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This comic is about a robot powered by bees, but it's also about the kind of people who think filling a robot with bees is a good idea, and why they're wrong.
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David M Willis
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A trickling of youths from home. Makes me wonder if the Sky Elves might be cleaning house in the process. Perhaps Jemmington was incarcerated and they gave him the choice of staying in jail or exile. He doesn’t seem like the kind that would’ve left to fight a noble cause.
It does suggest that wherever the Sky Elves have gone, they still have the ability to get back to the land formerly known as Gastonia. What’s the bet some of those “youths” are agents keeping an eye on things?
Had the feeling that the ex-sky elves and the shit elves would end up uniting. Better to do it now, while the ex-sky elves are still a political force and have the potential to lift the group up, then for it to happen through the steady decline of the ex-sky elves until they’re all at shit elf level.
The way I figure it, if I were in their shoes, I’d sympathize with the position that Sky Elves shouldn’t be isolationist, but I wouldn’t want to leave my home over it. I’ve said it before, but I also sympathize with Canegham’s position, as at the end of it all, he’s anti-war and reasonably mistrusts alliances since the Altruists did betray the adventurers and the Wood Elves. I don’t suddenly expect him to expect the World’s Rebellion to be better bedfellows. If I were a Sky Elf youth, I’d much rather build prospects elsewhere and the maybe revisit whether Sky Elves should be hardcore isolationists.
It can be the insidious thing about slavery, though – if you’re not careful with how you go about abolishing it, it’s very possible for people to end up worse off than they were as slaves. Not to endorse Don Gobligno’s slimy attitude at all here, but it’s not as simple as striking the chains – you need a plan to ensure that the ex-slaves will be able to make a decent living as free people.
And to prevent any attempts by the former slavers to sabotage those efforts to attempt to prove that slavery was needed after all.
I actually don’t think that’s an unlikely view. Sure Gobligno is not a reliable source, but this was a thing with Roman slaves. “Freeing” a slave is often just an excuse to get rid of another mouth to feed. In practice, the master is not required to make sure the slave is well-off.
Practically, if a Roman set up a newly-freed slave with their own business, it made a new Roman citizen who is a freshman business contact to the former master.
The Roman style of slavery was actually why I mentioned life time style slavery, because slavery in the United States was magnitudes worse than slavery in the Roman Empire.
Slavery in Rome was often a set period of servitude, either that a person either willingly signed themselves too or a sentence for a crime. American slavery was more often a lifetime sentence unless your master deigned to grant you freedom. More often though, if a master could not afford to keep a slave, they sold them to a master who could. If Roman slave had a child, that child was not necessarily a slave. In American slavery, that child most definitely was a slave. Breeding slaves was no different than breeding livestock for most masters. It was how they kept slavery alive once the United States stopped buying slaves from overseas traders and such.
I assumed it depended more on what kind of slave you were. Romans still captured slaves from war and *somebody* had to work the salt mines.
If Wikipedia is anything like a reliable source, then summary executions and sexual exploitations were a thing. So . . . on the whole? Pretty awful. I don’t ever remember learning that there was a set expiration for slavery as near as Romans are concerned. It just seemed like they did so if they felt like it or the slave could buy their freedom.
“I’m so sick of the authors using their comic to shove their political opinions down our throats!” – Some confederate officer who time-travelled here from the 1800’s.
…
I’m trying really hard to ignore the fact that what Don Gobligno said might as well have been said by a white supremacist today.
Or a frighteningly large amount of pretty much average people.
People will go a long way to avoid acknowledging that their ancestors were monstrous people.
It’s easier to develop a warped ideology that the Confederate flag is a symbol of some kind of vague southern pride, or that the Civil War was about “states rights” (what rights were those, exactly?), than to think complicated thoughts about why precisely grandpa and grandma suddenly became so interested in displaying the Confederate flag at *checks watch* oh around the same time the Civil Rights Movement was picking up steam huh what a weird coincidence. The fact that it wasn’t associated with southern pride pre-CRM probably isn’t significant.
At the same time though he might be right. He’s probably exaggerating the quantity who don’t want freedom, but do note that being free is hard. There are lots of things a free person has to worry about that a slave just lets the boss take care of. It’s why most of the “free” world has been slowly voting themselves back into slavery over the last hundred years.
“Save for retirement? That’s too hard, let’s just have the government force us to hand over an arbitrary amount of money and hold it for us until we reach an arbitrary age.”
“Pick a good contractor based on their reputation? That’s too hard! Let’s just have the government punish anyone who does that kind of work without a special slip of paper and trust they’ll weed out the bad ones for us.”
The list gets longer every year as people give up more and more of their freedom in exchange (they think) for having less to worry about.
In some places it’s even gotten to the point where the people have given up their freedom to seek appropriate medical care, instead allowing the government to decide who should be allowed treatment and who simply left to die.
And all of this requested, nay demanded, by the “free” people.
But don’t worry citizen! It’s not slavery if you’re not actually wearing chains and being whipped!
That’s an interesting argument, but both of those examples are somewhat flawed. The first has the problem of longevity. How long do you expect to live after you retire? Ten years? Twenty years? Plan for ten and you are in trouble if you live into your eighties. Plan for twenty, and what happens to the money if you die before you hit sixty-five? It’s almost as if some centralized system could be used to subsidize the care of the longer-lived citizens from the excess savings of those who die young.
In the latter, an even poorer example, how does one get a reputation? By working! How does one find work (in order to build a reputation and get more work)? Through one’s reputation! Eventually, a contractor has to start somewhere, and certification can be the foot in the door for those just starting out.
Finally, in neither of these cases is it necessary to rely solely on the government. Want to save more for retirement? You can! Want to check the reputation of certified contractors? You can! Want to gripe that the things that you let others do for you aren’t done to your own standards (for example a contractor that didn’t live up to their reputation)? That is not slavery!
In modern life, people allow many things to be done for them. Do you fix your own house (probably not)? Do you even directly hire the individual carpenter or plumber who does the work (unlikely)? Instead, you contact a contractor. Dozens of other transactions are carried out, not on the level of one individual to another, but through vast intermediaries. Insurance agencies contact hospitals who hire doctors. Investors hire brokers who buy mutual funds that invest in companies. Somehow, when the government gets involved, it’s slavery? How droll!
Yeah, it’s just a little bit of a thing to remember that the Savage Races could be as bad as Gastonia at times.
Well at least Penk decided to free the trolls’ slaves after the revolution was won. Other revolutionaries took their time.
Ah, to be able to “portal” the flotsam and jetsam (and a couple other Sams) out of my life …
I suppose you won’t be needing this… succulent… sammich.
I do not like it, Sam-I-am!
All you need is a little Alaca-sam, and your problems are solved!
A trickling of youths from home. Makes me wonder if the Sky Elves might be cleaning house in the process. Perhaps Jemmington was incarcerated and they gave him the choice of staying in jail or exile. He doesn’t seem like the kind that would’ve left to fight a noble cause.
It does suggest that wherever the Sky Elves have gone, they still have the ability to get back to the land formerly known as Gastonia. What’s the bet some of those “youths” are agents keeping an eye on things?
Had the feeling that the ex-sky elves and the shit elves would end up uniting. Better to do it now, while the ex-sky elves are still a political force and have the potential to lift the group up, then for it to happen through the steady decline of the ex-sky elves until they’re all at shit elf level.
The way I figure it, if I were in their shoes, I’d sympathize with the position that Sky Elves shouldn’t be isolationist, but I wouldn’t want to leave my home over it. I’ve said it before, but I also sympathize with Canegham’s position, as at the end of it all, he’s anti-war and reasonably mistrusts alliances since the Altruists did betray the adventurers and the Wood Elves. I don’t suddenly expect him to expect the World’s Rebellion to be better bedfellows. If I were a Sky Elf youth, I’d much rather build prospects elsewhere and the maybe revisit whether Sky Elves should be hardcore isolationists.
I see they’ve created busts of everyone on the Council.
You might say they’ve been… [sunglasses]… busted.
That’s the giant chess petitioners use to amuse themselves while awaiting an audience.
Now I really want to know which chess piece each of them represents.
Spotted champion of the fuzzy peoples!
(Then realized that they had tagged him as well, and was less impressed with myself).
Cheers,
Cote
“You assume they all want freedom.”
Ugh….the mental state of people who endorse life-time style slavery.
It can be the insidious thing about slavery, though – if you’re not careful with how you go about abolishing it, it’s very possible for people to end up worse off than they were as slaves. Not to endorse Don Gobligno’s slimy attitude at all here, but it’s not as simple as striking the chains – you need a plan to ensure that the ex-slaves will be able to make a decent living as free people.
And to prevent any attempts by the former slavers to sabotage those efforts to attempt to prove that slavery was needed after all.
Forty acres and a mule. And a vote. And obviously, no clause requiring that your grandfather could vote.
And perhaps a payout of wages due, with interest?
Well Gobligno is slimy, but his objection is actually super plausible. He’s a political operator at the end of it all.
I actually don’t think that’s an unlikely view. Sure Gobligno is not a reliable source, but this was a thing with Roman slaves. “Freeing” a slave is often just an excuse to get rid of another mouth to feed. In practice, the master is not required to make sure the slave is well-off.
Practically, if a Roman set up a newly-freed slave with their own business, it made a new Roman citizen who is a freshman business contact to the former master.
The Roman style of slavery was actually why I mentioned life time style slavery, because slavery in the United States was magnitudes worse than slavery in the Roman Empire.
Slavery in Rome was often a set period of servitude, either that a person either willingly signed themselves too or a sentence for a crime. American slavery was more often a lifetime sentence unless your master deigned to grant you freedom. More often though, if a master could not afford to keep a slave, they sold them to a master who could. If Roman slave had a child, that child was not necessarily a slave. In American slavery, that child most definitely was a slave. Breeding slaves was no different than breeding livestock for most masters. It was how they kept slavery alive once the United States stopped buying slaves from overseas traders and such.
I assumed it depended more on what kind of slave you were. Romans still captured slaves from war and *somebody* had to work the salt mines.
If Wikipedia is anything like a reliable source, then summary executions and sexual exploitations were a thing. So . . . on the whole? Pretty awful. I don’t ever remember learning that there was a set expiration for slavery as near as Romans are concerned. It just seemed like they did so if they felt like it or the slave could buy their freedom.
We all seek windows
A pane that faces eastward
Light of a new Don?
Nice play on words there.
“I’m so sick of the authors using their comic to shove their political opinions down our throats!” – Some confederate officer who time-travelled here from the 1800’s.
…
I’m trying really hard to ignore the fact that what Don Gobligno said might as well have been said by a white supremacist today.
Or a frighteningly large amount of pretty much average people.
Or Kanye.
People will go a long way to avoid acknowledging that their ancestors were monstrous people.
It’s easier to develop a warped ideology that the Confederate flag is a symbol of some kind of vague southern pride, or that the Civil War was about “states rights” (what rights were those, exactly?), than to think complicated thoughts about why precisely grandpa and grandma suddenly became so interested in displaying the Confederate flag at *checks watch* oh around the same time the Civil Rights Movement was picking up steam huh what a weird coincidence. The fact that it wasn’t associated with southern pride pre-CRM probably isn’t significant.
Or heaven forbid, consider that perhaps you owe some people a rather massive amount of money…
At the same time though he might be right. He’s probably exaggerating the quantity who don’t want freedom, but do note that being free is hard. There are lots of things a free person has to worry about that a slave just lets the boss take care of. It’s why most of the “free” world has been slowly voting themselves back into slavery over the last hundred years.
“Save for retirement? That’s too hard, let’s just have the government force us to hand over an arbitrary amount of money and hold it for us until we reach an arbitrary age.”
“Pick a good contractor based on their reputation? That’s too hard! Let’s just have the government punish anyone who does that kind of work without a special slip of paper and trust they’ll weed out the bad ones for us.”
The list gets longer every year as people give up more and more of their freedom in exchange (they think) for having less to worry about.
In some places it’s even gotten to the point where the people have given up their freedom to seek appropriate medical care, instead allowing the government to decide who should be allowed treatment and who simply left to die.
And all of this requested, nay demanded, by the “free” people.
But don’t worry citizen! It’s not slavery if you’re not actually wearing chains and being whipped!
That’s an interesting argument, but both of those examples are somewhat flawed. The first has the problem of longevity. How long do you expect to live after you retire? Ten years? Twenty years? Plan for ten and you are in trouble if you live into your eighties. Plan for twenty, and what happens to the money if you die before you hit sixty-five? It’s almost as if some centralized system could be used to subsidize the care of the longer-lived citizens from the excess savings of those who die young.
In the latter, an even poorer example, how does one get a reputation? By working! How does one find work (in order to build a reputation and get more work)? Through one’s reputation! Eventually, a contractor has to start somewhere, and certification can be the foot in the door for those just starting out.
Finally, in neither of these cases is it necessary to rely solely on the government. Want to save more for retirement? You can! Want to check the reputation of certified contractors? You can! Want to gripe that the things that you let others do for you aren’t done to your own standards (for example a contractor that didn’t live up to their reputation)? That is not slavery!
In modern life, people allow many things to be done for them. Do you fix your own house (probably not)? Do you even directly hire the individual carpenter or plumber who does the work (unlikely)? Instead, you contact a contractor. Dozens of other transactions are carried out, not on the level of one individual to another, but through vast intermediaries. Insurance agencies contact hospitals who hire doctors. Investors hire brokers who buy mutual funds that invest in companies. Somehow, when the government gets involved, it’s slavery? How droll!
LOL “shit elves”
Bottom right Auraugu: “Eeeeyyyyy!”