zlacker

>>david9+(OP)
We are a society whose culture has become unmoored from the values that built it.

>>unname+wy
Have we? The culture and values that built this country are stained in blood, violence, and subjugation. I feel we are actually losing the enlightenment that came afterwards and regressing back.

>>nickth+0B
Like every other country and ethnic group on earth. I don't understand what's so notable about American history in this regard.

>>Alexan+y21
Well only a couple countries participated in the creation of the Atlantic slave trade, and very few in history have engaged in chattel slavery to the scale the USA did.

>>komali+L31
Seems like a very Americentric perspective. There's still plenty of chattel slavery out there right now[1]. In that respect, the idea that the US is uniquely bad is like the "evil twin" version of American exceptionalism[2].

[1] https://corpaccountabilitylab.org/calblog/2025/8/7/widesprea...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

>>Alexan+n81
It's hard to find other examples of it (or at least the inherent natural inferiority of one group of residents) being written into the country's foundational legal document. We are indeed exceptional in that regard.

>>frmers+H91
It's time to get off your high horse. If you eat meat, future humans will regard you the same way as we regard the slave owners of yesteryear. Perhaps even worse.

Judge people by the ways in which they push their society's morals forward, not retroactively after hundreds of years of morals evolving.

>>xvecto+Je1
No. Slavery is a unique evil and people knew it was a unique evil since the time of the ancient Greeks.

I refuse to accept "it was just the way things were at the time" when there were people opposed to slavery thousands of years ago. Aristotle wrote about them:

> others however maintain that for one man to be another man’s master is contrary to nature, because it is only convention that makes the one a slave and the other a freeman and there is no difference between them by nature, and that therefore it is unjust, for it is based on force.

There were abolitionists in the first days of the United States through to the civil war. People knew it was wrong or had ample opportunity to hear it argued that it was wrong, and furthermore, the inherent wrongness of it should be obvious to anyone that encounters it, and I don't give a moral pass to anyone that brushes it off because it was common any more than I do for American politicians that brush off school shootings because it's common.

>>komali+KH1
Incorrect. There were some people that understood slavery to be a unique evil. The vast majority of humanity understood it to be "just how things were."

Really, not much different from how we view factory farming today.

>>xvecto+Yf2
Slavery is evil though. It's pretty straightforward. People that participated in it were wrong to do so, and that should be self evident to all participants. I don't accept any excuse for participating in the slave trade. I'm not special or unique to point this out, it's obvious no matter the century.

Would you like to argue that it isn't? The floor is yours. Otherwise your point about consensus is moot. Evil then, evil now, evil forever.

>>komali+wr2
Slavery was obviously wrong but you cannot judge those that didn't understand this. Consensus matters. The morals of the time matter. It was a societal failing over a personal one.

If you think you can judge someone by the morals of today, you must then accept you are evil as well, since societal morals will continue to evolve.

You never answered the question: are you vegan, or do you contribute to the immense suffering and death of ~70b sentient beings a year? The suffering hours inflicted every few days exceed that of any atrocity in human history. It is the industrialized torture of billions of innocent beings for your pleasure.

If veganism becomes the norm, is it fair for future humans to judge your whole life by your consumption of meat, leather, or other animal products when there are so many people today that recognize it as a "unique and horrifying evil?"

It is a strange form of exceptionalism for you to judge those in the past but not yourself, because the delta will be similar over long enough timeframes, and if you do partake in any of these things you won't be seen as much different.