Hoo boy…another meaty one! I think about these issues too and I also have a couple of questions for you as re your last paragrah “possible scenarios” …let’s see, what else – have to look up “heuristic” …you’re keeping me on my toes, mwestern 🙂 In a few minutes my Friday refried brain will be being nourished with refried beans…back here on Monday, my friend 🙂

Thanks, Cindy. My question/comment was intended rhetorically and sarcastically but upon further reflection I realized that effectively, Scientology IS recruiting for the Sea Org from “prisons” – that’s in quotes because 3rd World countries and Eastern Block countries ARE effectivly prisons for the poor uneducated and unemployable people who live in them. For these people, the Sea Org has to be a heaven-sent way to get to the US – 3 meals a day, clothing, a roof over their head, oh yes, the Sea Org is a step up for them – sure, its indentured servitude legally for 5 years but that’s better than risking life and limb to get here as migrants seeking asylum… Scientology’s Sea Org is effectively practicing indentured servitude in the 21st century.

Welcome back! 😀 And thanks for taking the time to respond so eloquently. I do love a meaty debate 🥩🤯

“Without defining the actual crimes and putting them in context, its impossible to label them accurately or fairly!”

True, a huge amount of context is required. Such labels are arguably heuristics and heuristic thinkers (scientologists, for example) tend not to appreciate nuance and complexity. This, imho, is a symptom of ideological possession.

“And as for “the petty crimes of the hungry street urchin” being equal to or surpassing the “protected crimes of Wall St., Big Pharma and the US war machine”, I doubt whether anyone with half a brain in this day and age would even dream of equating the former with the latter, do you?”

Maybe, maybe not. For me, the whole concept of “law and order” dissolves when society continually turns a blind eye to certain crimes – or worse, actively shields a class of perpetrators from prosecution. One could argue that many of the systemic abuses of the CoS are not entirely dissimilar to those of present day “capitalism”, the US or The West in general. Money talks. Connections. A young scientologist grows up today with the knowledge he can pay his way out of Ethics if needed. As does a young American.

“Capitol will ALWAYs seek the cheapest labor possible. Always, whether its outright slavery and the actual owning of people, or wage slavery. And no matter how cheap the labor is, if a machine can do it cheaper and just as well, then that laborers job is going to be cut, its just a matter of time. So what’s the solution?”

Good question… I’ve been mulling this over lately (albeit not to any significant degree) but have so far come up with two possible scenarios: 1) a post-capitalist, post-scarcity, maybe even a post-work economy. 🤞🏻 Or 2) mass depopulation. 😲

Rub it in, Briget. It needs to be rubbed in. Seriously. They ARE ignorant, many of them, and proud of it.

You know, I lived in a 3rd World country for 2 years. My late father had a business there.

A miniscule middle class. A small, tight, wealthy circle of plutocrats who owned and managed everything. European and American business people living and doing business there. A ruthless, cruel, greedy and cleverly lying and manipulating dictator. The rest? A large mass of extremely ignorant, superstitious, backward, uneducated, highly manipulatable, poverty stricken people – very very vulnerable people – but for all that, very brave, very hearty. I admired them for how they carried on, despite their oppression by their own government.

Here’s the thing: they were ignorant and uneducated, but they weren’t PROUD to be.

I knew a number of Scientologists who actually BRAGGED about having very little formal education, about dropping out of high school.

I would consider them (awareness-wise) BELOW – WELL below in simple awareness, the poverty stricken masses of that very poor country I grew to know, that country which taught me so much about what is important in life, and what I would forever cherish as my good fortune to have been born in the USA.

So, yeah, rub it in. They’re IGNORANT.

Hi mwestern, I’m back.

First:
“I can understnd that the society that helped create them would consider them a threat/danger, yes.” This would depend upon what their “creation” is actually doing; what crimes against society is the criminal (that as you say society created) is doing. Murder? Kidnapping? Robbery, arson, etc.? What is being done by the person in present time? Without defining the actual crimes and putting them in context, its impossible to label them accurately or fairly! And as for “the petty crimes of the hungry street urchin” being equal to or surpassing the “protected crimes of Wall St., Big Pharma and the US war machine”, I doubt whether anyone with half a brain in this day and age would even dream of equating the former with the latter, do you?

Secondly, you are IMO quite right about AI evenually replacing the work/skillsets of millions if not billions of people. Its very sad but it is a TREND, it has been TRENDING this way since at least the late 18th century. Looking back one finds countless examples of mechanization putting human beings out of work. Look what happened a hundred years ago when motorcars pretty much replaced horses in the civilized countries. Think of all the thousands of workers whose livelihoods depended in some or way or another upon horses as vehicles, being ridden directly, pulling ploughs, pulling carriages, etc etc. Railroads but steamboats out of business; electricity put the whale oil industry out of business…cigars used to be rolled by hand, then someone invented a machine to do it and all the cigar makers were out of work…endless examples in the past several centuries of mechanization replacing humans in the work force. Very sad, and I mean that. There is no worse feeling than knowing that one’s skills are neither needed or wanted by society and will not earn him or her a living. Its extremely sad. But its not going to stop. There’s no evidence that its stopping. Capitol will ALWAYs seek the cheapest labor possible. Always, whether its outright slavery and the actual owning of people, or wage slavery. And no matter how cheap the labor is, if a machine can do it cheaper and just as well, then that laborers job is going to be cut, its just a matter of time. So what’s the soluition? Make it illegal for people to invent machines that do things that people are currently being employed to do?

Thirdly, as to my labelling ” people” the “dregs” of society, I see your point, but in fairness I was not labelling “people” in general, I was labelling “pirates” the dregs of society, which they were, in those days.
On the other hand, in fairness to your point, I’ve since done a little informal reading on pirates and I can readily see how being a pirate, centuries back, would be an enticement to SAILORS, who in their proper navies were treated with tremendous abuse and injustice. F
Many of them were impressed, captured, forced to work on vessels. They were punished, flogged, etc., for the least infringement, there was very little food and what food they were given was vile; many of them sickened and died; being a sailor in those days was a wretched, brief life. Yet some of them loved the sea; they just didn’t want to be in the regular navy. So they became pirates! Pirate ships were run in a democratic manner; the crew had a say in what was done. I’ll tell you, knowing myself; it I were a man in those days, kidnapped and forced to labor as a sailor, and gotten a taste of the harsh treatment and cruel injustice meted out to sailors ini those days, if I loved the sea, I would have probably become a pirate too.

As to your last paragraph, I plead being guilty myself of too broad a generalization in calling pirates of those days, the “dregs of society”. As you point out, things are rarely black and white.

mwestern,

Your post above is a meaty one, and debating as you do in a civilized, respectful manner, notwithstanding what is surely an intensity of feeling and emotion on the subject, is something I enjoy

Right now I’m still working and although I’d rather spend time debating you 🙂 I’ve got some boring stuff in front of me that has to get done tonite.

Please allow me time to formulate the thoughtful response your post deserves. My own response may be a long one, addressing each of your points separately. In brief, this is just a heads up so you don’t think I’m ignoring you 🙂

Ciao for now,
Aqua

Understood, and will do 🙂 Hopefully, its an HCOPL and not an HCOB because I don’t have the Red Vols.

I can understand that the society that helped create them would consider them a threat/danger, yes.

Words like “evil”, “criminal” and “dangerous” seem a little too loaded and absolute, imho, and arguably subject to the ethical and/or socio-political eye of the beholder. (eg. who is more “evil”? The petty crimes of the hungry street urchin or the protected crimes of Wall St, Big Pharma and the US war machine?)

A beneficiary of “the system” may be somewhat detached from the realities of those who suffer it. Consider the future that awaits us in the here and now. I see robotics, automation and AI eventually replacing the work/skillsets of millions (if not billions) of people. The majority of those jobs, at least initially, will be labourers and low-wage earners. What then? What happens when the money you’ve saved becomes worthless when the realities of your society’s artificially inflated currency is laid bare? What is the real evil here? And who is the more dangerous?

I guess my point is simply that labelling certain people “the dregs of society” for rebelling against a certain order/status quo is not that different to calling ex-scientologists “degraded beings” or “suppressives.” Systems and societies can be just as culty as cults. And things are rarely black and white.

Touche, Aqua!