Chapter 2529: Choice

Xia Duo concluded, "Therefore, we can consider that, unless it is a society still struggling on the edge of survival, maintaining slavery is always more harmful than beneficial."

"I understand!" Niya suddenly exclaimed.

"What do you understand?"

Under Xia Duo's expectant gaze, Niya gave an answer that surprised him somewhat, "I understand the reason you mentioned for choosing this path from the perspective of historical development; it is because you believe the superiority of this path surpasses any other path that could be discovered in the past or even the future!"

"Continue—" Xia Duo signaled for Niya to go on.

Encouraged by Xia Duo, Niya continued the thought experiment she had just begun:

"Slaves have no freedom, and even less respect; so, give them freedom, give them respect, and guarantee all their rights, to the point where they are no lower than anyone else in the same society!

"In this situation, they would have only one purpose for living—to live better for themselves, and this is merely the minimum; they could do anything they wanted to do.

"This kind of action driven by the inner self is undoubtedly the most efficient."

But when she reached the end, Niya hesitated, "But how should a society where everyone is equal and everyone can do whatever they want develop? Everyone has their own ideas; how can those different ideas be coordinated?"

"What you are worried about is actually a decision-making problem, which in my view is not a difficult one; it can be summarized into two principles—whoever is reasonable is listened to, and the minority obeys the majority."

Of course, implementing these two principles specifically is not that easy; it involves a society's most fundamental institutional design and subsequent maintenance and improvement.

There is a saying in Xia Duo's hometown: "Starting a business is easy, maintaining it is hard." This generally describes this process; in reality, starting a business is not easy itself, and maintaining it is even harder.

Regarding Xia Duo's answer, Niya pondered for a moment and nodded, but then raised another doubt: "But is such a society really possible to achieve? Without any oppression? With everyone equal?"

"This is certainly difficult, but I believe it is possible to achieve. And as an ideal, or a long-term goal, if it could be achieved easily, would it still count as an ideal or a long-term goal?"

To tell the truth, if Xia Duo only had a lifespan of a hundred years, he would absolutely not choose this path that almost sets him against the whole world, especially in a Magic world where the gap between the strong and the weak is easily widened; such a path is almost impossible to achieve.

But he has a sufficiently long lifespan, which makes him firm in his desire to see the scenery at higher levels! This is actually the selfish motive he just explained to Niya.

But his selfish motive does not violate the Dao, nor does it go against the trend of the times; he believes there is no problem with having such a selfish motive.

Hearing Xia Duo's final answer, Niya suddenly felt a sense of unreality; it turned out that Xia Duo was not absolutely confident about such a future either!

At this moment, she understood the truest thought in her heart—all along, Xia Duo's rapid progress had made her feel anxious about keeping up.

But if there were a goal that even Xia Duo was not sure could be achieved, yet was great enough and long-term enough, then it would not matter who was ahead or behind; facing such a goal, the two of them would always move forward side by side, hand in hand.

Moreover, this goal was not entirely based on faith; to a certain extent, it was also a choice made based on reason. Having figured this out, Niya felt much more relaxed.

She, who had originally wanted to say something else, suddenly did not want to say anything at all. The road ahead was still very long; she wanted to understand and experience it slowly by herself.

At this moment, Niya even felt that having children was not that important. Of course, she would still have them; that way, at least there would be one more fellow traveler for the future.

Seeing that Niya seemed to have gained some insight, Xia Duo did not say anything more. In fact, there were still some things he had not said, which was—if one is not aiming for the ultimate goal, then merely liberating slaves or improving the treatment of the masses does not actually mean a reduction in oppression; on the contrary, it might even be worse.

After all, thinking from another perspective, if there were no profit to be made, what slave owner would be willing to unshackle the slaves who were originally completely under their own control?

To explain it using the theory from his hometown, as long as it is not Communism, exploitation still exists, and the more developed the productivity, the more thorough the exploitation.

The so-called "more thorough" refers to the fact that the ratio of individual income to output will become lower and lower as productivity increases!

The reason he did not say these things was mainly because Xia Duo was worried that Niya would be tempted by short-term (relative to the ultimate goal) personal interests and thus go down the wrong path.

After all, the ultimate goal looks so unreachable; even Xia Duo himself cannot avoid being tempted. So what he thought was to use small, visible progress in future practice to make Niya firm in her confidence in the ultimate goal.

He himself is, of course, the same. In the future, he might encounter something that causes his Dao heart to shatter, but at least up to now, he still believes that the goal is more superior and that it is possible to achieve.

As long as no overly outrageous changes occur in the future, he believes he can also move forward on this path unswervingly.

Of course, that path is not just about treating the masses well; to think only that would be too narrow. Its essence is a more efficient organizational method and a way of utilizing resources, which has nothing to do with good or evil, or rather, based on the understanding from Earth, the cost of using good is lower.

But in the Magic world, that might not be the case. At least Xia Duo himself thought of more than one way to completely control a life from the body to the Soul. Although he is not yet sure where the upper limit of such means is, there are always more ingenious methods.

Even on Earth, there are similar means, and the cost might not be very high; it was just difficult to achieve based on the level of technology when Xia Duo left, but theoretically, it is achievable. As long as it is possible, the cost is actually not a problem.

It is just that Xia Duo is not a person with overflowing desires, and he also agrees with the Dao, knowing how to restrain himself, so he chose the side of good, choosing to respect the self of every individual rather than ignoring the self of every individual and imposing his own will on others.

Of course, respecting others does not mean not interfering or influencing them at all. Good ideas need to be shared. If one completely ignores others or deliberately maintains one's state of "Invisibility," then what is the difference between this world and not having him in it?

Whether to influence or interfere is not the key. As long as he exists in this world, he is influencing the outside world at every moment. The key is—

Whether to give others the power of choice.

To some extent, this is also the simplest way to distinguish between a righteous religion and a cult: see if they force people to join. As long as it is forced, no matter how good the Doctrine sounds, they are all cults.