, I don't have a Boss. Nobody tells me what to do, got it?

Government = slavery

Bro, wipe the shit out ya eyes. I wrote "Don't have a Boss". That means no one tells me A DAMN THING.

The IRS doesn't put you in jail, at least not regularly. They garnish your wages or take your shit. So don't start with that "no pay tax you go to jail!" And bros, stop being such Betas about Uncle Sam. Try being men.

r/iamverybadass

What "government agency" in 1866 verified that plantations got rid of their slaves, instead of just putting them in the cellar?

Their descendants are still in cellars in the Deep South, working as textile workers, working as sex slaves, making racist snuff videos for Cheney & Rumsfeld.

I'm pretty sure Lincoln's "Total War" generals turned right around after burning the South to the ground, to pass out lollipops and money to all the newly freed slaves.

You want to see slavery? Look into US Prisons. Legal slavery in 2018.

You can also go read up on the 13th amendment. It addresses this specifically and is how it is legal to have prisons basically be plantations. It was also used a lot. a lot. a lot during reconstruction, so black folks would end up in jail for something like jay walking and they'd be right back to slave labor.

If more citizens actually understood the Amendments, and the disagreements on interpretations, we could have a real dialogue. Instead it's just a meme, '13th ended slavery.' Read it again! We treat a few sentences as 'the fine print' unfortunately. We don't understand the letter of the law, likely original intent, how it may be misused, etc.

It's pretty naive to think that the experience of working class folks in 21st century America is comparable to that of a 19th century plantation slave. Improperly regulated capitalism is soul crushing, exploitative, and dehumanizing, but it's not slavery.

This is just an illusion created by the fact that true self-reliance is fundamentally impossible - even more so if your goal is to enjoy a long, healthy modern life. In no way are conditions for the overwhelming majority of Americans at all similar to those... enjoyed by actual slaves. Who were owned by people who themselves, by your logic, were slaves to those above them.

At the end of the day, though, the only thing 99.999% of us are slaves to are consequences. We enjoy the freedom to do so much, but never free of consequence.

Not that the uberwealthy aren't trying to rob us blind and turn the clock back to the starvation wages and inhumane practices of yesteryear, though. They surely are. They'd be locking us into the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory until our shift was over, if they could.

Self reliance is pretty damn easy, it’s just that most are to weak to achieve it.

I can buy a 3 acre block of land about 100 miles out of Los Angeles for under 10k, dump a mobile home on it and dig a well for water all under 20k, that is achievable on a minimum wage job in a year if you keep your expenses low while you bootstrap.

Second year you plant crops and continue to work, third year you can get away with working 5-10 hours a week minimum wage to cover land taxes and a minuscule amount of gas and eat what grows on your land.

Self reliance achieved.

That's just supporting yourself. All of this stuff requires relying on things like an employer, infrastructure, the sum total of human knowledge available to us and those around us which so greatly enhances every aspect of our lives, currency, and a globe spanning economy. Just to name a few things.

Self-reliance and civilization don't mesh. Hell, humans and self-reliance don't mesh - we enter this world reliant upon others and we stay that way for years. Unable to even walk for most of the first year.

You’re confusing colaboring and isolation as a dichotomy for self reliance when self reliance can be utilized with either. It just depends on circumstances. Some wild men in the woods get by self reliantly. Others use some social constructs of the modern world while still maintaining self reliance. Self reliance doesn’t solely equal no man made contact or cave Manning it in nature—at the end of the day efficient methods would also still be used, and most likely tools invented to make quality of life easier. The view of self reliance you’re talking about sounds like some strange world where someone has no need beyond themselves—they are born and immediately begin gathering their own food, building their own shelter and creating their own tools with no outside contact or knowledge borrowed—this as you say not relying on any others. You’re treading on philosophical statements on ontology and epistemology that go beyond the concept of colloquial self reliance.

Yeah, sometimes making someone believe they're free is the easiest way to enslave them.

Whether you think you are or you think you aren't, you're right.

Just saying, across the board here, we should all revisit what the 13th amendment to the Constitution says.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

And specifically: "Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Funny how it has that little exception in there. Slavery wasn't banned. Slavery was nationalized.

heh, word magic

the key take away here is that "voluntary servitude" is fine and perfectly "legal"

u.s. citizens are, in fact, the property of the federal government. they created them, they own them

Don’t you dare join a union though in order to enter into collective bargaining with your employer to improve your working conditions, benefits and compensation in a forum where you meet across the table as equal partners in a legally binding document that is enforceable and guarantees certain rights (including dispute resolution).

Cuz that shit’s socialism y’all.

True

If you think you are free try to visit another piece of land (country) without any paperwork.

Make money w/o spending (much) time. Figure it out and you have freedom.

Slavery is written into the US Constitution. It says only the government can keep slaves. Amendment 14i believe...

This animated clip called “The Jones Plantation” is exactly what you’re describing.

https://youtu.be/88N4QZ7TxhA

Instead of blacks, Dems now import illegal Mexicans for slave labor.

I will bet you the majority of employers of illegal immigrants lean another way. No need to make it partisan. Exploitation is the business of all political parties.

Exactly we saw this exact scenario go down around Mollie Tibbets.

no, in this system everyone is a slave without exeption. even the gigantic corporations and almost every country is a slave for the banks

But hey, not everyone is poor or lives pay check to pay check. Some people are actually pretty well off. ...

Some even own their own companies though, and that means they don't have a master to answer to. ...

And these are cancer-farmed, diabetes-farmed, heart disease-farmed, pharmaceutical farmed.

Pharmed.

The only solution I would see for all humans to be free would be to have "machine" slaves do all the work while we all finally relax and chill.

Will definitely never happen while we are alive. But it's good to dream.

That's not how it will happen, though. The machines will take us, not free us. We are already slaves to technology. How much if your free time is spent staring into computer screens?

The most informative exposé of the quite real and very direct form of slavery that's officially perpetrated and practiced by none other than the US justice system...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHz2Hmq7soo

If you take it metaphorically, then yes we're all slaves.

Or, you can look at the Middle East Northern Africa, South America, and Asia, and see that actual real life slavery still exists, the kind with chains and whips and forced labor and rape.

I understand OPs point but I would much rather have my cushy form of slavery where I only work 40 hours a week in an office

My slavery actually treats me pretty well. But I'm fully aware there's no way to break free from Umbrella Corp.

There have always been house slaves and field slaves.

TIL I'm a house slave

Seriously. This post is an insult to the millions subsisting in actual indentured servitude. Legit slavery is alive and well. 40.3 million people are victims of trafficking with 80% of those in trapped labor.

Conditions are horrific: just ask any Nepali who was shipped off to Qatar under the guise of getting stable work, only to have their passports stripped and forced to work in brutal, inhumane conditions for free (because they were told they had to pay back their plane tickets). Many don't return home because they are then organ harvested. The brutality repeats itself all over the world, in which entire villages are told to go work in mines or else expect to be murdered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsqGR31zoVA

Essentially, the entire world is enslaved by the US dollar, establish by Nelson Aldrich, A. Piatt Andrew, Henry Davison, Arthur Shelton, Frank Vanderlip and Paul Warburg.

The wealthy have been trying very hard for a long time to institute a type of neo-feudalism, and they succeeded in 1913.

The amount that we are taxed today is what I would call modern day slavery.

The money you make is taxed, then you get taxed to buy a car that you use to go make money, taxed on gas, taxed on food, taxed on clothes, taxed on literally everything. Then you die, and your estate is taxed. You can never truly OWN land anymore either, pay taxes with that already taxed money, or go to jail.

At least they include healthcare, dental, education, and a good pension for our taxes. Haha nope just more bombs and kickbacks, losers! At least they had the decency to tell them they were slaves back in the day.

So is this some master plan and if so who’s idea was it? If not then perhaps that’s just the way the world works. You could make the same argument going to the beginning of man. You have to provide for yourself and family to live. If you view that as slavery then it’s all just how you interpret life itself. I wonder what true freedom would mean to you then? Just dicking around with zero responsibilities your whole life?

Ha ha lol.

Responsibilities? To whom? No honest man answers to another man's demands.

A man can volunteer his time. That is not responsibility.

A man who follows commands is nothing more than a soulless robot.

https://youtu.be/Xbp6umQT58A

Wage slavery is not about money. Its about being beholden.

Money is on the surface. Look deeper. If you have a job then you are owned. They own you, your time and your energy. You answer to them.

The governemmt owns you. Try not paying taxes or not following their rules. They will lock you up.

Try to talk back to your boss. They will fire you.

Nope. Your only choice is to bend over and take it up the ass. That is your life. Enjoy your freedumb goys.

You make just enough to keep yourself well enough to go to work

I've worked a variety of low-wage and middle-management type jobs. I've been homeless twice. I realized this morning how much most peoples' sheer level of misery isn't lower than that of most homeless. Wage-slavery is just a different type of misery.

For people without kids or parents to support, is the money worth the hassle? Most of what we need money for is conveniences. Are the conveniences worth the misery to maintain? Is the job at McD's or Wal-Mart or cleaning hotel rooms worth the apartment the job is barely paying for?

And how much dignity did that paycheck cost you? What bizarre-ass schedule change did you accept for an extra 20 or 60 bucks? There's not much pride to be found in homelessness, but at least you can pee when you want. How many Amazon workers can say that?

Something else about being homeless is how much easier it is to go somewhere else. How many jobs in the U.S. provide reasonable expectation of being able to move upward from one's current circumstances? In other words, at the end of the week, how much of your paycheck can you put in the bank? And, incidentally, while you were living under self-imposed austerity measures hoping for a better future, how much of your efforts & time went to people leeching off of you now?

For the benefits provided relative to the amount of work done and misery endured, homelessness is becoming the more rational choice. YMMV, but, given some basic trapping, hunting and camping skills, spending the rest of my days bicycling everywhere that isn't developed seems a helluvalot more fulfilling and moral than what U.S. society prioritizes.

Being homeless also means contributing less to the misery our conveniences cost everyone else. No soldier died for the oil I didn't spend not commuting. No place to store crap means less crap bought. Not buying less crap means contributing less to the likelihood of some Chinese factory girl killing herself.

I find it hard to imagine starting out in my early 20's again. For alot of younger people, the rational choice might be not investing energy in non-homeless society's illusion of stability. Its pretty obvious our society is more interested in feeding off people who are starting out rather than providing them a place to grow and take root.

adulthood.

Adulthood is now defined as "trapped on the plantation without fences indentured slavery"?

With no choice but to fall in line or starve it is slavery, anybody telling you different is trying to sell something.

Not only that, a lot of people aren't in a position in life to just go and start a business. And honestly, that market is becoming so over saturated now. Depends on what your business is at the end of the day though. Just my thoughts.

Good for you bro.

Frederick Douglas wants a word. Many slaves bought their freedom, were allowed to travel, and moved up and down the hierarchy.

The point is that people are resisting the degree of influence others have over their life. You can't just make up definitions for words to invalidate another's point.

This is just the argument, "Get over it, we all go through it." In other words. Lol.

My favorite is if you don't have kids so you can have more money the conservatives and corporate shills will freak out with articles about "growing the economy" like humans are a kind of domestic animal to be bred for profit.

https://thinkprogress.org/abortion-restrictions-labor-force-fd5a0d7689cb/

The wealthy take most of the profits of our labors and still believe we owe them more.

Right, blame billions of individuals for their own misfortune instead of any kind of systemic analysis. Shaming people with vastly different opportunities won't teach you about the world.