Abolition of human slavery

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Dsalles
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Re: Abolition of human slavery

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brimstoneSalad wrote: Thu Jun 14, 2018 9:22 pm @Dsalles New welfare is about improving welfare standards until animal agriculture can eventually be phased out.
Animal welfare standards? What does it have to do with slavery?
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Abolition of human slavery

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Dsalles wrote: Fri Jun 15, 2018 10:43 am
brimstoneSalad wrote: Thu Jun 14, 2018 9:22 pm @Dsalles New welfare is about improving welfare standards until animal agriculture can eventually be phased out.
Animal welfare standards? What does it have to do with slavery?
Slavery mostly just ended without any significant incremental change in slave welfare.
That was the immediate abolition approach. Some people advocate that for animal rights, and oppose animal welfare on those grounds.

Animal welfare standards being improved over time leading to abolition, however, might be more effective and result in less suffering in the mean time.
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Dsalles
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Re: Abolition of human slavery

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Slavery was phased out in most places in the Americas. Many countries outlawed importation, for instance Brazil did so more than 50 years before banning outright. By the time it was banned entirely, there had already been laws against enslaving any one who was not already enslaved, including people born to enslaved mothers, laws against enslaving a relative, laws phasing people out after a number of years, etc. In Argentina, nobody born after 1813 I believe could be enslaved. It was very incremental in most places. And the living conditions of people held in slavery had been improving since the inception. In the early days, in the Caribean and Brazil, slaves only lived about 6 or 7 years at most in captivity, then died due to harsh conditions, malnourishment, heavy labor, violence, etc, and were replaced by new captives. When the trans atlantic trade ended this resulted in improved conditions, because now you had to let them live long enough to reproduce and care for children. The word creole is Portuguese for born on the farm. Breeding children for slavery of course introduced other inhuman practices, rape, ripping children from parents, the impossibility of a family structure. it was not a great thing, but bringing captives in boats to work to death was even worse... it is hard to imagine that the condition of enslaved Africans in the Americas had improved but that is just how much worse it had been before, the trans-Atlantic traffic had its peak probably in the end of the 18th century. By mid 19th centuries most countries had outlawed it, the US being on of the last, and the only region, as far as I can tell, that had a war to keep it going was the Confederacy.
There were a huge number of incremental laws in most of the involved countries.
Last edited by Dsalles on Sun Jun 17, 2018 2:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Dsalles
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Re: Abolition of human slavery

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I believe any incremental change is welcome. I never agree with the worse the better.
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Re: Abolition of human slavery

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Dsalles wrote: Sun Jun 17, 2018 2:18 pm Slavery was phased out in most places in the Americas. Many countries outlawed importation, for instance Brazil did so more than 50 years before banning outright. By the time it was banned entirely, there had already been laws against enslaving any one who was not already enslaved, including people born to enslaved mothers, laws against enslaving a relative, laws phasing people out after a number of years, etc. In Argentina, nobody born after 1813 I believe could be enslaved. It was very incremental in most places.
That's very interesting!

The main examples I knew of were probably less dependent on slavery.

These may be some great references for ending animal agriculture. How could measures like these translate?
We could focus on breeding, perhaps, banning artificial insemination?
Banning incubation chambers?
We could forbid import of live animals?
Maybe we could set a minimum age for slaughter, and keep raising it?
Dsalles wrote: Sun Jun 17, 2018 2:18 pmWhen the trans atlantic trade ended this resulted in improved conditions, because now you had to let them live long enough to reproduce and care for children.
Yes, I think I knew about that one, although it was a side effect rather than a welfare regulation.

Are there any cases of increasing welfare in slavery that phased it out?
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Re: Abolition of human slavery

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I think animal welfare laws, laws that treat animals as sentient beings and seek to minimize their suffering, establish that they do suffer, and that they are sentient, will in the long run result in the abolition of meat, though it may take a generation.
I do not have examples of improved welfare, I know that Noam Chomsky, who is pretty well versed in its history, referenced that in slavery the living conditions had improved shortly before abolition, to make a point about how improved conditions do not necessarily mean a system is good. I do not remember which speech it was, but it stuck in my mind. But if you look at the history of liberation struggles in general, it is after a group gains some rights that they start fighting for more, not the opposite.
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Re: Abolition of human slavery

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I would like to think that's a good analogy,
Dsalles wrote: Sun Jun 24, 2018 8:57 amBut if you look at the history of liberation struggles in general, it is after a group gains some rights that they start fighting for more, not the opposite.
I wonder if that could apply to non-humans, though, since it's not them fighting, but us fighting for them?
Anti-welfareists believe that strong welfare laws may take the fight out of activists, and reduce the incentive not to eat animals.

How do we argue against this? Or might there be a grain of truth in it?

I can't imagine what the outcome would have been for me, had factory farms not existed.
Would I only still be vegetarian and not vegan? And would I fight for ending animal agriculture, or would I be more indifferent?
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