[mr-wendel]

Rather than try to score points for team X (or against team Y), I'll quote one of my favs. Please generalize as needed to suite your perspective.

  "I don't get all choked up about yellow ribbons and American flags. I see them as symbols, and I leave them to the symbol-minded." -George Carlin

[EchoReflection]

that's a good quote. I have to say though, despite the appeal of "rejecting 'tribalism' ", it is (or should be) "undeniable" that some "tribes" are "better" than others. There are reasons literally nobody wants to go to North Korea and people all over the world want to "flee" to countries that are meritocracies and support ideas like freedom of speech, women's rights, freedom of religion, etc. "Nobody" would claim (anymore) that "life is 'better' in countries that still have slaves".

Modern Slavery Stats:

1. Asia and the Pacific: ~29.3 million (6.8 per 1000 ppl)

2. Africa: ~7.0 million (5.2 per 1000)

3. Europe and Central Asia: ~6.4 million (6.9 per 1000)

4. Americas: ~5.1 million (5 per 1000)

5. Arab States: ~1.7 (10.1 per 1000 [highest] )

https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/

[like_any_other]

That's like arguing that yes we should use knives, because some knives are better than others. Whether some are better is irrelevant - what matters is they're useful. Those without a nation, without a group identity, are outcompeted by those with one. The person preaching individualism in a team sport is either incredibly ignorant, or simply malicious.

It also discounts the value of groups, absent concerns about competition. No man is an island, and the society you grow up in, the people you grow up with, greatly affect who you become and what your life is like. To say it doesn't matter who you live around discards all that, or reveals the profound mistake (or lie) of thinking who makes up a society doesn't affect what the society is like.

[briansm]

In the developed world we have 'energy slaves' instead; around 100 per person in the USA in the 2020's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_slave

This is arguably the reason why the Overton window has shifted towards the rejection of human slavery over the last century or so, with the growth of fossil fuel use.

Human slavery will thus likely swing back into fashion again in the future as oil, coal and natural gas run out.

[throwuxiytayq]

> Human slavery will thus likely swing back into fashion again in the future as oil, coal and natural gas run out.

There must be some other solution, surely! If only we could somehow find some other source of energy...

[weregiraffe]

There are two kinds of people: The symbol-minded, and the symbol-minded who think they are not.

[_DeadFred_]

Yep, they're a symbol. When my mom's loved one was overseas, they meant a lot. Symbols are powerful af.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDfGblfOsZ4

[mr-wendel]

True that, and therein lies the difficulty in generalizing. No clue what the exact situation is here (Vietnam, perhaps?), but at the human-to-human level I'm glad for it and hope it brought her strength.

[nailer]

The really interesting thing in the UK is that both team X and team Y absolutely love flags - the right loves putting up English flags in town, the left loves protesting with Palestine and occasional Hamas or Hezbollah flags.