Just with the difference that people usually don't get killed on the arena, and the subject being some kind of martial arts instead of reproducing past battles.
The contestants are there of their own free will and the sports are actually pretty safe.
You might as well claim that all physical sports are in the same camp as slavery, because its physical competition and people get hurt sometimes.
We still have trophy hunters today, who hunt not for food or sustenance, but for a pelt or a tusk.
> are actually pretty safe
We used to think that Boxing and Football were "pretty safe" as well. Then we learned how much impact things like concussions have on a person's life. I can't really imagine that MMA is that much safer when I see people repeatedly being choked out, having joints nearly separated, getting knocked out...
Agree on football and boxing, not a fan of either. As for MMA the jury is still out but I hardly think equating it with slavery makes sense because you "can't imagine" it's safe, even though you don't have the data. I mean, comparing that to literally owning another human?
All sports have physical risk, even solo sports. Does that mean that when I go rock climbing, I might as well be owning slaves or torturing animals?
So were most gladiators, it was a an actual job for many of them, not everything was like on Hollywood movies.
People should read more old actual sources of information and watch less movies.
As for being safe, tell that to the ones that have spoiled their future thanks to major injures to member or head concussions.
As to your claim that modern combat sports aren't safe because some athletes have suffered injury, I'd like to hear why that doesn't apply to any sport. Or even any job where someone at some point gets injured. The fact that a vanishlingly small number of MMA contestants have "spoiled their future" due to injury is irrelevant without knowing the broader context of how many haven't, how it compares to other activities, etc.
Lots of activities are risky, that doesn't make them morally reprehensible and it's baffling to me that anyone can make that claim with a straight face.
Even if it WAS very dangerous and they freely choose to compete in a sport where half will end up with a lifelong injury, it still doesn't have anything to do with slavery, animal torture, murdering civilians, etc.
#1 talks about how free vs slave gladiators changing over time.
Most interesting to me was #3, where it talks about how most were not killed but wounded instead. "historians have estimated that somewhere between one in five or one in 10 bouts left one of its participants dead."
That's a pretty significant difference.
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/10-things-you-may-...
"Historians have estimated that somewhere between one in five or one in 10 bouts left one of its participants dead."