# Things that will become very valuable if society were to collapse **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 25, 2008, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-will-become-very-valuable-if-society-were-to-collapse/446807 "2008-04-25T06:31:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2008, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-will-become-very-valuable-if-society-were-to-collapse/446807/61 "2008-04-27T16:35:31Z")
> [@](#): > > You can’t enslave someone against their will, believe it or not. The reason colonizers gave up trying to enslave native american indians was because in most cases the indians would rather die then become somebody’s property. Either prepare to fight your own damn husband to the death, or prepare to wipe his boot off your ass forever. There’s no ethnic group that is immune to slavery. The reason Africans were used as slaves instead of Indians was geographical; local people had too easy a means of escaping back to their own society. Africans brought across the Atlantic had no similar escape route. ---
**Author:** ![panda\_meat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ba0ec/32.png) [@panda\_meat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panda_meat)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-will-become-very-valuable-if-society-were-to-collapse/446807/62 "2008-04-27T17:15:31Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] There’s no ethnic group that is immune to slavery. The reason Africans were used as slaves instead of Indians was geographical; local people had too easy a means of escaping back to their own society. Africans brought across the Atlantic had no similar escape route. [/QUOTE] That is a most excellent point, thank you! :smack: Except they still accepted the conditions of chattel slavery rather then die free, which is why it continued for as long as it did. They had no where to run to, this is true, but they chose to accept the whip rather then fight to the death for their autonomy. The cost of importing more slaves to replace all the troublemakers would have eventually become too high for the plaintation owners, and they would have given up. It’s really just a matter of which group is willing to sacrifice more for a longer period of time. I have no doubt that enough women are going to grow a freaking spine, and do what needs to be done. _I don’t have a low opinion of men – I have a_ realistic _opinion of men._ ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2008, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-will-become-very-valuable-if-society-were-to-collapse/446807/63 "2008-04-27T17:49:56Z")
My point was that it wasn’t that Indians decided to die rather be slaves; they decided to escape rather than be slaves. If somebody had decided to export native Americans to some place like China and make them slaves there, the escape option wouldn’t have been available and a much higher number of them probably would have settled into slavery. That said, I understand the point that gender-based slavery has a different psychology than ethnic-based slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2008, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-will-become-very-valuable-if-society-were-to-collapse/446807/64 "2008-04-27T22:52:36Z")
**panda meat** , can you be a little more specific rather than just repeating that women need to grow a spine? What do you think women should do if there was some kind of cataclysmic breakdown of society? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-will-become-very-valuable-if-society-were-to-collapse/446807.md?page=3)