I can see that happening as humans in Lambda chalks up everyone that aren't what they deem human to be monsters even if they are sentient and capable of communication they'll take advantage of them just like with the scylla and the titans. The people in power and those educated in Lambda are certainly aware that they are not just simply monsters but they still profit of them by selling them as sex slaves like the ghouls or use them as material to make items such as weapons and potions and they use the convenient excuse of because they are not humans so its fine. I remember that the dwarves were only considered not to be monsters was due to them being useful as in they make good weapons and gear which was beneficial to the humans and with the elves I think it is just due to Bellwood's fetish of elves being protector of the forest.
Where are you getting that elves and dwarves stuff from? Say what you want about Alda, but he would never tolerate those two being treated like monsters. Hell, between the two races they have three of the still living seven gods as their parents. Racism between those three is noted to be much less than you would normally expect since they all discriminate against beast people and Scylla and stuff instead. I mean, it's possible that I'm wrong but I'd need to see some of direct evidence for that on the dwarves thing. Also, "we haven't seen humans specifically not engaging in cannibalism" is not really a good argument for saying that they do, especially when how edible various monsters are comes up really often. It even came up in regards to Scylla where the narration noted their tentacles are perfectly fine to eat, so eating intelligent races isn't automatically off the table, but for no mention of that to come up with races accepted as people means you should assume it doesn't happen unless stated otherwise.
It's not even regular sexual slavery; Pedro is using them like breeding animals. I wouldn't say that it's universally frowned on though. There are some people who find it distasteful, we've only seen that with tamers who think of their familiars as companions rather than as possessions. It certainly hasn't kept Pedro from having high status and being thought of as an upstanding member of society. Yeah, the main distinction is between pre-Vida and Vida races. The former are all considered human regardless of whether they're dwarves or elves.
You make a valid point I only considered that Bellwood's ideals had left such a deep impression on Alda that he went against Vida and persecuted her races and I completely forgot to take into account about the actions of the other gods must have restrained Bellwood's influence on Alda's thoughts or actions somewhat and with the dwarves it was something based of what I remembered and it could be wrong With the elves however I was just dissing Bellwood as I really dislike the guy
Lambda natives don't do bad things. Slavery is good. Cannibalism is good. Murder is good. Torture is good. Criminal slaves help save on labour cost and you can use them to do job who is hard to do or dangerous to do. So, criminal slavery is good and produce a lot of profit. After criminal slaves are no good for job, just boil them alive in boiling oil and feed them to other criminal slaves. It will save on feed cost and will add additional punishment for crimes. You disagree? And who are you to disagree? Who are you to decide for me what is good and what is bad? You are no better than Bellwood. Yes, it is sarcasm, but it is true too. Good, bad, both are relative things, not absolute. People decide what is good and what is bad and it only apply to this people and they territory. Outside they territory here are other people who can have different view on good and bad. And first people don't have any right to decide for second people about good and bad. This is why in some countries euthanasia is allowed and in other prohibited. The same apply to death penalty and other things. Also, not so long ago, black people was not considered human and was used as slaves. Hitler thought other people are not humans and the whole country followed him. Because he lost, he become daemon, but if he won, he would be messiah. And today good and bad would be deferent.
I really don't appreciate using moral relativism to defend slavery and torture, especially not in this manner. Once you say that nothing is good or bad the conversation stops. You are not inviting an argument, you are saying the argument is stupid and worthless. Also, your 'winners write the history books and decide who was right or wrong' position is clearly untrue because most people don't look at someone like Genghis Khan and say "Yeah, this guy had the right idea when he piled of mountains of skulls and killed so many people rivers turned red with blood." And yet he was one of the most successful conquerors in history. And if you want to use Hitler as an example for shaping morals, why not talk about Stalin or all the other horrific more or less modern day tyrants who lived out their lives? We generally don't look up to them.
Ghengis's empire crumbled after his death, you want to be the winner you need to outlast your opponents, and he did not. But he is revered in Mongolia IIRC. Now you want an example of the winners writing the books, look at the Romans, they did write the books and outlasted their opponents. Want to know how good heir propaganda was, look at Hannibal. remembered are a strategic genius, but he failed and screwed up so often it is not funny, why because the guy who beat him wrote to book to make him a larger threat so their victory was more impressive.
He still won and the empires he and his successors founded lasted for quite some time. But if you don't like that example, there are many figures such as Wu Zetian, Cao Cao, Ivan the Terrible and so on that were autocrats not particularly fondly remembered by history, even if their accomplishments are respected. Even the likes of Alexander the Great are considered to be psychopathic manchildren by some. But going too much into historical examples is kind of getting off topic. Using moral relativism as an argument, at least in the way you have, ruins a conversation. "Yeah, well, you know, that's just like your opinion, man" is typically not considered a helpful argument.
You don't look up to Stalin, but in Soviet Union he was almost god. Many in Russia today may consider him as such too, but I don't live in Russia so I am not 100% sure, but I lived in Soviet Union so I know. Many ancient heroes are like this too. Even now in schools we are taught how some kings was good, because he expanded ours lands from north Europe to south Europe. But what does it really mean? It means, he killed right and left, old, young and conquered foreign land. This kings are heroes in my country even today, but to countries who exist right now at this lands (because we lost all this lands by now), this kings will be mass murder daemons. This proves that winners write history and declare who is good and who is bad, who is right and who is wrong. But you need to be absolute winner to do it. Here are so many examples of this all around you... Take vegans for example. They cry crocodile tears when they see me it meat and call me corps eater How bad I am and so on, but not many care, because here are more meat eaters than vegans, but what would happen if they conquered the country? Meat would be prohibited and all who eat mean would be damned or even fined. All this right now are just possibility, but I think it is 100% true. So, yes. Wrong, right, good, bad, all of this are just relative.
There is some nuance when it comes to morality, but it's still crazy easy to judge the way the peoples of Lambda behave.
Yes, it is easy, because you have your (everyone have they) own morality. And it is not easy to change your morality. I too have my own morality. I don't see anything good in slavery, cannibalism, murder and torture, but I try not declare them evil or bad just because I don't like them. But I believe it is right to kill murder and not keep him in jail. Rapist I would castrate. I would make euthanasia legal. And so on. So, yes, I have my own morality and I think it is strong. But I don't know if all this things I think is good is really good and right. Because here are no way to tell if it is right or wrong. But one thing I hate is when someone say he is right and try to force his "right" way to others.
No. It's easy because the reasoning the different peoples use is very clear, and it's easy to see how they are and are not valid.
Right and wring is subjective. So of course people speak about it from their point of view. And yes, because we are against slavery, we condemn slavery in lambda. But I don't know why you think that because we can't objectively decide on right and wrong, any subjective discussion about it is useless. It's not forcing our opinion on anyone, we are talking about characters in a book. And Van's side also has criminal slaves so it's interesting to discuss the matter and which annoys us more or less. Especially since morality has no objectivity, discussing and reflecting about it allows us to explore the boundaries and criterias of our morality.
And what was the Soviet Union again? That's right, a horrific authoritarian regime where the politbureau, corrupt bureaucrats, crime syndicates, and a handful of other unsavory people lived high on the hog while the vast majority of the population lived in abject poverty and fervent terror, and if you were found disagreeing with the politbureau's official stance on anything, you were considered criminally insane and taken to an asylum to be "politically corrected" which is where the term "politically correct" comes from. Why the media thinks this is a good thing, considering how the USSR cracked down on media in its entirety, boggles the mind. And you lived there? You have my sympathies. You must have had to develop your moral equivalency to godly levels, just to survive. And that's why moral equivalency is so dangerous. You think it's true, without any evidence, and then make yourself believe it, and if anyone disagrees, then they're "evil" for "trying to force their values on you." There is an objective standard to right and wrong. Always has been. Just because people can't live up to it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just because people in power abuse their power to do despicable things, or punish those doing genuine good works for making them look bad doesn't mean they're in the right. Hitler may have had a country following him, by force of arms, but he was still reviled by the common man, even in Germany, and he only looked like he was adored because failing to shower praise on his image could get you shot! His generals certainly didn't like his wild mood-swings, or that he became increasingly insane as a result of using powerful psychotropic drugs to wake himself in the morning and then again to put himself to sleep at night. My point was that it's absolutely wrong for Alda and his followers, not to mention the nations founded in his name, to universally proclaim Vida's races as inherently evil and in need of extermination for doing things they proclaim as universally evil, while partaking in such activities. The adventurer's guild states that Ghouls as some kind of mutant undead for killing and eating armed invaders into their territory out of sheer necessity. While sending said armed invaders to collect their body-parts in the first place and consume the meat of sentients like orcs as a delicacy. They decry orcs, minotaurs, trolls, etc. as monsters for kidnapping and raping women. Fair enough... except they shun rape victims, at best, and as we've seen with Pedro in chapter 256, find it perfectly acceptable to rape in certain circumstances. Heck, way, way earlier, it was seen that it's legal in Amid to capture, rape, and enslave ghouls when Van came along and saw three male adventurers pinning Zadiris down to rape her before selling her off to a slaver somewhere. Van, of course, took offense, broke the law, and came to her rescue, hence being welcomed by the Ghoul tribe. I could go on, but I hope you get the gist.
There is a group in India who dont believe in burial, they eat their dead and save the skull as a display because they believe in death that they become their families strength and their spirit continues watches over them, dont judge based on your morals, judge something based on the morals around them. Lamba is basically a 1400-1700s society (based on region and wealth) and slavery was perfectly fine back then, but it was still illegal for someone to be made a slave for no reason, only based on modern morals is all slavery inherently bad but we still have prisoners making number plates, building roads and doing land development, is that not similar to slave labor?
It depends on a few things but in most cases it is pretty much the same, they are being forced to work for next to no wage with no prospects from that labor once released, and no benefits to society other then a higher profit margin for whatever company is using prisoners as pseudo-slaves. Though there are to many who deny that and jump through hoops to claim is is not or worse justified, forgetting that forced labor is forced labor, partly because validating it helps to justify their racist views. spouting some drivel that falls apart as intelligent drivel the second you realize that there are to many in jail/prison that are in fact innocent (or have only committed crimes that someone of a different race would get a slap on the wrist for, especially in the US and its barbaric penal system) and knowingly forcing labor on the innocent is unacceptable. If used for rehabilitation purposes (with valid job opportunities outside prison), and not made mandatory, it is fine, but to often it has 0 rehabilitation aspects, negligible valid job potential, and to often effectively made mandatory by prison management.
Prison construction workers, fire fighters, and even rodeo clowns have to put their lives on the line, for barely any pay, and with absolutely no prospects of being officially hired for the position, with the only incentives that they get some fresh air, or maybe reduce their sentence.
As far is it being similar to slave labor goes, it's explicitly part of the constitution given that prisoners are not included under the 13th amendment. So yes, it's slavery, and it's contemptible.
And for the 100th round of morality debate, our contestants are debating slavery and what constitutes canibalism. So far they have figured out, that slavery is wrong and that eating sentients also isn't the best choice