Philosophy Now Forum

[quote="Veritas Aequitas
Noted your point above.

"All humans are programmed with the POTENTIAL for Good [morality] and Evil.
However since 200,000 years ago the evil potential has been dominating until recently where the potential for Good & Morality has been slowly unfolding as evident by the points I argued above. However note my point re continuum and normal distribution.
Thus it is true there is a small percentile of humans who are extremely morally-driven but this need not be good if not applied rationally. This is where you get a group of men killed in stormy sea trying to save a little drowning dog.
[/quote]

Veritas,

Actually, according to Schopenhauer, this is a metaphysical realization, that you and the other are one, that the essence of all life is the same, the common self in the dog was recognized in the instant, an immediate realization. I repeat the essence of all life is one and the same. There is but one conscious germplasma across the board.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Mar 30, 2022 4:24 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Mar 30, 2022 11:25 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 22, 2022 10:43 pm
So you're still fooling yourself that slavery is over?

You are very desperate to push the above point due to ignorance and the hindrance of your religiosity to think and rationalize for yourself.
Where in this forum have I ever claimed slavery [even chattel slavery] is over?

Not "over," of course. But you think slavery is reducing worldwide, and people are getting a kind of universal good conscience about them that is preventing them from doing it, whereas the statistics I've repeatedly provided you clearly show that slavery is not disappearing, and we are not doing better with it than we were before, but rather worse, with nastier, darker types of slavery than the American South ever knew.

Still, you just ignore that, say it's not "chattel" so it can't be so bad, and then you carry on with polyannish confidence. That's the story so far, anyway.

Yours is a strawman, 'apples and oranges' fallacy based on conflation.
From the beginning I had understood the term 'slavery' is a very loose term.
That is why I had deliberately confined my argument SPECIFICALLY to 'chattel slavery.
So in keeping to topic, do you agree,

• There is a reduction in 'chattel slavery' since 10,000 years ago to the present which is due to the gradual unfoldment of the evolutionarily 'programmed' moral potential within all humans. In addition this is supported evidently by the fact that, at present it is illegal to own another human as a chattel slave in all sovereign nations.

Yes or No? [don't give those buts and what-abouts].

If you want to shift from 'apples' to 'oranges' you would need to resort to another different argument.
Even if I were to argue [a new topic] on 'slavery' on a wider [not the widest*], I insist there are the same improvements that are going on with 'chattel slavery' albeit with different degrees, conditions and timelines.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery

Other than 'chattel slavery' there are the various types of 'slavery' i.e.

• 1 Terminology
  1.1 Chattel slavery
  1.2 Bonded labour
  1.3 Dependents
  1.4 Forced labour
  1.5 Forced marriage

What evidence do you have to support your point, the other forms of slavery 1.2 -1.5 are,
"worse, with nastier, darker types of slavery than the American South ever knew." I presumes this also refer to 'chattel slavery' all over the world.

There are forced and child labor at present but I don't believe the psychological and physical conditions are as bad as those >100 years ago like the ones below;

The critical improvement is, >100 years ago there were no laws against forced and child labor, but now there are laws against child labor and various employments acts to protect employees.
This is evident there are improvements in these sort of slavery driven by the internally evolutionarily programmed moral potential.

In 2019, approximately 40 million people, of whom 26 percent were children, were enslaved throughout the world despite its being illegal.
-wiki

The quantum 40 million may seem large but relatively to the lower population in the past [as pointed out by Henry] [note 1% of the current population of 8B is 80 million!], it is not significant but what is critical here is the point "despite its being illegal."
This is evident there are improvements in these sort of slavery other than 'chattel slavery'.
In addition to governmental efforts, there are lots of NGOs all over the world striving to prevent illegal child labor slavery and other slavery from happening. This is evident of the gradual unfoldment of the moral potential related to slavery.

Kailash Satyarthi, the winner of a Nobel Peace Prize for his fight against child labor and exploitation, said his mission as a children’s rights activist began when he himself was a child.
Link

The point is you are intellectually dishonest if you conflate all the various forms of slavery to argue against each specific form.

As such to maintain your intellectually integrity you must compare 'apples' with 'apples' and present your argument in relation to each specific types of slavery. But the overriding point of improvement to all these other forms of slavery is they are illegal whereas in the past prior to 100 years ago there were no laws against them.

* In the Widest term of slavery,

The labour market, as institutionalized under contemporary capitalist systems, has been criticized by mainstream socialists and by anarcho-syndicalists, who utilise the term wage slavery as a pejorative or dysphemism for wage labour.[42][43][44] Socialists draw parallels between the trade of labour as a commodity and slavery. Cicero is also known to have suggested such parallels.
see Otheruses of the term slavery in, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery#O ... f_the_term

I presume you will not drop so low as to argue for the above, but given your level of dogmatism, perhaps you may do so??

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 30, 2022 11:35 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Noted your point above.

"All humans are programmed with the POTENTIAL for Good [morality] and Evil.
However since 200,000 years ago the evil potential has been dominating until recently where the potential for Good & Morality has been slowly unfolding as evident by the points I argued above. However note my point re continuum and normal distribution.
Thus it is true there is a small percentile of humans who are extremely morally-driven but this need not be good if not applied rationally. This is where you get a group of men killed in stormy sea trying to save a little drowning dog.

Veritas,
Actually, according to Schopenhauer, this is a metaphysical realization, that you and the other are one, that the essence of all life is the same, the common self in the dog was recognized in the instant, an immediate realization. I repeat the essence of all life is one and the same. There is but one conscious germplasma across the board.

I have read Schopenhauer.
If one really has the realization "one is one-with-all-there-is", i.e. cosmic consciousness [a much higher level of consciousness with wisdom], one would not be risking one's life in jumping into such irrational and stupid acts of compassion.

Veritas,
Actually, according to Schopenhauer, this is a metaphysical realization, that you and the other are one, that the essence of all life is the same, the common self in the dog was recognized in the instant, an immediate realization. I repeat the essence of all life is one and the same. There is but one conscious germplasma across the board.
[/quote]
I have read Schopenhauer.
If one really has the realization "one is one-with-all-there-is", i.e. cosmic consciousness [a much higher level of consciousness with wisdom], one would not be risking one's life in jumping into such irrational and stupid acts of compassion.
[/quote]

Veritas.
Well, no one is going to stop you from making that judgment but regardless, the underlying reality is one of profound significance. I remember what that great mythologist, the late Joseph Campell said about the reality that life lives upon life. He said that nothing is really happening but the process is painful. It is life maintaining itself renewing itself. That the essence of all life is the same in all creatures is kind of inescapable considering modern genetics. People too are beginning to realize consciousness is much more extensive throughout the physical world then previously thought. A thought, by your judgment, the saving of another human being's life at the risk of your own, would also be stupid.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 5:54 am From the beginning I had understood the term 'slavery' is a very loose term.

Not really. You might want it that way, but we can make it specific, as I will now do.

What we mean is people being forced into things they are not choosing to do, through the use of power and without payment. That could refer to field labour, child labour, sex trafficking...and so on...but these are merely varieties of labour compelled by force.

It does not include things like contractual work you've agreed to do but now want more wages for. It does not include looking at the person down the street and hating him because he's richer than you. It doesn't include having to go to a job every day to provide for one's family. It does not include such things as voluteer work, either, which people do without money but still by their own choice. So it's not an automatic feature of any capitalistically-run economy, where labour is voluntary and unforced, and where work receives remuneration.

Simple. So let's stick to that.

On that definition, there are more slaves in the world now than at any time in previous history. So no, the human race is not getting better on that score. They're getting worse. And since much of today's slavery is outright human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and child labour, it's even worse than what you are trying to narrow the definition to cover. What traditional slave would not prefer to work in a field rather than to be serially raped to death instead?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 3:15 pmthere are more slaves in the world now than at any time in previous history. So no, the human race is not getting better on that score. They're getting worse. And since much of today's slavery is outright human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and child labour, it's even worse than what you are trying to narrow the definition to cover. What traditional slave would not prefer to work in a field rather than to be serially raped to death instead?

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 30, 2022 6:37 pm we are not doing better with it than we were before

Overall, we are.

The estimate is 40 million folks, today, are slaved. Let's be really liberal about it and bump that estimate up to 100 million. 100 million folks slaved is about 1.25% of almost the 8 billion folks livin' today.

Surely this is a far lower percentage than at any other point in history where the global population was smaller and the overall number of slaved folks was higher.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 30, 2022 6:50 pm Also: I don't understand the distinction between chattel slavery and slavery.

Whether a person is slaved openly, thru legal means, or kidnapped and held covertly: it's all the same damn thing.

Mebbe the only difference is: it's easier to off the solitary sicko who kidnaps someone and keeps 'em chained up in the attic than it is to off a society/legal system that allows for enslavement.

In the first: you just shoot him in the face.

In the second: you have to exterminate the governors and their proxies, i.e. war.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 3:15 pmWhat traditional slave would not prefer to work in a field rather than to be serially raped to death instead?

Slavery is slavery, guy. You're almost sayin' one injustice is less unjust than the other. No such scale exists. It's not the use the slaver puts the slave to that determines wrongness. It's that the slaver slaves to begin with, that he leashes another man. The kindest, most benevolent slaver is still a slaver. He gets no credit for bein' kind or benevolent.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 3:49 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 3:15 pmWhat traditional slave would not prefer to work in a field rather than to be serially raped to death instead?

Slavery is slavery, guy. You're almost sayin' one injustice is less unjust than the other.

No, I'm not. I'm refuting VA.

VA is pretending that so long as "chattel slavery" (by his definition) is not as apparent in his particular locale, that proves that the human race as a whole is getting better. But my point is that he's not even regarding types of slavery that are more hideous, more evil, and more deadly even than his narrow definition of slavery will allow.

For example, right now, female escapees from that lovely Socialist regime in North Korea are trying to use China as an escape route. But in China, they have a shortage of women for their rural men especially, a shortage caused by the one-child policy of the Chinese Socialist government. So the common practice in these rural areas is to buy a North Korean refugee woman from a slaver, take her to your village, and make her the "village woman" for all the men there. That is, any man who needs a little "relief" can take that woman, and do whatever he wants with her and to her; and when she dies of the trauma of multiple rapes, they buy another "village woman" and do the same thing to her.

Is there no limit to the wickedness of mankind?

Now, tell me how that compares to the prospect of working on, say, a cotton planation for 12 hours in the hot sun -- not good, but at least you're not being raped to death. (If you force me to one or the other, I know which I'm taking!) And tell me that the wickedess of that form of slavery is not as serious as the kind VA will recognize.

The kindest, most benevolent slaver is still a slaver. He gets no credit for bein' kind or benevolent.

I agree.

But there are evil types of slavery and even worse types, and bloody awful types: all bad, but the worst kinds are the kinds that are routinely practiced in many places right now (the Middle East is also a pit of this kind of thing, but so are some Slavic countries; and America has its own underground slave-sex industry going).

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon Jan 24, 2022 6:22 am Related to this post,
viewtopic.php?p=556914#p556914
here is the question re 'Chattel Slavery"
Where did 'your own Private Internal Moral Laws [which happen to to be same as others] that detested and refrained oneself from chattel slavery within you arise from?

• Slavery is a loose term and I deliberately specified my point related to slavery is confined to 'chattel' slavery only in this case.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery
  In the long term, all forms of slavery must be abolished legally by all sovereign nations, but what is most critical is, subsequently in the future, slavery must be spontaneously taken as morally wrong by each individual voluntarily -as their private personal law internally- and as such any external laws of on slavery will lose their significance.
  
  I am sure you [& many] understand that from personal experience, i.e. one do not need to rely on external laws to tell or deter them that slavery is wrong.
  In this case, you (& the many] has their own private internal laws that reflect chattel slavery [& other forms of slavery] is wrong, i.e. morally, despite your God not condemning slavery explicitly.
  
  So you need to ask, where did this private internal Moral laws [not from your God] and similar with others that detested chattel slavery within you/them arise from?

There are no private internal moral laws.
In fact it is tantamount to a contradiction in terms since moral laws are definitively given by the community, else they are not laws at all.
Personal ethical behaviour is always a negotiation between personal opinion, moral teachings from one's culture and personal interests.
These are modified by how close or remote the moral actors are in the given situations and whom they might concern.
They say a friend will help you move; but a good friend will help you move a body.
Moral law has no semantic meaning in the context of the individual.

Additionally people do not jus "know" that slavery is wrong. You simply cannot delete the cultural indoctrination from an innate sense of justice. Slavery is a constant in human history and emancipation and manumission are rather recent ideas given the long duration of human history.

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 8:14 am Veritas,
Actually, according to Schopenhauer, this is a metaphysical realization, that you and the other are one, that the essence of all life is the same, the common self in the dog was recognized in the instant, an immediate realization. I repeat the essence of all life is one and the same. There is but one conscious germplasma across the board.

I have read Schopenhauer.
If one really has the realization "one is one-with-all-there-is", i.e. cosmic consciousness [a much higher level of consciousness with wisdom], one would not be risking one's life in jumping into such irrational and stupid acts of compassion.
[/quote]

Veritas.
Well, no one is going to stop you from making that judgment but regardless, the underlying reality is one of profound significance. I remember what that great mythologist, the late Joseph Campell said about the reality that life lives upon life. He said that nothing is really happening but the process is painful. It is life maintaining itself renewing itself. That the essence of all life is the same in all creatures is kind of inescapable considering modern genetics. People too are beginning to realize consciousness is much more extensive throughout the physical world then previously thought. A thought, by your judgment, the saving of another human being's life at the risk of your own, would also be stupid.
[/quote]
I stated
"one would not be risking one's life in jumping into such irrational and stupid acts of compassion"

I meant where one had acted "irrationally", i.e. spontaneously impulsively without any rational considerations.
For example a mother or father who acted spontaneously [without rational consideration] to save their child in a dangerous situation would be 'natural' but it is a stupid act. Many had died together with their child or siblings.
There are many people who had acted spontaneously to save other humans [not related] and animals without any consideration of the dangers, e.g. trying to save a deer in the middle of a frozen lake without taking into consideration of the thickness of the ice in the lake.

OTOH, there are well-trained professional life savers who in a way are risking their lives in trying to save others or animals, but they only act upon after rationally weighing the risks involved.
The point here is the risks involved are reduced to a minimal on a professional basis.
It is true some die due to very unfortunate situations but such deaths are not 'stupid'.

Moral laws are first the sentiments of recognition of the self in others. It is through this that compassion arises and is made manifest in the outer world as rules, laws, common sentiments and the structures that represent and enforce those sentiments. Societies don't make laws, people make laws and societies of peoples abide by them. There is only one source of all meaning and that is a biologically conscious subject, which includes the meaning/s of moral laws.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 3:15 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 5:54 am From the beginning I had understood the term 'slavery' is a very loose term.

Not really. You might want it that way, but we can make it specific, as I will now do.

It is not that I want it that way.
What I had been discussing had been laid out right from the beginning, i.e. the topic of chattel slavery. You are forcing your way to change the subject.

If I had specified that the topic is 'Rape as a sex crime' it is intellectually dishonest to conflate it with all other types of sex crimes.
That is what you are trying to conflate the specific chattel slavery I qualified with all other types of slavery.
Can't you see your flaw here?

What we mean is people being forced into things they are not choosing to do, through the use of power and without payment. That could refer to field labour, child labour, sex trafficking...and so on...but these are merely varieties of labour compelled by force.

It does not include things like contractual work you've agreed to do but now want more wages for. It does not include looking at the person down the street and hating him because he's richer than you. It doesn't include having to go to a job every day to provide for one's family. It does not include such things as voluteer work, either, which people do without money but still by their own choice. So it's not an automatic feature of any capitalistically-run economy, where labour is voluntary and unforced, and where work receives remuneration.

Simple. So let's stick to that.

Your above definition of 'slavery' is definitely different from my earlier topic of 'chattel slavery'.
This would be a new topic and OP.

On that definition, there are more slaves in the world now than at any time in previous history. So no, the human race is not getting better on that score. They're getting worse. And since much of today's slavery is outright human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and child labour, it's even worse than what you are trying to narrow the definition to cover. What traditional slave would not prefer to work in a field rather than to be serially raped to death instead?

Now we are dealing with a different 'kettle of fish', i.e. taking into all forms of slavery per your definition above [which I agree].

On this basis, your argument is too crude.
You just cannot based on merely quantum at present but must compare the relative % of the world's population.
There were already slaves 10,000 years ago where the world population of estimated to be around 5 million where 1% is 50,000.

In the period 1AD, the world population was around 200 million, thus 1% is 2 million.
At present we have 8 billion where 1% would be 80 million.
It is reported

In 2019, approximately 40 million people, of whom 26 percent were children, were enslaved throughout the world despite its being illegal.

Note 40 million at present is merely 0.5% of the population.
So in terms of relative %, we at present are better than the past.

Since you want to cover all types of slavery, i.e.;
1.1 Chattel slavery
1.2 Bonded labour
1.3 Dependents
1.4 Forced labour
For each category of slavery, you'll will need to give various weightages in terms of sufferings, psychological impact, degrees of freedom, legal or illegal, Global [UN], Government and NGOs involvements, etc.

I will argue 'Chattel Slavery' will be given a relatively higher weightage and thus its improvements over the past to the present will be higher.

Another point which I had mentioned is in the past all the above types of slavery were not restricted by laws but at the present all the above slavery are illegal. This is the most critical criteria of improvement of slavery over the past.

I am not going into more details here.

On estimate I believe in terms of all types of slavery, there are general improvements since the past 10,000 years ago to the present 2022.
These improvements are driven by the internally "programmed" moral potential within all humans.

Veritas.

["one would not be risking one's life in jumping into such irrational and stupid acts of compassion.

I meant where one had acted "irrationally", i.e. spontaneously impulsively without any rational considerations.
For example a mother or father who acted spontaneously [without rational consideration] to save their child in a dangerous situation would be 'natural' but it is a stupid act. Many had died together with their child or siblings.
There are many people who had acted spontaneously to save other humans [not related] and animals without any consideration of the dangers, e.g. trying to save a deer in the middle of a frozen lake without taking into consideration of the thickness of the ice in the lake.

OTOH, there are well-trained professional life savers who in a way are risking their lives in trying to save others or animals, but they only act upon after rationally weighing the risks involved.
The point here is the risks involved are reduced to a minimal on a professional basis.
It is true some die due to very unfortunate situations but such deaths are not 'stupid'.
[/quote]

Veritas,
What you say makes sense but still misses the point, Schopenhaures point was that this is a metaphysical realization that just grabs one, not a lot of time for thinking. There is just something within the individual that just has to try. I remember one statement of a police officer who grabbed a jumper and would not let go, he was going over with him, ask why he did it, he said, if I had of let go of that young man I would have found living the rest of my life very difficult. There just must be something that overrides life's first principle, self-survival, the whole thing from begining to end is impulsive, realization and reaction, why is there not indifference? My own answer is, the realization arises from the fact that the essence of all life is one and the same, or as the Upanishads say, "This am I". Actually, Schopenhauer's insight might be attributable to his love of reading the Upanishads.

Sculptor wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 7:08 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon Jan 24, 2022 6:22 am Related to this post,
viewtopic.php?p=556914#p556914
here is the question re 'Chattel Slavery"
Where did 'your own Private Internal Moral Laws [which happen to to be same as others] that detested and refrained oneself from chattel slavery within you arise from?

• Slavery is a loose term and I deliberately specified my point related to slavery is confined to 'chattel' slavery only in this case.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery
  In the long term, all forms of slavery must be abolished legally by all sovereign nations, but what is most critical is, subsequently in the future, slavery must be spontaneously taken as morally wrong by each individual voluntarily -as their private personal law internally- and as such any external laws of on slavery will lose their significance.
  
  I am sure you [& many] understand that from personal experience, i.e. one do not need to rely on external laws to tell or deter them that slavery is wrong.
  In this case, you (& the many] has their own private internal laws that reflect chattel slavery [& other forms of slavery] is wrong, i.e. morally, despite your God not condemning slavery explicitly.
  
  So you need to ask, where did this private internal Moral laws [not from your God] and similar with others that detested chattel slavery within you/them arise from?

There are no private internal moral laws.
In fact it is tantamount to a contradiction in terms since moral laws are definitively given by the community, else they are not laws at all.
Personal ethical behaviour is always a negotiation between personal opinion, moral teachings from one's culture and personal interests.
These are modified by how close or remote the moral actors are in the given situations and whom they might concern.
They say a friend will help you move; but a good friend will help you move a body.
Moral law has no semantic meaning in the context of the individual.

Additionally people do not jus "know" that slavery is wrong. You simply cannot delete the cultural indoctrination from an innate sense of justice. Slavery is a constant in human history and emancipation and manumission are rather recent ideas given the long duration of human history.

There are various meanings to the term 'law', it is not restricted only to 'community' laws.

Note this meaning of 'law', as in natural laws, e.g. Physics, etc. thus akin to 'principles'.

• a general rule that states what always happens when the same conditions exist:
  https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/law

It is a natural law that all living humans must have oxygen [via breathing naturally or artificially] else they die.
I am arguing, all humans are "programmed" with a moral potential which has been slowly unfolding since humans emerged and the rate of unfoldment is greater at present which had resulted in the average moral progress since 10,000 years ago.

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 01, 2022 5:13 am Veritas.

["one would not be risking one's life in jumping into such irrational and stupid acts of compassion.

I meant where one had acted "irrationally", i.e. spontaneously impulsively without any rational considerations.
For example a mother or father who acted spontaneously [without rational consideration] to save their child in a dangerous situation would be 'natural' but it is a stupid act. Many had died together with their child or siblings.
There are many people who had acted spontaneously to save other humans [not related] and animals without any consideration of the dangers, e.g. trying to save a deer in the middle of a frozen lake without taking into consideration of the thickness of the ice in the lake.

OTOH, there are well-trained professional life savers who in a way are risking their lives in trying to save others or animals, but they only act upon after rationally weighing the risks involved.
The point here is the risks involved are reduced to a minimal on a professional basis.
It is true some die due to very unfortunate situations but such deaths are not 'stupid'.

Veritas,
What you say makes sense but still misses the point, Schopenhaures point was that this is a metaphysical realization that just grabs one, not a lot of time for thinking. There is just something within the individual that just has to try. I remember one statement of a police officer who grabbed a jumper and would not let go, he was going over with him, ask why he did it, he said, if I had of let go of that young man I would have found living the rest of my life very difficult. There just must be something that overrides life's first principle, self-survival, the whole thing from begining to end is impulsive, realization and reaction, why is there not indifference? My own answer is, the realization arises from the fact that the essence of all life is one and the same, or as the Upanishads say, "This am I". Actually, Schopenhauer's insight might be attributable to his love of reading the Upanishads.
[/quote]
I have read Schopenhauer's 2 volumes and is reasonable well versed with Hindu Philosophy, esp. Vedanta.
My point is, if one has cosmic realization of the "I AM" [developed over a long time] one would a high degree of wisdom, equanimity and rationality and will not be impulsive.
Even when one has a sudden realization of the "I AM" it would not come at the time when one is faced a situation of having to save someone.

In your example above, policemen are often well trained to encounter critical situations like the above.
If that policemen was only able to grab the man's jumper by his finger tips, if he is rational we will have to let go.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 5:50 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 3:49 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 3:15 pmWhat traditional slave would not prefer to work in a field rather than to be serially raped to death instead?

Slavery is slavery, guy. You're almost sayin' one injustice is less unjust than the other.

No, I'm not. I'm refuting VA.

VA is pretending that so long as "chattel slavery" (by his definition) is not as apparent in his particular locale, that proves that the human race as a whole is getting better. But my point is that he's not even regarding types of slavery that are more hideous, more evil, and more deadly even than his narrow definition of slavery will allow.

Your above view is not a good reflection for your intellectual integrity and that is because you are driven by divine dogmatism.

Note my in this discussion was specifically related to 'chattel slavery' and any 'human race getting better' is related to 'chattel slavery'.

Here is my separate discussion when taking into account ALL forms of slavery.
Slavery [all forms] Much Mitigated since 10,000 years ago?
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=34546

For example, right now, female escapees from that lovely Socialist regime in North Korea are trying to use China as an escape route. But in China, they have a shortage of women for their rural men especially, a shortage caused by the one-child policy of the Chinese Socialist government. So the common practice in these rural areas is to buy a North Korean refugee woman from a slaver, take her to your village, and make her the "village woman" for all the men there. That is, any man who needs a little "relief" can take that woman, and do whatever he wants with her and to her; and when she dies of the trauma of multiple rapes, they buy another "village woman" and do the same thing to her.

Is there no limit to the wickedness of mankind?

Now, tell me how that compares to the prospect of working on, say, a cotton planation for 12 hours in the hot sun -- not good, but at least you're not being raped to death. (If you force me to one or the other, I know which I'm taking!) And tell me that the wickedess of that form of slavery is not as serious as the kind VA will recognize.

What evidence do you have that past chattel and other forms of slaves are not raped, raped to death, beaten violently and subject to psychological and all forms of abuses.

Off hand, I don't believe the quantum in the North Korean situation is significantly large since it is not easy to escape from North Korea.
Do you have evidence for the quantum involved?

The kindest, most benevolent slaver is still a slaver. He gets no credit for bein' kind or benevolent.

I agree.

But there are evil types of slavery and even worse types, and bloody awful types: all bad, but the worst kinds are the kinds that are routinely practiced in many places right now (the Middle East is also a pit of this kind of thing, but so are some Slavic countries; and America has its own underground slave-sex industry going).

If you want to consider all forms of slavery, note this new OP I mentioned above,
Slavery [all forms] Much Mitigated since 10,000 years ago?
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=34546

The overriding improvements related to all forms of slavery is that they are all restricted and deemed illegal by laws in all countries at present 2022 as compared to 100 -10,000 years ago.

I am arguing, all humans are "programmed" with a moral potential which has been slowly unfolding since humans emerged and the rate of unfoldment is greater at present which had resulted in the average moral progress since 10,000 years ago.