Well, I missed thisIf you'd read my original comment, I acknowledged wolves are the smarter of the two.
Well, I missed thisIf you'd read my original comment, I acknowledged wolves are the smarter of the two.
That's not necessarily so. Dogs are basically retarded wolves, but when it comes to our definitions of intelligence, we have a much smarter animal than the wolf. A wolf cannot read human body language. But puppies, much less full grown dogs and bitches, can read our body language.
The original Homo floriensis mind might be gone, but then, we humans domesticated ourselves, as well. Our ancestors used to be much larger and with largeness in build comes physical aggression.
Or so says Nicholas Wade in Before the Dawn.
But that would apply to chattel slavery. It was pointed out above that they wouldn't be very well suited to that. As house or luxury slaves they might well be treated better.
What you are talking about here is not really a slave. It's a pet. A slave is held in order to perform some form of useful labor.
Now if the question is, could Homo Floriensis be kept as a pet, yes probably. Chimps and monkeys can be kept as pets, and there is no particular reason why Homo Floriensis would be less able to be adapted to that role than a chimp or a monkey. But that is not slavery.
What you are talking about here is not really a slave. It's a pet. A slave is held in order to perform some form of useful labor.
Now if the question is, could Homo Floriensis be kept as a pet, yes probably. Chimps and monkeys can be kept as pets, and there is no particular reason why Homo Floriensis would be less able to be adapted to that role than a chimp or a monkey. But that is not slavery.